eilerkopf, a dominating peak in southern Alsace,
overlooking the roads leading to the Rhine. For eight months they had
fought for the position, and thousands of lives were sacrificed by the
attackers and the defenders. The Germans succeeded in recovering part
of the ground next day. The French took 1,300 prisoners in the
capture, and the Germans claimed 1,553 prisoners in the recapture.
Fighting continued around the spot for months.

Christmas passed with no break in the hostilities and no material
change in the situation on the western front. The year 1915 closed, in
a military sense, less favorably for the Allies than it began. Only a
few square miles had been reconquered in the west at a heavy
sacrifice; Italy had made little progress; the Dardanelles expedition
had proved a failure; the British had not reached Bagdad nor attained
their aim in Greece; while Russia had lost nearly all Galicia, with
Poland and Courland as well, and the Serbian army had been practically
eliminated. On the other hand, the Allies had maintained supremacy on
the seas, had captured all but one of the German colonies, and still
held all German sea-borne trade in a vise of steel. Not one of the
armies of the Allies other than that of Serbia had been struck down;
each of them was hard at work raising new armies and developing the
supply of munitions. The spirit of all the warring peoples, without
exception, appeared to be that of a grim, unbending determination.
Germany, with a large proportion of her able-bodied manhood disposed
of and her trade with the outer world cut off, was perhaps in greater
straits than a superficial examination of her military successes
showed. The care with which the Germans economized their supplies of
men, and made the fullest possible use in the field of men who were
not physically fit for actual military service, was illustrated by the
creation of some new formations called Armierungsbattalionen. These
battalions, of which, it was said, no full description would be
published before the end of the war, consisted of all sorts of men
with slight physical defects, underofficers and noncommissioned
officers who were either too old for service or had been invalided.
Their duty was to relieve the soldiers of as much work as possible.
They were employed in roadmaking and in transporting munitions and
supplies in difficult country--for example, in the Vosges Mountains.
Most of these men--and there were many thousands of t