the Democratic candidate in the election which followed. Later Senator Lenroot broke with President Wilson on his peace policy, taking a stand for moderate reservations in the plan for a League
Nations. This stand was endorsed by his reelection for the regular senatorial term in 1920, when the state gave a large majority also to Harding. In the gubernatorial election of that year, the successful candidate, Mr. Elaine, represented in general the La Follette views, maintaining that the stand taken by that senator was not disloyal, but legitimate opposition. Although many regretted the necessity of fighting Germany, the number who failed to support the United States was negligible.
Gov. Phillip proved an efficient war administrator, working in harmony with the national officials and organizing extremely effective state and local machinery to handle the problems that constantly arose. The state met and exceeded every demand made upon it, for men and for money; the draft was put into operation with success; the administrative effectiveness which had been developed in the preceding 10 years was everywhere in evidence. Wisconsin troops repeated the record they had made in the Civil War. A war history commission planned to put the war record in substantial shape for the future. The Wisconsin National Guard served on the Mexican frontier, 1916-7, and was called into national service for the World War in 1917; its aggre- gate strength, Aug. 4 1917 was 15,266. The losses of troops from Wisconsin in France were given as 5,735; 71,790 were accepted at camp under the draft laws. To the five Liberty loans $471,- 194,250 was subscribed. The United War Work Campaign of 1918 produced $4,546,706. Besides this a million had been raised for the Y.M.C.A., nine millions and a quarter for the Red Cross; 8,503 French orphans were adopted, and generous con- tributions made to all causes of war aid and relief.
The governors of Wisconsin after 1911 were: F. C. McGovern, Republican, 1911-5; Emanuel Phillip, Republican, 1915-21; John J. Elaine, Republican, 1921- .
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Recent works on Wisconsin are: H. C. Camp- bell, etc., Wisconsin in Three Centuries (4 vols., 1905); E. B. Usher, Wisconsin, Its Story and Biography (8 vols., 1914); F. C. Howe, Wisconsin, an Experiment in Democracy (1912); C. McCarthy, The Wisconsin Idea (1912); J. B. Winslow, The Story of a Great Court (1912); F. Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin in the Civil War Decade (1916). (C. R. F.)
WISE, BERNHARD RINGROSE (1858-1916), Australian lawyer, was born at Sydney Feb. 10 1858, the second son of Edward Wise, Judge of the Supreme Court of N.S.W. He was educated in England at Rugby and Queen's College, Oxford, where he won the Cobden prize and was proxime for the Lothian Historial Essay, finally graduating ist-class in law. He was also a prominent athlete, and represented Oxford in the mile race against Cambridge. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple
(1883), then returned to Australia, was elected to the N.S.W.
legislature and became Attorney-General of N.S.W. 1887-8,
and Q.C. in 1898, being again Attorney-General from 1899 to
1904 and, in addition, Minister of Justice 1901-4. For part of
1903-4 he was Acting-Premier of N.S.W. He did distinguished
service to the cause of Federation but was defeated in the elec-
tions for the first Commonwealth Parliament, and his abilities
therefore were never called upon for Federal service. From 1915
until his death, Sept. 19 1916, he was acting as Agent-General
for N.S.W. in London.
WISTER, OWEN (1860- ), American writer, was born in
Philadelphia July 14 1860. He was a grandson of Frances
Anne Kemble (see 15.724). On graduating from Harvard in 1882 he intended to devote himself to music. He went abroad for study; but ill-health forced him to return to America, and he spent several years in Arizona and New Mexico. He then entered the Hazard law school, graduating in 1888, was admitted to the bar in 1889 and for two years practised law in Philadelphia.
Thereafter he gave his time to literary work. As an under-
graduate he had contributed a poem, Beethoven, to the Atlantic
Monthly in 1882. His subsequent publications include the
Modern Swiss Family Robinson (1883); The Dragon of Wantley:
His Tail (1892); Lin Mclxan (1898); The Virginian: a Horse-
man of the Plains (1902); Philosophy 4: a Story of Harvard
University (1903); Lady Baltimore (1906); The Seven Ages of
Washington: a Biography (1907); Members of the Family (1911);
The Pentecost of Calamity (1915, a condemnation of Germany for
the World War), and A Straight Deal: or the Ancient Grudge
(1920). His novels, The Virginian and Lady Baltimore in particu-
lar, established his position as one of the foremost of contem-
porary American writers. He became a member of the National
Institute of Arts and Letters and of the Societe des Gens de
Lettres de France, and in 1912 was elected a member of the
Board of Overseers of Harvard.
WITTE, SERGE JULIEVICH, COUNT (1840-1915), Russian
statesman (see 28.762), died in Petrograd March 12 1915. His diaries were posthumously published by the Soviet in Pravda in
1918, and a study of his career as Minister of Finance during
1892-1903, by D. A. Lutokhin, appeared in 1915. The Memoirs
of Count Witte, translated from the original Russian MS. and
edited by Abraham Garmolinsky, were also published in New
York and in London in 1921.
WOÈVRE, BATTLES IN THE, 1914-8.—The military impor-
tance of the great plain which separates the Metz ridges from the line of heights along the Meuse was evident as soon as the frontier of 1871 was drawn. On its N. side, a strip of bold undulating country, the axis of which may be taken as Montmédy-Thionville, skirts the Belgian and Luxemburg border, while at the S. it narrows, as the Meuse and Moselle converge toward Toul, to a blunted end facing the Haye Plateau and Toul. Along the Meuse (Verdun-Toul) and along the Moselle (Thionville-Metz)
both sides gradually crowned the heights with permanent fortifications. The plain itself, through which the frontier ran along no very well defined line, was not fortified, each side treating it as a sort of foreground or glacis. Generally speaking, this frontier line left the plain to France, but the French ground immediately
adjacent to the frontier was practically under the fire of the Metz guns. Hence the war outpost line, which was to protect the
concentration of the French main armies, was drawn well back
almost to the verge of the Meuse heights and no attempt was
made to hold the frontier region itself.
This proved, in the sequel, to be of enormous importance. For, from about the end of the igth century, vast mineral resources had been discovered in the Briey basin or Eastern Woe'vre; this lay on both sides of the frontier, and was at the outbreak of war being developed by a Franco-German syndicate^ From the military point of view a short, purely military war being in prospect no great importance was attached by the French to the evacuation of an untenable stretch of country, but when the war became a prolonged, and largely an economic, struggle, the German occupation and exploitation of the Briey area became a most important asset to the Central Powers.
Nevertheless, after the battle of the Marne and its concomitant fighting on the Meuse died away in Sept 1914, no major offensive took place in this area until the American attack of Sept. 1918. The reasons for this quiescence on the French side were not allowed to appear during the war, and are still rather obscure.
In the following article are described (i) the bitter trench-warfare fighting which without ever becoming a major offensive went on continually in 1914-5, around the salient of St. Mihiel the base of which was the Woe'vre plain and (2) the American operations, which, carried out on a large scale and without reserve, reduced the salient in two days in 1918.
(C.F.A.)
(I.) HAUTS DE MEUSE AND Woèvre, 1914-6
On Sept. 19 1914 the right wing of the French III. Army was carrying out an offensive advance from the Hauls de Meuse in the direction of Mars-la-Tour when the VIII. Corps encountered at Woe'l an advanced guard of the German army which was being led toward the Hauts de Meuse by Gen. von Strautz. Before the engagement at Woe'l had assumed any great importance it was suspended by the arrival of an order from Gen. Joffre to the effect that the VIII. Corps was to proceed immediately to Ste. Menehould, where it was to remain in general reserve. Consequently the Germans found themselves confronted only by re-
