Less than three months ago a charming French country mansion amidst its beautiful gardens and park, all that remained at Christmas of the Chateau of Vermelles is the shell here shown.  Fate made the Chateau, with the small adjoining village, for upwards of eight weeks a disputed tactical point between the Germans and the Allies, a narrow strip of only 150 yards of ground intervening between the trenches.  The Germans held Vermelles from October 16 until early in December, fortifying the Chateau and grounds.  They had to be shelled out By October 21, the Chateau was only smouldering walls, and French engineers were mining approaches to it.  Then an English heavy battery bombarded Vermelles.  Finally the French “in a very brilliant attack,” stormed and took Vermelles, village and chateau.

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10—­THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914.—­[Part 21]

[Illustration:  RULER OF EGYPT, THE BRITISH PROTECTORATE:  SULTAN HUSSEIN I.]

The new Sultan of Egypt, Prince Hussein Kamel, is sixty years of age and the eldest living Prince of the family of Mehemet Ali, the historic liberator of Egypt from Turkish domination.  For years past, as head of various administrative departments in Egypt, he devoted his energies to improving the lot of the natives, by whom he is called “the Father of the Fellaheen.”

[Illustration:  THE ROUTED AUSTRIAN COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF:  FIELD-MARSHAL POTIOREK.]

General Oscar Potiorek commanded the Austrian Army invading Serbia.  Elated at occupying Belgrade without firing a shot, he promised his Imperial master at Vienna that in a fortnight Serbia would be conquered.  A Field-Marshal’s baton and the highest Austrian military decoration were bestowed on him.  Within a week Potiorek’s army were fugitives.  The Field-Marshal is to be court-martialled.

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THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914—­[Part 21]—­11

[Illustration:  THE ACCUSATIONS OF OUTRAGE AND BREACHES OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY GERMANY:  THE BRITISH COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY.]

On September 15, the Prime Minister announced in the House of Commons that he had asked the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General to take such steps as seemed best adapted to provide for the investigation, from evidence obtainable in this country, of accusations of outrage and breaches of the laws of war on the part of Germany, This Committee is constituted of the Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M.  Chairman; the Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Professor of Jurisprudence; the Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke; Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, Manchester, 1900-1913; Professor H.A.L.  Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University; and Mr. Harold Cox, Editor of the “Edinburgh Review.”—­[Photos. by Beresford, Russell, Winter, and Elliott and Fry.]