Just as the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 introduced the needle-gun, and the Franco-Prussian War the chassepot rifle, and the South African War was the war of the magazine rifle, so the present war will be known as the war of the automatic gun. When the German General Staff sits down to write its official history of the great war it will be able to attribute the greater part of the success that German arms may have achieved to its foresight in accumulating an immense stock of machine-guns, and in studying the whole theory and tactics of this comparatively new weapon before any other army in the world became alive to its paramount importance. The only factor that furnishes anything like a certain basis for calculation as to the date of the conclusion of the war is the number of fighting men available for each of the different belligerents. Of all the supplies required for making war, the supply of men is limited. The Germans recognized this sooner than any of their opponents. In the machine-gun they had a machine that does the work of many men. The machine-gun is the multiplication of the rifle. The Vickers gun fires up to 500 shots a minute. This is also the average performance of the German gun. To silence this multiplication of fire you must outbid it, you must beat it down with an even greater multiplication. This is where the difficulty comes in for an attacking force. The machine-gun, with its mounting and ammunition and spare parts, is neither light in weight nor inconspicuous to carry. When the infantry has rushed a trench after the preliminary bombardment the machine-guns have to be carried bodily forward over a shell and bullet swept area, where the machine-gun detachment is a familiar and unexpected target for the German marksmen. This is where the automatic rifle is destined to play a part--a part so decisive, in my opinion, as may win the war for us. The automatic rifle is a light machine-gun. In appearance it resembles an ordinary service rifle, with rather a complicated and swollen-looking magazine. It is not water-cooled like the machine-gun, but air-cooled, and is therefore not absolutely reliable for long usage, as it inevitably becomes heated after much firing. It will fire, however, up to 300-odd shots a minute, and can be regarded as the ideal weapon for beating down German machine-gun fire and checking the advance of bombers while the heavier but more reliable machine-guns are coming up. COMEDIES OF THE GREAT WAR _Tales of Humor on the Fighting Lines_ _Told by W. F. Martindale_ In the Great War, as in everything else, comedy treads hard on the heels of tragedy, and all sorts of quaint and comical things happen. Here are some little stories, from a variety of reliable sources, which will serve to show that our fighting-men, both ashore and afloat, are still able to preserve a sense of humor. Narrated in the _Wide World_. I--STORIES TOLD "ON THE SOLDIERS"