ines at Verdun continued with the utmost
vigor up to June 10. From time to time they resulted in small successes,
gained at immense cost in human life. From May 27 to May 30 the battle
raged with especial severity, this period marking the greatest effort
made by the Germans during the whole of the prolonged operations at
Verdun. The French stood firm under an avalanche of shot and shell, and
drove back wave after wave of a tremendous flood of Teutonic infantry.
The infantry fighting in this struggle was described as the fiercest of
the war.

The total German casualties up to June 1 were estimated at nearly
3,000,000; the French at 2,500,000, and the British at 600,000, over
25,000 of the latter being commissioned officers.

General Joseph S. Gallieni, former minister of war of France, died at
Versailles on May 27, universally mourned by the French, who regarded
him as the saviour of Paris in the critical days of August-September,
1914, when he was military governor of Paris and commander of the
intrenched camp.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE WORLD'S GREATEST SEA FIGHT.

_British and German High-Sea Fleets Finally Clash in the
North Sea--Huge Losses in Tonnage and Men on
Both Sides--_British Navy Remains in Control of the
Sea._

After many months of unceasing sea patrol on the part of the British,
and of diligent preparation in port on the German side, it came at
last--the long-expected clash of mighty rival fleets in the North Sea.

It was on the misty afternoon of Wednesday, May 31, that Admiral David
Beatty, in command of Britain's battle-cruiser squadron, sighted the
vanguard of the German high-seas fleet steaming "on an enterprise to the
north" from its long-accustomed anchorages in the placid waters of the
Kiel Canal and under the guns of Helgoland.

The British battleship fleet was far away to the northwest, but the
wireless promptly flashed the signal, "Enemy in sight," and as the
battle-cruisers raced to close quarters with the tardy foe, and
sacrificed themselves in the effort to hold him in the open sea, down
from the north rushed the leviathans of the Mistress of the Seas, that
were counted on to crush the enemy when the opportunity came.

But the early stages of the fight found the British battling against
odds. Germany's mightiest warcraft were in the shadows of the mist,
behind the cruiser scouts; destroyers swarmed around them, submarines
appeared from the depths, and Zeppelins hovered over