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._] __________________________________________________________________________ 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. __________________________________________________________________________ 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 illustration on this page is a design for a battle-ship made by the Kaiser in 1893, to replace the old "Preussen," then out of date. The vessel was to carry four large barbettes and a huge umbrella-like fighting-top. Illustration No. 2 is an Immersible Ironclad, designed by a French engineer named Le Grand, in 1862. In action the vessel was to be partly submerged, so that only her three turrets and the top of the armoured glacis would be visible. No. 3 is Admiral Elliott's "Ram," of 1884. The ship was to carry a "crinoline" of stanchions along her water-line, practically a fixed torpedo-net. No. 4 is Thomas Cornish's Invulnerable Ironclad, of 1885. She was to have two separate parallel hulls under water; above she was of turtle-back shape.