THE 2nd YEAR of the war opened in the West with the enemy pinned down to a defensive line from Belfort to the sea. The new armies of the British Empire were still being raised and trained, and neither England nor France had reached their zenith in guns and munitions production.

In the East the great Teutonic drive through Poland was still in progress with Warsaw occupied in August. By October Germany's greatest military effort so far had failed and the Russian armies stood intact from the Bukovina to Riga. The next development in the history of the war was the entry of Bulgaria into WWI.

The western allies had taken the offensive in September, the French attacking in Champagne and the British in Flanders. January saw Gallipoli evacuated by the Allies, releasing Turkish troops for service in Mesopotamia (Iraq.) Late in February the great German offensive began at Verdun, which was to prove the most costly defeat of the German arms during the war. The Battle of Verdun continued for months and was definitely lost by the Germans by the 1st of July.

The Russian armies in the Caucasus and Armenia had beaten the Turks in many engagements. The Russian armies in the north, reorganized and, in June, thoroughly re-equipped, began their advance along their line from Riga to the Carpathians.

Raemaekers captured all of the above in this 2nd volume as well. The cold blooded murders of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt did not escape Raemaekers attention, neither did the many examples of German Zeppelin Ruthlessness and German Piracy on the sea. Notable amongst the latter is the Sussex crime and its subsequent diplomatic developments, which were to play an important part in America's entry into the war.