and forced her to cede territory to Roumania. Hence she has joined the Central Powers in order to recover the lands lost to Greece, Serbia, and Roumania. The Hohenzollern affiliations of several of the Balkan rulers helped to make their lands pawns in Germany's game. The Balkan wars disrupted the Balkan league, which might have been strong enough to prevent European intervention in the Balkans. See Pan-Germanism; Pan-Slavism; Serbia.

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Baralong Affair. The British cruiser Baralong is alleged to have sunk a German submarine while the latter was in the act of sinking the British cargo steamer Nicosian, on August 19, 1915, and to have shot the commander and crew after they had offered to surrender and were struggling in the water. Affidavits to prove this allegation were presented to the British Government by the German Government through the United States as intermediary, and the demand made that the British Government proceed against the captain and crew of the Baralong for murder. The British Government in answer proposed that the affair be investigated by an impartial tribunal of American naval officers, along with three other incidents, in one of which a German destroyer was alleged on the day of the Baralong affair to have fired upon a British submarine stranded on the Danish coast, and upon its crew when they attempted to swim ashore. The German Government declined the proposal. See "Belgian Prince"; "Spurlos Versenkt" Applied.

Barbed-wire Entanglements. These are but one of many ancient or mediæval principles revived for use in the present war, as e. g., the steel helmet, the hand grenade, the trench periscope of lineage as early as the sixteenth century, the trench itself, the mine and countermine, the flooded spaces which suggest the ancient moat, and the concealed pits with spikes at the bottom for men to fall into. The barbed-wire entanglement is merely the abatis revived. That was made of trees with their boughs cut off and sharpened. The entanglement is of wire with protruding points, run back and forth over ground to be defended. The wire is sometimes electrified.

Barrage. A new word in the military vocabulary—specifically, the act of barring by artillery fire. By exact measurements a line of guns is brought to bear upon a certain terrain. The fire creates a complete screen of projectiles. Behind it a body of troops is safe; through it no enemy can advance. By moving the barrage line forward ("creeping" barrage) a detachment can advance with a minimum of casualties. It is controlled by observers at the front who find ranges and direct artillery fire by telephone or wireless, and it demolishes, in front of the attacking force, wire entanglements, trenches, and 'pillboxes."

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Base Hospitals. Base hospitals receive the wounded from the front, treat their wounds, and then pass them on to permanent hospitals in the rear. Shortly after the beginning of the war in Europe the American Red Cross proceeded to organize

base hospital units in connection with medical centers. Each of these base hospitals has a staff of 22 physicians, 2 dentists, 65 Red Cross nurses, and 150 enlisted men of the Army Medical Corps. Before war was declared 26 of these units had been formed, while the total number of units ready for service is now much larger. Each unit purchased equipment for 500 beds and stored it away for use in war time. It costs on an average $75,000 to equip a base hospital with beds, blankets, sterilizers, operating tables, tents, dental outfits, automobiles, and kitchens. Base of Naval Operations. Article V of the Thirteenth Hague Convention (concerning the rights and duties of neutral powers in naval war) reads: "Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and waters as a base of naval operations against their adversaries, and in particular to erect wireless telegraphy stations or any apparatus for the purpose of communicating with the belligerent forces on land or sea." Germany has frequently violated the provisions of this article. Officials of the Hamburg-American Line, including the managing director, Dr. Buenz, former German consul and once minister to Mexico, undertook, under the direction of Capt. Boy-Ed, naval attaché of the German Embassy, to coal and provision German raiders at sea. On the morning of July 31, 1914, the day before Germany declared war on Russia and two days before she invaded France, Buenz received a telegram asking whether he was ready, and answered, “Yes." Accordingly the Thor sailed from New York August 3, the Berwind and the Lorenzo two days later, and the next day the Fram and the Somerstad. "What did you consider your obligation to the United States?" Dr. Buenz was asked. "I didn't give it much thought," he replied. Ships sailed from other ports, including Norfolk and New Orleans; and the same autumn, under the direction of Capt. Boy-Ed and the German consulate at San Francisco, the Sacramento and Mazatlan carried supplies to German war vessels in the Pacific. Dr. Buenz was convicted and sent to the penitentiary. It was proved that false manifests and clearance papers were sworn to and that over $2,000,000 had been spent. It was proved also that Buenz was acting under an agreement reached in the autumn of 1913 between his line and the German Government. In time of peace Germany had prepared to violate our neutrality in the event of war. See Wireless Stations.

Battalion. An organization of two, or more, generally four companies in the Infantry, Engineers, and Signal Corps, and of two or more batteries in the Field Artillery. Two or more Coast Artillery companies are usually organized into provisional battalions for other than Coast Artillery formations. The total strength of a complete Infantry battalion in the United States service is 26 officers and 1,000 men; of a machine-gun battalion of 3 companies 20 officers and 550 men, and of 4 companies 26 officers and 728 men; of a battalion of light artillery 17 officers and 579 men; of heavy field artillery 12 officers and 456 men; of a field signal battalion 14 officers and 248 men; and of an Engineer battalion 20 officers and 753

men.

A trench mortar battalion has 17 officers and 747 men. In the present war the importance of the battalion has been greatly increased. See Company; Regiment.

Battery. The smallest administrative and tactical unit in the Field Artillery. A 3-inch gun battery (light artillery) has 5 officers and 193 men; a heavy field artillery (6-inch) has 5 officers and 228 men. The term "battery" includes both the personnel and matériel. It is also used to designate a Coast Artillery emplacement, the guns mounted therein, and the matériel and supplies necessary for their service. Two batteries of heavy Field Artillery and three batteries of light usually make up a battalion, under command of a major. See Artillery; Battalion; Regiment.

Battle Cruiser. A new type of war vessel provided for in recent naval construction programs. It combines the power of the battleship of the dreadnaught class with much of the speed and handiness in action of the cruiser. See Dreadnaught; Cruiser.

"Battle Line of Democracy." President Wilson writes: "No one who is not blind can fail to see that the battle line of democracy for America stretches to-day from the fields of Flanders to every house and workshop where toiling, upward-striving men and women are counting the treasures of right and justice and liberty, which are being threatened by our present enemies. It has not been a matter of surprise to me that the leaders in certain groups have sought to ignore our grievances against the men who have equally misled the German people. Their insistence that a nation whose rights have been grossly violated, whose citizens have been foully murdered under their own flag, whose neighbors have been invited to join in making conquest of its territory, whose patience in pressing the claims of justice and humanity has been met with the most shameful policy of truculence and treachery, their insistence that a nation so outraged does not know its own mind, that it has not comprehensible reason for defending itself, or for joining with all its might in maintaining a free future for itself and its ideals, is of a piece with their deafness to the oft-repeated statement of our national purposes." (Letter to American Alliance of Labor and Democracy, September, 1917.)

Battle Line of Democracy. Title of a collection of prose and poetry of the great war, selected especially for home and school use and public recitation. Published at 15 cents a copy by the Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C.

Battleship. A large war vessel capable of steaming on the high seas, completely protected by heavy armor, i. e., steel plates secured to its side and over important parts as a guard against gunfire, and carrying a heavy armament of guns. The first American battleship in the new Navy was the Indiana, commissioned in 1895. See Dreadnaught; Battle Cruiser; Navy, "New."

Beatty, Admiral Sir David (1871- ). Commander of the Grand Fleet of the British Navy, in succession to Sir John

R. Jellicoe. He was present at and played a gallant part in the battle of Jutland in 1916, as commander of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron. In 1901 he married a daughter of Marshall Field, of Chicago.

Beef. Receipts of cattle at the seven leading markets increased 2.4 per cent for the first seven months of 1917 over a corresponding period in 1916, which was a record year to that date. The domestic and foreign demand for beef has increased more rapidly than the available supply, and importations, mostly from Canada and Argentina, have steadily decreased since 1914. Exports of beef in all meat forms during 1916-17 amounted to 303,451,493 pounds, worth $49,971,660. This was an increase in the exports of canned beef over figures for 1916, but the exports of fresh, pickled, and other cured beef were forced to decline. Increased demand and other factors have caused a steady rise in prices. At wholesale, fresh beef has risen from $0.135 per pound in 1914 to $0.21 in November, 1917. Retail prices have increased from $0.27 per pound for sirloin in 1914 to about $0.35 in November, 1917. An equitable distribution of our beef supply so that we may win the war demands increased exportation to our associates and a decrease in our enormous per capita domestic consumption, particularly of veal. See Food Economy Campaigns; Meat Supply.

“Belgian Prince." A British cargo steamer, attacked by a German submarine in the vicinity of the Irish coast on July 31, 1917, while on a voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia. According to the affidavit of William Snell, an American cook, the crew were ordered from their lifeboats to the deck of the submarine and compelled to lay aside their life preservers; then, after running along on the surface for about 15 miles, the vessel submerged, drowning 48 men. Snell himself had concealed his life preserver under his mackintosh, and in this way was able to remain afloat till picked up by a British patrol boat. Two British sailors have made affidavits in confirmation of Snell's story. These three are the only known survivors from the steamer. See " Baralong"; "Spurlos Versenkt."

Belgium. Belgium is a neutralized constitutional monarchy, hereditary in the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, having its capital at Brussels, and containing an area of 11,371 square miles, and a population in 1912 of 7,571,387. The present ruler is King Albert I. He succeeded his uncle, Leopold II, taking the oath of office on December 23, 1909. The reigning queen is Elizabeth, a princess of Bavaria. Belgium stood in the way of a German invasion of France from the northeast, and the Germans in 1914 made good the boast of Otto R. Tannenberg in 1911 that, "The Germans know the road from Belle Alliance [Waterloo] to Paris quite as well as that from Metz and Strassburg." See Albert I.

Belgium, Commission for Relief in. An organization hurriedly built up at the outbreak of the war, under the direction of Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, for the purpose of relieving suffering and destitution in the invaded districts of Belgium and northern

France. It was financed by British, Belgian, and French subsidies, and by private contributions, many of which came from the United States. Since June 1, 1917, the United States has advanced $12,500,000 a month to carry it on.

Belgium, Deportations. Almost immediately upon the invasion of Belgium the German army authorities, in pursuance of their system of terrorization, shipped to Germany considerable groups of the population. On October 12, 1915, a general order was issued by the German military government in Belgium providing that persons who should "refuse work suitable to their occupation and in the execution of which the military administration is interested" should be subject to one year's imprisonment or to deportation to Germany. Numerous sentences, both of men and women, were imposed under this order. The wholesale deportation of Belgian workmen to Germany, however, which was begun October 3, 1916, proceeded on different grounds; for, having first stripped large sections of the country of machinery and raw material, the military authorities now came forward with the plea that it was necessary to send labor in pursuit of its indispensable adjuncts. The deportation movement began at Ghent and Bruges and spread rapidly. It is still being carried on (October, 1917). The number of workmen deported to date is variously estimated at beween one and three hundred thousand. "The rage,

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the terror, and despair excited by this measure all over Belgium," Brand Whitlock reported to the Secretary of State, in January, 1917, were beyond anything we had witnessed since the day the Germans poured into Brussels. . . . I am constantly in receipt of reports from all over Belgium that tend to bear out the stories . . . of brutality and cruelty. ... In tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a son and brother, they [the Germans] have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out. ... [It is] one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race, a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed." Poland and the occupied parts of France have experienced similar treatment. See Belgium, Economic Destruction; Family Rights and Honor.

Belgium, Estates Destroyed. The Belgian Government has recently issued a map showing the location of 43,000 estates in Belgium destroyed by German orders. Some of these have been burned as a result of bombardments and at least 20,000 on the ground of reprisals for alleged acts of hostility on the part of the civil population. (See New York Times, Oct. 22, 1917.)

Belgium, Economic Destruction. The Hague Regulations, Article XLVI, say "Private property can not be confiscated." This regulation has been violated by the Germans in Belgium in conformity with the Rathenau plan, devised at the very outset of the war. Dr. Walter Rathenau, president of a great German