, it is interesting to recall, were

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THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914--[Part 21]--37

[Illustration: RUSSIAN INFANTRY SMASHING A GERMAN NIGHT-ATTACK IN MASSED
COLUMNS, IN A BATTLE ON THE VISTULA.]

exactly the same as those with which, as our own officers and men have
described in letters home, Sir John French's battalions in every case so
effectively shattered the German efforts at breaking through the British
during the retreat after Mons. The Russians, it is stated, invariably
allowed the Germans to come in to well within point-blank range, remaining
silent, holding their fire and not showing a light meanwhile. Then, as the
enemy got within point-blank range, searchlights were suddenly switched on
and a ceaseless fusillade of Maxim and rifle-fire from the Russians
literally mowed the Germans down by hundreds, breaking up their masses and
paralysing the attack. Our illustration shows one of the combats just at
the critical moment.--[_Drawn by Frederic de Haenen._]

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38--THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914.--[Part 21]

[Illustration: SHIPS THE BRITISH NAVY MIGHT HAVE HAD! FREAKS OF MARINE
ARCHITECTURE THAT HAVE NOT BEEN OFFICIALLY ADOPTED.]

We illustrate here and on the page opposite some curious designs for
war-ships by various inventors. No. 1 is McDougal's Armoured Whale-back,
with conning-towers, a design of 1892 for converting whalebacks into
war-vessels. No. 2 is an American design of 1892, Commodore Folger's
Dynamite Ram, cigar-shaped, with two guns throwing masses of dynamite or
aerial torpedoes. No. 3 is a design by the Earl of Mayo in 1894 and called
"Aries the Ram," built round an immense beam of steel terminating in a
sharp point, No. 4 is Gathmann's boat for a heavy gun forward, designed in
1900. She was to be of great speed, and the forward gun was to throw 600
lb. of gun-cotton at the rate of 2000 feet per second. A formidable Armada
this, had it been practicable.

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THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914--[Part 21]--39

[Illustration: SHIPS THE BRITISH, AND THE GERMAN, NAVY MIGHT HAVE HAD!
DESIGNS BY THE KAISER AND OTHER NAVAL THEORISTS.]

The first