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Rh siege material included at first no calibres above 15 cm. It was only after two months of the attack that 28-cm. mortars were brought up. Of these the Japanese brought 18 pieces into action, and their projectiles broke through the i -metre concrete of the permanent forts. But even so the artillery played a secondary role. Under these conditions the moral of the defence was bound to be excellent, and the fortress was taken by Nogi only after sapping, mining and very heavy sacrifice of life.

At Verdun the Germans used the same calibres and somewhat the same methods of attack as at Antwerp. The bombardment was to annihilate the defence, the infantry to reap the results of the bombardment, and in fact the progress made during the first days was considerable. If they failed in their under- taking it was because the French promptly brought up a great quantity of artillery and established a regular system of reliefs for the troops in line 1 ; because the broken ground on the banks of the Meuse was favourable to the defence; because the forts had been strengthened by reinforced concrete (some of them, notably Fort Vacherauville, were entirely of reinforced con- crete), and because the nature of the soil allowed the garrison to dig themselves into shelters, proof against even the 42-cm., right under the concrete masses of the forts.

In contrast to these conditions the fortress of Antwerp was built on a uniformly flat site, with water only three feet below the surface. This made it necessary to build all the fortifications above ground and to forego the advantage of deep shelter. The forts were of simple concrete, proof to 2i-cm. shells at most. The whole Belgian army was in the line from the outset without hope of reinforcements, fresh artillery, or felief. Added to this, the army, which had at all costs to avoid being surrounded in the fortress, had a vulnerable flank.

It will be seen, therefore, that Antwerp, Port Arthur and Verdun represent three absolutely distinct military situations.

German Occupation: Reconstruction of the Fortress. Once masters of Liege and Namur, the Germans had lost no time in repairing all the works. They restored the concreted works to their original thick- ness and filled up all fissures and craters. At Namur most of the cupolas were replaced, but at Liege on the contrary they removed all guns and even numerous armour parts, and proceeded to organize the forts exclusively for infantry and machine-guns. The mechan- ical and telephonic, installations and the ventilation system were improved. 2 Door and window apertures were made smaller and a great number of the latter walled up.

At Antwerp, as at Liege, the Germans converted the forts into infantry works in accordance with the principles already applied at Metz. They restored the earthworks of the forts, but did not as a rule reconstruct the chambers destroyed by bombardment. Chambers not taken into use were walled up. In the intervals they main- tained only the western and northern fronts. On the west front (Blaesveld-Bornhem and the left bank of the Scheldt) the existing trenches were consolidated and formed into two lines joining the gorges of the permanent works. A considerable number of small con- crete shelters also were built here for machine-guns or observers, and some for flanking guns. On the north front, facing Holland, from the Lower Scheldt to Fort Schooten, the Germans took pains to maintain in good order the old permanent forts and the interval trenches. The latter were made into a continuous system, generally double, with communication trenches, and concrete shelters and posts. In front were two continuous belts of wire. The flanking was ensured by the traditore batteries of the repaired works and by concrete machine-gun emplacements. This line was prolonged by an analogous organization, facing north, all along the Turnhout canal up to and including that town.

The defence system of the river as organized by the Germans consisted of the following elements (all save the last-named on the right bank) : Santvliet gun-spur (four emplacements for railway guns on pivot platforms, two for 28-cm. guns, two for two ly-cm. guns paired ; near the platforms were reinforced concrete shelters for ammuni- tion and personnel) ; Blauwgaren battery (four 12-cm. guns in separate reinforced concrete shelters) ; Lillo battery (four 15-cm. guns without overhead protection) ; Liefkenshoek battery (two 12-cm. guns in con- crete shelters) ; Ste. Marie battery (six 24-cm. guns in casemates).

1 On Feb. 21 1916 there were in the Verdun system II divisions. By July I, 545 other divisions had done duty in the line, making a total of 653. Of this total on an average about 27 were present at any one time. (C. F. A.)

1 Belgian and German accounts of the siege of Antwerp concur in noting the inadequate ventilation of the forts and the effects of this on their resisting power. (C. F. A.)

To sum up, the Germans in restoring the fortress of Antwerp treated the permanent works on the principles applied at Metz, and the intervals as if they formed part of an army front.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Belgian official account of the operations of 1914 appears in instalments in the Bulletin Beige des Sciences Mili- taires. An official German account (Antwerpen 1914) by E. V. Tschi- schwitz, senior general staff officer III. Reserve Corps at the siege, was published in 1921 at Oldenburg. For the British part the official naval history by Sir I ulian Corbett should be consulted.

(R. VAN O.)

AOSTA, DUKE OF (EMANUELE FILIBERTO) (1860- ), Italian general, was born Jan. 13 1869, the eldest son of Prince Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta (see 1.804), and Maria Vittoria, Princess of Pozzo della Cisterna (1847-1876). In 1895 he married Princess Helene of Orleans, daughter of the Comte de Paris. Devoting himself seriously to the military career, he in due course commanded the ist Div. at Turin and the X. Army Corps at Naples. A very serious illness caused a break in his career, and on the eve of Italy's entry into the World War he was still on the reserve list. Following upon the clash between Cadorna and General Zuccari, who had been appointed to the command of the Third Army, the duke was chosen to succeed the latter, and he retained this post throughout the war. The duke's command of the Third Army was conspicuously successful. His task was thankless, for the duty of his army was to hammer against the iron ramparts of the Carso. Various notable successes were won, though the territorial gains were very limited, and in the process of wearing down the enemy the Third Army played a great part. The duke's rank possibly told against him to begin with; but the qualities which he showed speedily made it clear that he was no figurehead, and that he held his command by merit. In the end the fact of his being a royal prince was only a help to the position he had established for himself, for it put him outside the field of ordinary jealousies. He had the invaluable faculty of establishing harmony and a spirit of cooperation among his subordinates, and he won a great popularity among the troops, for whose welfare he did all that lay in his power. His qualities as a leader were so highly estimated that he would probably have been chosen to succeed Cadorna if it had not been thought unwise to place upon a royal prince the responsibility of so grave a moment.

The Duchess of Aosta served throughout the war as inspectress- general of Red Cross nurses. In spite of delicate health, she rose superior to continuous fatigue and frequent hardship, and the award to her of the silver medal for valour was no mere compli- ment. Their two sons Amedeo, Duke of Apulia (b. 1898), and Aimone, Duke of Spoleto (b. 1900), both served in the war.

APPONYI, ALBERT, COUNT (1846- ), Hungarian states- man (see 2.226), was from 1906 to 1910 Minister of Education in the Wekerle Cabinet. In consequence of Francis Kossuth's illness Apponyi undertook the greater part of his business as president of the party of Hungarian Independence, calling itself the party of 1848. In the message sent to the party just before his death Kossuth designated him as his most suitable successor. At the outbreak of the World War he adopted in Parliament the standpoint of a " truce of God." Together with Count Julius Andrassy and Rakovszky, Apponyi was from July 6 to Aug. 25 1916 a member of the commission estab- lished by the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies to watch over the conduct of foreign policy. In internal affairs Apponyi fought for universal suffrage. After the outbreak of the Octo- ber revolution of 1918 he retired for a time into private life. In 1919 he was elected as a non-party deputy to the National Assembly, and was head of the Hungarian peace delegation in Paris. He became a member of the League of Nations Union, and as a politician standing outside party was in 1921 perhaps the most influential man in Hungarian politics.

His published works include: Recollections of a Statesman (1912); Die rechtliche Natur der Beziehungen zwischen Oesterreich und Un- garn in the Oesterreichische Rundschau (vol. xxviii) ; and in Hun- garian Hungary in the World's Press (1915).

ARABIA (see 2.254). The political frontier of Arabia on the N. was indeterminate in 1921 except in so far as the boundaries between Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, as laid down in the