chine guns and their crews in the dugouts until the opposing infantry came "over the top," at which time they were rushed to the parapets and put to work. The barrage, how ever, combined with a much more lavish use of high explosive shell, forced a change in these tactics. It was found that even if the bombardment of heavy guns did not destroy the dugouts or block up their mouths, the barrage kept the machine gun under ground until the advancing infantry was so close that there was not sufficient time to get into action before the bayonet fighting began. The final step was the fortification of specially selected positions and turning them into ma-, chine-gun posts. These posts were always selected with a view to their field of fire and their angle of fire with respect to the line

tinguishing feature of any kind. With water found only a foot below the surface, even the ordinary trenches and dugouts are out of the question. This necessitated a still further change in the plan of defense, although chief reliance was still placed in the same weapon. The result was what has been called the elastic defense system. This consisted of a number of concrete block houses, placed well forward without any definite line, but so arranged that they defended one another by an enfilade fire. These "pill boxes," as they have come to be called, are very small, holding not more than thirty or forty men, sometimes not half that number, and are so strong that only a direct hit from a large gun can destroy them. They are garrisoned entirely by machine-gun crews specially trained for their

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Edwin Levick, N. Y.

work. Behind them, in reserve, the infantry lies in wait, so that, when the Allied infantry, badly used up by the machine-gun fire, passes beyond the block houses, these reserves of fresh troops counter-attack heavily against the advanced line and drive it back.

"Liberty" Trucks For Our Army

TH

'HE "Liberty" motor truck, a photograph of which appears on page 223, is the product of the combined genius of forty American engineers and hundreds of draftsmen from all over the country, plus the cooperation of twelve motor truck plants and of sixty-two factories that manufacture automobile parts. All these parts have been standardized and are interchangeable, so that a number of trucks may be taken apart, the parts mixed, each with each, indiscriminately, and the trucks reassembled without any great difficulty. The virtue of this standardization may be seen in the fact that our army's motor truck transportation will necessitate the manufacture of less than 7,500 parts. It has been said that our Allies keep in stock at all times more than 2,000,000 parts for their various kinds of motor vehicles.

The chassis of the new truck weighs, with body attached, about 10,000 pounds. The truck is said to be the strongest, for the load it is designed to carry, ever turned out in this country.

T

The Caproni Airplane

"WO Italians, the Caproni Brothers, Gianni and Federico, are convinced that the day is fast approaching when "aërial lines not only will join town and country and country to country, but will span continent to continent with aërial trains transporting hundreds of passengers traveling from 125 to 190 miles an hour." Such airplanes are to be built according to the biplane and multiplane systems and fitted with a series of motors varying from 300 to 500 horsepower, "because the plurimotor types obviously afford a genuine guarantee of safety." One such air line would be that between Rome and New York, the distance to be covered in approximately thirty hours of continuous travel; the trip to be made in forty-eight hours.

However visionary these views may be, Gabriel D'Annunzio, the Italian poet, who is at present serving in the Italian army, recently piloted a Caproni biplane, with three passengers aboard, 875 miles without landing a distance approximately corresponding to that between New York and St. Louis "as the airplane flies." And during the last Liberty Loan Campaign, Captain Antonio Silvio Resnati flew from Langley Field, near Norfolk, Va., to Mineola, L. I., a distance of 320 miles, in a big Caproni biplane carrying eight passengers besides himself.

VOLUME XXXV

NUMBER 3

L

ET there be no misunderstanding. Our present and immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn. us aside from it until it is accomplished. Every power and resource we possess, whether of men, of money, or of materials, is being devoted and will continue to be devoted to that purpose until it is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace about before that purpose is achieved, I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will not entertain it."

This paragraph was the heart of the President's message. It is a simple fact and is told quickly, but its significance is not measured by its length. And the President's pledge of our determination to fight the war through is given added weight by the declaration of war against Austria-Hungary.

In a large part of the message the President restated our aims in the war, our insistence that Germany "repair," as the President phrases it, the damage she has done, and on the other hand our denial of any intention of exacting indemnities in a spirit of revenge. It is well to keep our motives clear before our Allies and ourselves. But it cannot very much affect what Germany will pay. If she repairs even part of the damage she has done wantonly, purposely, and contrary to the rules of war to Belgium, to northern France, to Serbia, there will not be left the power to pay any indemnity, except of course in territory

and people. But none of the Allies in their bitterest moments have ever wanted to incorporate territory peopled by Germans within their borders. The land and the people of Germany must remain. Its ambitions and kultur must go, and the German people must expiate the crimes which they have committed. by restoring the countries which they have wrecked in so far as it is humanly possible. There is little likelihood that they will do this until they are forced to do so, and that is why we are faced with the necessity of gaining a military decision, which is but a pleasanter way of saying that we must kill, capture, or disperse the German armies until they can no longer fight.

When this is done the Germans will all know that the Kaiser and his system have failed them. The legend of German invincibility will be gone. The precedent of 1864, 1866, 1870-71 will be shattered. The German hold on Austria, the Balkans, and Turkey will be broken. There will be no opportunity for another attack on civilization. The world will, for the time anyway, be free from the menace of the German ideal of blood and iron and have an opportunity to begin again, in peace, the effort to perfect social and political systems designed to give all men a chance for mental and material well-being and advancement to begin again the everlasting and all-important task of trying to make the world a better place to live in.