The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 Part 44

Dec. 9--Preparations are being made to meet possible German landing.

Dec. 11--Gibraltar is being provisioned.

Dec. 12--German officer found hidden in packing case at Gravesend.

Dec. 14--Government is searching for German wireless station on Norfolk coast which is blocking messages.

Dec. 16--Movement to form women's volunteer reserve.

Dec. 17--Many Germans arrested following raid on coast towns; numerous cases of ptomaine poisoning in Blackheath Camp.

Dec. 19--Many soldiers are insane or have nervous prostration as a result of battle horrors.

Dec. 21--Some German prisoners of war are being placed on prison s.h.i.+ps.

Dec. 23--Germany's offer to exchange one British prisoner of war for five German prisoners is declined.

Dec. 26--Government has constructed a bridge of boats across the Thames.

Dec. 30--Archbishop of Canterbury appeals for recruits.

Dec. 31--An undercurrent of irritation is evident over the American note on interference with American commerce; a new decoration, the Military Cross, has been inst.i.tuted for the army.

Jan. 3--Day of intercession and prayer throughout the Empire; second expeditionary force sails for England from Australia; a third force is being recruited.

Jan. 4--Many men leave their positions in civil life to join the army as a result of the raid on the coast towns.

Jan. 6--Many clergymen are enlisting.

FRANCE.

Oct. 16--Learned societies plan expulsion of German members.

Oct. 17--Germans arrested in Paris; coal supply low in Paris; sugar prices are rising.

Oct. 18--President Poincare's country house destroyed.

Oct. 20--Military authorities deny German charge that towers of Rheims Cathedral are used as observation post.

Oct. 21--Baron de Coubertin will train young men who would normally enter the army in 1916; Germany protests against alleged cruelties.

Oct. 22--It is reported that 500,000 new soldiers are ready to fight.

Oct. 24--Lille and Rheims have been much damaged by German sh.e.l.ls; exchange of civilians with Germany begins.

Oct. 26--German property in France not confiscated, but taken into trustees.h.i.+p.

Oct. 28--Many volunteer to give their blood to help Dr. Carrel in saving the wounded.

Oct. 29--Count de Chambrun sh.e.l.ls his own home.

Oct. 30--Chateau of Princess Hohenlohe seized.

Nov. 1--Envoy asks for pa.s.sports from Turkey; French affairs turned over to American Emba.s.sy.

Nov. 4--Officers discard swords and conspicuous uniforms; they will direct charges from rear to foil German sharpshooters.

Nov. 7--City of Roulers in ruins.

Nov. 8--Premier Viviani decorates Mayor of Rheims and says city will be rebuilt.

Nov. 9--Military attaches of neutral countries allowed to visit theatre of war.

Nov. 10--Rheims still being bombarded.

Nov. 18--Germans declare they saw observation post on towers of Rheims Cathedral; bombardment resumed; Appenrodt's restaurant looted in Paris.

Nov. 19--Germans are working coal mines and mills in occupied French territory; President Poincare strikes names of Germans from roll of Legion of Honor.

Nov. 21--New field gun outranges German guns.

Nov. 26--German surgeons and deaconesses sentenced to prison for looting.

Nov. 28--Regimental dispatch dog mentioned in orders as having fallen in duty; Germans charge use of dumdum bullets by the French.

Dec. 1--Gen. Joffre tells Alsatians that the French have come back permanently.

Dec. 4--Youths 18 years old are called for military examination; Mohammedan soldiers from Tunis are being sent to serve in Europe; Germans charge brutalities to Germans in Morocco.

Dec. 11--The Cabinet meets in Paris, marking the moving of the capital from Bordeaux; youths of cla.s.s of 1915 go into training.

Dec. 13--Full text of France's "Yellow Book" published in THE NEW YORK TIMES; postal notice announces that letters to twenty-one communes in Alsace need only ordinary stamps.

Dec. 14--Man who mutilated German sentry is shot.

Dec. 17--Priests hold ma.s.s in the trenches; French heroism lauded at meeting of French Academy; but a small percentage of the wounded are dying.

Dec. 18--French court held in Alsace.

Dec. 19--Lille is near starvation.

Dec. 22--Premier Viviani makes address at opening of Parliament in Paris, declaring that the war will end only with restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, restoration of Belgium, and a.s.surance of lasting peace.

Dec. 25--Portion of Alsace celebrates Christmas under French rule.

Jan. 7--French Cabinet makes public report of Government Commission which has been investigating German methods of waging war; report charges Germans with habitual "pillage, outrage, burning, and murder."