These monitors, which had been renamed Mersey, Humber and Severn, drew less than nine feet of water and could take up positions not far from shore, from which their 6-inch guns and 4.7-inch howitzers, of which each vessel carried two, were able to throw shells nearly four miles across country, the range being given them by airmen.

French warships of light draft later joined the British monitors and destroyers and assisted in patrolling the coast, shelling German positions wherever the latter could be discovered by the aeroplane scouts.  One reported feat of the naval fire was the destruction of the headquarters of a German general, Von Trip, in which the general and his staff lost their lives.

From time to time German aerial attacks were made in the vicinity of Dover, across the Straits, but these without exception proved to be without military importance in their results.  Steps were taken to organize anti-aircraft artillery forces on the eastern coast of England and the continued failure of Zeppelin attacks, annoying as they were, soon restored the equanimity of the British public in this respect.

INDIAN TROOPS IN ACTION

The first word of the employment of British Indian troops at the front came on October 27, when it was reported that in the fighting near Lille a reserve force of Sikhs and Ghurkas, the former with bayonets and the latter with the kukri (a short, curved sword) played havoc with an attacking force of Germans.  “Never has there been such slaughter,” said the dispatches.  “Twenty thousand German dead and wounded, nearly half the attacking force, lay upon the field, while the British losses did not exceed 2,000.”

THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN IN ALSACE

At the end of October the French right wing in Alsace-Lorraine was reported to be making distinct progress.  It was said to be advancing through the passes of the Vosges in the midst of heavy snowstorms.  Paris reported that the Germans, who were attempting a movement against the great French frontier fortress of Belfort, had been driven back with heavy losses, while from other sources the Germans were reported to be bringing up heavy mortars for the bombardment of Belfort.  There were persistent reports of German defeats in Alsace, but these were repeatedly denied in Berlin.  The situation in the territory coveted by the French appeared to resemble that farther west—­neither side was making much headway.

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN

In the eastern theater of war the conflict during October was waged with fortunes that favored, first one side and then the other.  Contradictory claims were put forth from time to time by Petrograd, Vienna and Berlin, but the net result of the operations at the end of the thirteenth week of the war appeared to be that while the intended Russian march on Berlin had been completely checked, the Germans had been repulsed with heavy losses in all their attempts to cross the Vistula and occupy Warsaw, the capital of Russian Poland, which was at one time seriously threatened.