Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/502

WOBIiD WAB 432 WORLD WAB iorces were thereupon mobilized. This step followed the King's refusal to recognize the results of the elections, which were overwhelmingly in favor of Venizelos' pro-Ally policy. The royal army became more than ever a menace, and in November the Allies through the French Admiral Fournier demanded that it surrender all arms and munitions and guns except 50,000 rifles. The de- mand was refused, whereupon French troops were landed at Pirasus. The Royal Palace was bombarded, and there was serious fighting, pro-Ally Greeks siding with the French, and an Allied blockade on all Greek shipping was declared. Finally Greece on December 16 unre- servedly accepted the conditions of the Allies. A new turn had been given to the Balkan situation by the entrance of Ru- mania into the war in August, 1916, on the side of the Allies. It seemed to promise the discomfiture of the Bul- garians, for while they were covering an enemy on the S., they would have an- other foe on the N. As events turned out, however, Rumania devoted her main attention to the Austrians instead of protecting her Bulgarian front, and in that way brought about her own undo- ing. She promptly invaded the Austrian territory of Transylvania from her N. and W. frontiers, her first thought being to secure an area she claimed because of its Rumanian population. Marked head- way was made in this adventure, the Austrian resistance being feeble. But from her S. E. front the way was open to Bulgarian and German attacks, Ber- lin having hastily sent heavy re-enforce- ments under Von Mackensen there through the Balkan "corridor" which had been opened by the possession of Serbia. On September 2, Von Macken- sen's legions drove into Dobrudja, along Rumania's Black Sea coast, and cap- tured important Danube bridges which formed lines of communication with Rumania across that river. Though aided by Russians, the Rumanians had to fall back to the N, But while they were suffering defeats to the E., their forces m Transylvania continued to gain agamst the Austrians. Their triumphs were short-lived, the situation there com- pletely changing with the arrival of strong German forces under Von Fal- kenhayn to assist the Austrians. The Rumanians were driven out of Tran- sylvania through the mountain passes mto their own territory, which was in turn invaded by the Austro-Germans. Then began the squeezing process. With Von Falkenhayn on one side and Von Mackensen on the other applying the pinchers, Rumania was methodically and ruthlessly overrun, the combined inva- sion reaching its high mark on December 2 with the capture of the capital, Bucha- rest. Its fall was followed by the sub- jugation of more than half of Rumania, who thereafter was practically out of the war. In a year of lengthened battles on long fronts extending over many weeks of time, the most striking and briefest was fought at sea. This was the great clash between the British and German fleets on the North Sea off Jutland on May 31, 1916. On that day the German fleet emerged from the fortifications and mine fields of the Helgoland Bight that protected its haven and steamed out "on a mission to the northward." Two days previously, on May 29 and 30, British wireless messages from North Sea sta- tions told the Admiralty in London of certain radio signals proceeding from the flagship of the German Admiral Von Scheer in Wilhelmshaven. The signals were picked up by directional wireless, which enabled the distance from which they came to be gauged, a discovery that proved to be of the greatest importance. Their significance consisted in the indi- cation that the signalling on May 29 showed that the German flagship was in the inner harbor of Wilhelmshaven, and that on May 30 the vessel had moved to the outer harbor. Deducing therefrom that some naval movement of the enemy was afoot, the British Admiralty the day before the German fleet sailed ordered Admiral Jellicoe to proceed to sea with the Grand Fleet from its anchorage on the Scottish coast. What the real ob- ject of the Germans was in venturing out was not known. One theory was that Germany sought to force a passage for her battle cruisers through the channel between Scotland and Norway into the open sea, so that they could prey upon transatlantic traffic and cripple British industries and food supplies. Another supposition was that the Germans con- templated an escape to the open sea, not for the fleet itself, but for a number of fast armed cruisers to raid British trade routes everywhere and supplement the destructive work of the submarines in sinking merchantmen. What only was clear was that the German fleet never left the North Sea, and that its plans were balked by meeting the British fleet, the result of which encounter sent the Germans back to port within thirty-six hours after leaving it, and there it re- mained, inactive and useless, for the re- mainder of the war. The main British fighting squadrons, composed of dreadnoughts, was under