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Show NEWS REVIEW OF THE PAST WEEK Naval Forces of Allies Make Dashing Raid to Bottle Up Hun U-Bjaat Bases. GREAT BATTLE IS RENEWED Germans Gain Little by Heavy Attacks Holland Being Pushed to War's Brink John D. Ryan Made Director of Aircraft Production. Pro-duction. By EDWARD W. PICKARD. Last week brought forth one of the most spectacular and dashing operations" opera-tions" of the war the raid of British and French naval, forces on the German Ger-man U-boat bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. Five obsolete cruisers and two old submarines were sacrificed. The former, laden with concrete, were to be sunk in the channel mouths, and fhe latter full of explosives, were driven driv-en against the moles. These vessels, escorted by destroyers and all making a dense smoke screen, approached the Belgian coast In the night but were discovered and deluged with shells from the shore batteries and from German Ger-man destroyers. The chief fight took place at Zeebrugge. There the cruiser Vindictive ran inside the harbor under heavy fire, and landed her crew on the mole after a great gap had been blown in It by a submarine. The men cleared the mole,- destroyed all its guns and sank a destroyer and were able to get away again, though their losses were severe. Meanwhile three of the block ships were sunk at the entrance of the canal or in the harbor, and one of the old submarines was believed to have destroyed the lock gates, letting the water run out of the Bruges canal. At Ostend the operation was simpler ind at least one of the block ships has Iieen observed from airplanes block-' ing the greater part of the channel. At this time It Is not known Just how successful the operation was In bottling up the U-boat bases, but probably prob-ably It was no more so thnn was Hob-son's Hob-son's attempt to bottle up the Spanish fleet In Santiago harbor. However, it was a gallant enterprise, fearlessly carried out, and American navy men hope it will be followed up by additional addi-tional naval exploits. ta There was comparative quiet along the battle front In France and Flanders during the first half of the week, and both the allies and the Germans took advantage of the opportunity to strengthen their positions. In the minor operations the former had rather the best of It usually and the Huns were pushed back In various sectors by both the British and the French. Meanwhile the Germans were bringing up their heavier artillery, a difficult thing because of the nature of the ter-rnln ter-rnln and were evidently making prep-trationsfora prep-trationsfora resumption of the attack. This came on Wednesday, when, after an Intense bombardment, the enemy en-emy attacked with very considerable forces the allied positions south of the Somme, and along the Avre, In the 'regions of Hangard, Hallles and Seneca Sene-ca t wood. For the time being these assaults were successfully repulsed except ex-cept at Hangard, which village again fell Into the hands of the Germans. The reports from Purls said that American troops were lighting with the French on this line and that their reslstence to the attacks of the Huns was desperate. About eleven miles directly east of Amiens, the German objective in this region, the British withdrew from the village of Vlllers-Brctonneux. Vlllers-Brctonneux. but elsewhere they stood firm. At the same time the Huns launched attacks against the British In Flnnders and there was fierce fighting on the line between Ballleul and Mervllle and near Bothune. Next day by a smashing counter-attack the British retook Vlllers, taking some 700 German prisoners and finding find-ing the enemy dead heaped up about the village. The Huns ulso attacked strongly on the south slopes of Mount Kemmel, southwest, of Ypres, but the French defending that sector drove them back with severe losses. So, at the time of writing, the German gains in the renewed offensive ' are almost nil. 153 The terrific slaughter of Germans since their offensive opened, due to their custom of advancing in mass formation across open . ground, has been more than they could stand, and Ludendorff has put a stop to that method of attack. The Huns now dash forward in smaller and separate parties par-ties and take shelter when the chance offers. In the assault on Villers-Bretonneaux the German tanks made their first appearance, ap-pearance, leading the infantry, and a spectacular battle with British tanks ensued. Several of the heavy Hun machines ma-chines engaged two light British tanks and disabled one of them. A big British Brit-ish tank rolled up to the rescue and after a sharp fight put one of the German Ger-man monsters out of action and drove the others from the field. Pa-General Pa-General Doyen's fine brigade of American marines, it appears, has been in the thick of the battle In France and the casualty list sent over proves the "soldiers of the sea" have maintained main-tained the'ir best traditions, for the list shows 34 killed, 244 wounded and not one taken prisoner. The heaviest loss sustained by the marines was in the forest of Apremont, In Rorraine. where two hot attacks by the Genpans were repulsed by the Americans. Its The Americans iu the Toul sector have not been seriously attacked since the battle of Seicheprey. Belated details de-tails of that conflict tell of the heroic conduct of our boys while they were being driven back from that village and were retaking it and re-establishing the lines. Though their casualties were about 200. General pVrshing reported re-ported they killed at least 300 Germans. Ger-mans. Officers and men alike distinguished distin-guished themselves by their bravery, individual deeds of heroism in the face of great odds being numerous. sa There was great activity among the air fighters on the west front last week, and the outstanding event was the killing of Baron von Richthofen, one of the foremost German aviators and lender of the famous "circus." He was engaged in a fight with two British Brit-ish planes and flew low over the British Brit-ish lines, where a bullet pierced his heart. With characteristic chivalry the English gave him a fine funeral paying tribute to the memory of a gallant gal-lant and brave foe. Several American airmen reached the coveted distinction of being numbered num-bered among the "aces" those who have downed at least five enemy flyers. And some of our aviators also met death. isa : Little news came out of Russia, but It Is evident the Germans are still pursuing their plans of annexation. Indeed, the kaiser is being .openly urged urg-ed to assume the kingship of Livonia and Esthonla, and It Is announced that a valuable part of Toland will be added add-ed to Prussia. German forces have, reached Simferopol In the Crimea, cutting cut-ting the railroad connection of the fortress fort-ress of Sebastopol with the mainland. The governments of the Crimea, Minsk and Homel have asked to. be incorporated incor-porated In the Ukraine. All attempts to open peace negotiations between Ukraine Uk-raine and Russia have failed. In Finland Fin-land the German forces co-operating with the While guards have made further fur-ther progress and the Finnish holshe-vlkl holshe-vlkl government, has evacuated Vlborg. There was considerable severe fighting fight-ing on the Italian front last week, but without definite result, and In Macedonia Mace-donia the allies made considerable advances, ad-vances, capturing several towns. Poor little Holland seems on the point of being dragged Into the great conflict, despite her earnest efforts to maintain her neutrality. Berlin Is reported re-ported to have made demands which may well result In adding !he Dutch to the list of Germany's active enemies and that probably would mean Holland Hol-land would become another Belgium, overrun and ravaged, for the allies oouhfnnt well help her except from the sea. The German demands have to do with Hie treaty permitting the transportation of sand and gravel through Holland for the repair of Belgian roads. The Netherlands government gov-ernment refuses to permit Germany to take these materials through Dutch territory for military works. fe The Guatemalan national assembly has declared that Guatemala occupies the same position toward tfie European belligerents as does the United States, which In diplomatic circles is considered consid-ered a declaration of war on Germany and her allies. Pa The rapidity with which American troops are being sent across the Atlantic Atlan-tic is heartening the allies and demonstrating dem-onstrating the intention of our government govern-ment to put in the field the greatest possible force in the shortest possible time. Many of the men are going byway by-way of England, and the fact that they are being transported across the English Eng-lish channel in safety has aroused the Germans to such an extent that their naval authorities have had to apologize apolo-gize for the inaction of their fleet. It is not permitted to tell how many men the administration proposes to send to France before the end of the year, but it is so great that when Director Di-rector General Schwab and the shipping ship-ping board were told- byNGeneral Goe-tbals Goe-tbals the amount of shipping he would require they were staggered. Mr. Schwab, however, believed the estimate esti-mate could be fulfilled If certain steps could be taken to hasten the deliveries of ships, these steps including the reduction re-duction of some of the requirements of t'.ie navy so that the steel can be diverted to the uses, of the transport fleet. In Washington It is understood that as rapidly as ships can be provided the soldiers will be sent across, whether they are fully trained or not. It is reported re-ported the draft will be accelerated by calling 400,000 men to training next month, a number far in excess of previous previ-ous estimates. Pain Pa-in line with the present policy of speeding up and making efficient all war preparations Is the appointment of John D. Ryan, the copper magnate, as director of aircraft production for the army and the re-organization of the aviation section of the signal corps. General Squier hereafter will devote his attention to the administration of signals, and Brig. Gen. William I. Ken-ly Ken-ly Is made director of a new division of military aeronautics. Howard Coffin Cof-fin retires from chairmanship of the aircraft board but remains a member of the advisory commission of the council of national defense. The reports on the airplane situation situa-tion made to the president by the Marshall committee and by assistant secretaries of war were not made public, pub-lic, but it Is admitted that they substantiated sub-stantiated the report of the senate committee that the program had collapsed. col-lapsed. " ; Both houses of congress have passed the joint resolution to register for military mil-itary service all males becoming twenty-one years old since June !, 1917. The lower house adopted an amendment amend-ment putting the newly registered men at the foot of their respective classes and sustained the military committee In refusing to exempt those who have entered medical or divinity schools since June 5. ft i The Chamberlain bill to turn sedi-tionlsls sedi-tionlsls over to military tribunals for trial by court martial met Its fate when President Wilson declared his firm opposition to It and other authorities au-thorities said It was unconstitutional. It was. of course, introduced because of charges that the department of justice jus-tice has been lax in combating enemy propaganda, bill these charges are refuted re-futed by the department, which reports re-ports II has secured at least 3,000 convictions con-victions in the last your, despite the Inadequacy of federal laws against sabotage and disloyal utterances. The number of acquittals has been relatively relative-ly small. ' Pi The senate devoted much time last week lo debating the Overman bill for the co-ordination of government activities activ-ities and It gained supporters dally, Senator Chamberlain being among I hose who declared he would vote for it. In opposing the bill Senator Sherman Sher-man of Illinois found opportunity to make a bit t or attack on various members mem-bers of the cabinet and on George Creel. |