Military Books

THE PETTICOAT COMMANDO CHAPTER I THE SCENE OF ACTION When, on October 11th, 1899, shortly before 5 o'clock in the afternoon, martial law was proclaimed throughout the Transvaal and Orange Free State, South Africa, and after the great exodus of British subjects had taken place, there remained in Pretoria, where the principal events recorded here took place, a harmonious community of Boers and... more...

Egmont in Flanders, Orange at Antwerp, Horn at Tournay; Hoogstraaten at Mechlin, were exerting themselves to suppress insurrection and to avert ruin. What, meanwhile, was the policy of the government? The secret course pursued both at Brussels and at Madrid may be condensed into the usual formula—dissimulation, procrastination, and again dissimulation. It is at this point necessary to take a rapid... more...

CHAPTER I. SOURCES OF THE DELTA. Official records in the archives of the War Department at Washington will preserve for future posterity the record of Battery D, of the 311th United States Field Artillery. In those records there is written deep and indelibly the date of May 30th, 1919, as the date of Battery D's official demobilization. The history of Battery D, therefore, can be definitely... more...

I RAISING THE REGIMENT During the year preceding the outbreak of the Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I possessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western World. Now that my party had come to power, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, to... more...

CHAPTER I STEAMING SOUTH R.M.S. 'Dunottar Castle,' at sea: October 26, 1899. The last cry of 'Any more for the shore?' had sounded, the last good-bye had been said, the latest pressman or photographer had scrambled ashore, and all Southampton was cheering wildly along a mile of pier and promontory when at 6 P.M., on October 14, the Royal Mail steamer 'Dunottar Castle' left... more...

CHAPTER I ATTACK ON BELGIUM The first great campaign on the western battle grounds in the European War began on August 4, 1914. On this epoch-making day the German army began its invasion of Belgium—with the conquest of France as its ultimate goal. Six mighty armies stood ready for the great invasion. Their estimated total was 1,200,000 men. Supreme over all was the Emperor as War Lord, but... more...

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, and in Europe as the Seven Years' War, originated in disputes between the French and English colonists, in the New World, concerning territorial limits. For a century the colonies of the two nations had been gradually expanding and increasing in importance. The English, more than a million in number, occupied the... more...

I.MILITARY PRISONERS. The cases of bad treatment of prisoners in Germany have been made known very widely. No one, I imagine, can wish to defend bad treatment of prisoners anywhere (even of criminal prisoners), and such a horrible state of things as that of Wittenberg during the typhus epidemic is a disgrace to human nature. But Mr. Lithgow Osborne says: “My whole impression of the camp authorities... more...

I OFF TO THE FRONT "It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valor of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army." While this Imperial Command of the Kaiser was being written, Atkins,... more...

CHAPTER IWhen a soldier's watch, with its luminous face,Loses its light and grows dim and black,He holds it out in the sun a spaceAnd the radiance all comes back;And that is the reason I'm thinking to-dayOf the glad days now long past;I am leaving my heart where the sunbeams play:I am trying to drive my fears away:I am charging my soul with a spirit gay,And hoping that it will last! We were... more...