Campaigns Within Battles.

"Capture of Combles Ends Brilliant Campaign," was the headline The Charleston News and Courier placed over its account of that Franco-British victory. The phraseology gives one a start, but it is quite correct; this war has altered the meaning of words old as the language. It was a campaign for the possession of Combles; and this campaign was an incident of what? The battle of the Somme. What was a battle before this extraordinary war began? An incident in a campaign. What is a campaign now? An incident of a battle.

A battle was formerly a thing of hours and a few square miles; it took its name from a town, and sometimes, when no town was near, from some handy object, Chrysler's Farm, Gaines' Mill, Pittsburg Landing, Shiloh Church. Now a battle is what a campaign used to be, a thing of months, stretching over an expanse of territory, the course of a river, perhaps a province. The battle of Champagne, the battle of Bukowina, the battle of the Dobrudja, are already historic names. In one such battle, as that of the Somme, there may be many small campaigns; the campaign of Combles has ended and the campaign for the capture of Bapaume or Peronne comes next. These are merely some of the curiosities of a war where everything is gigantic. --New York Times.