“Of their own free will they had left a prosperous and happy country to come over here.  They knew war was continuing in Europe; they knew that the forces fighting for honor, love of justice and civilization were still checked by the long-prepared forces serving the powers of brutal domination, oppression and barbarity.  They knew that efforts were still necessary.  They wished to give up their generous hearts and they had not forgotten old historical memories while others forgot more recent ones.

“They ignored nothing of the circumstances and nothing had been concealed from them—­neither the length and hardships of war nor the violence of battle, nor the dreadfulness of new weapons, nor the perfidy of the foe.  Nothing stopped them.  They accepted the hard and strenuous life; they crossed the ocean at great peril; they took their places on the front by our side and they have fallen facing the foe in a hard and desperate hand-to-hand fight.  Honor to them!  Their families, friends and fellow-citizens will be proud when they learn of their deaths.

“Men!  These graves, the first to be dug in our national soil and only a short distance from the enemy, are as a mark of the mighty land we and our Allies firmly cling to in the common task, confirming the will of the people and the army of the United States to fight with us to a finish, ready to sacrifice as long as is necessary until final victory for the most noble of causes, that of the liberty of nations, the weak as well as the mighty.  Thus the deaths of these humble soldiers appeal to us with extraordinary grandeur.

“We will therefore ask that the mortal remains of these young men be left here, left with us forever.  We inscribe on the tombs, ’Here lie the first soldiers of the republic of the United States to fall on the soil of France for liberty and justice.’  The passer-by will stop and uncover his head.  Travelers and men of heart will go out of their way to come here to pay their respective tributes.

“Private Enright!  Private Gresham!  Private Hay!  In the name of France, I thank you.  God receive your souls!  Farewell!”

ITALY INVADED BY TEUTONS

In the first week of October Austrian forces, heavily reinforced by Germans, opened a gigantic drive in an effort to crush Italy.  It soon resulted in wiping out all the gains made by the Italians under General Cadorna on the Isonzo and in the Trentino, and in a determined invasion of Northern Italy by the enemy, with the city of Venice as its immediate objective.

The Teuton attack began on the morning of October 24, after an intensive artillery fire in which specially constructed gas shells were thrown at various places.  The offensive covered a 23-mile front, from Monte Rombon Southeast through Flitsch and Tolmino and thence Southward to the Bainsizza Plateau, about ten miles Northeast of Goritz, the scene of desperate fighting in the drive by the Italians which wrested important mountain positions from the Austrians.