by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The Statesman reported the sinking of three British cruisers by a single German U-boat. The Cressy, the Aboukir, and the Hogue. Approximately 1450 sailors were killed. The cruisers were obsolete and manned by reservists. The sinkings occurred because the commanders failed to take seriously the capabilities of submarines.

The Capital Journal  reported that German and Allied losses totaled 280,000 as the battles along the Oise, Aisne, and Meuse entered the sixteenth day. The paper reported predictions that a big battle would take place before the onset of winter weather that, according to the headline, “will end war.” Both sides remained confident.

Conditions at the front were described as “hellish” and that the sides were engaged in the fiercest fighting “in history” and that the conflict was “incessantly in progress day and night.” Troops were forced to remain in trenches half filled with water.