history. Sir Douglas Haig succeeded
Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France. The
outstanding operation of the British forces on the western front was the
bloody battle of the Somme, beginning July 1st, and continuing until the
fall of 1915. The losses on both sides in that titanic struggle
staggered two continents. Especially heroic were the attacks of the
Canadians in that great battle and especially heavy were the losses in
killed and wounded of the Canadian regiments. They ranked in magnitude
with the depletion that came to the Australian and New Zealand armies in
the fatal Gallipoli campaign.

This year will be glorious forever in the annals of France because of
the heroic defense at Verdun. That battle tested to the limit the
offensive strength of the German machine and it was found lacking in
power to pierce the superhuman defense of the heroic French forces under
Petain and Nivelle.

Bulgaria entered the war on October 14, 1915, with a declaration of war
against helpless Serbia. Greece, torn by internal dissensions, inclined
first to one side, then to the other. The occupation of Saloniki by
French and British expeditionary forces finally swung the archipelago to
the Allies.

A British Mesopotamian force under General Townshend, poorly equipped
and unsupported, was cut off in Kut-el-Amara, and surrendered to the
Turks on April 29, 1916.

The Italian forces under General Cadorna made a sensational advance
terminating in the capture of Gorizia. Portugal entered the war on the
side of the Allies after it had refused to give up to Germany several
German ships interned in Portuguese ports.

An object lesson in German submarine possibilities was given America
when the Deutschland, a super-submarine cargo vessel, arrived in
Baltimore, Maryland, on July 9, 1916. The Deutschland later was
converted into a naval submarine and re-visited American shores, sinking
a number of merchant vessels. It was one of the German submarine fleet
surrendered to the Allies in November, 1918.

Russia proved itself to be a military ineffective. German armies under
von Mackensen and von Hindenburg occupied Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, Lutsk,
and Grodno. Grand Duke Nicholas was removed from the command of the
Russian armies and Czar Nicholas assumed command.

Germany's pretensions to sea power ended with the battle of Jutland, May
31, 1916, when its High Seas fleet fled after a running fight with
British cruisers a