October, 1918.
THE growing crescendo of success has reached its climax in this, the most wonderful month of our annus mirabilis. Every day brings tidings of a new victory. St. Quentin, Cambrai, and Laon had all been recaptured in the first fortnight. On the 17th Ostend, Lille, and Douai were regained, Bruges was reoccupied on the 19th, and by the 20th the Belgian Army under King Albert, reinforced by the French and Americans, and with the Second British Army under General Plumer on the right, had compelled the Germans to evacuate the whole coast of Flanders. The Battle of Liberation, which began on the Marne in July, is now waged uninterruptedly from the Meuse to the sea. Only in Lorraine has the advance of the American Army been held up by the difficulties of the terrain and the exceptionally stubborn resistance of the Germans.
Elsewhere the "war of movement " has gone on with unrelenting energy according to Foch's plan, which suggests a revision of Pope:
Great Foch's law is by this rule exprest,
Prevent the coming, speed the parting pest.
The German, true to his character of the world's worst loser and winner, leaves behind him all manner of booby-traps, some puerile, many diabolical, which give our sappers plenty of work, cause a good many casualties, and only confirm the resolve of the victors.
According to a German paper--the Rhenish Westphalian Gazette--ex-criminals are being drafted into the German Army. But the Allies propose to treat them without invidious distinction. The Crown Prince recently observed that he had "many friends in the Entente countries"; as a matter of fact, we seem to be getting them at the rate of about twenty-five thousand a week. The criminals in the German Navy have again been busy, adding to their previous exploits the sinking of the passenger steamer Leinster, in the Irish Channel, with heavy loss of life, the worst disaster of the kind since the torpedoing of the Lusitania. Yet it is Germany that is the sinking ship. Ferdinand of Bulgaria has joined the League of Abdication, and according to a Sofia telegram, will devote himself to scientific pursuits. His only regret is that the Allies thought of it first. Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse says that his accession to the throne of Finland will not take place for two years, and for the first time since his emergence into publicity we find ourselves in agreement with this monarch-elect. Ludendorff has resigned. Austria is suing for peace; Count Tisza asks: "Why not admit frankly that we have lost the War?" The Italians have crossed the Piave, and the Serbians have reached the Danube. Turkey has been granted an armistice, and with the daily victories of the Allies comes the daily report that the Kaiser has abdicated.
SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN
MARSHAL FOCH (to Messrs. Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd George): "If you're going up that road, gentlemen, look out for booby-traps."
Prince Max of Baden, the successor of Hertling in the Chancellorship, whose appointment hardly bears out the promise of popular government, has issued a pacific Manifesto which inspires an "Epitaph in anticipation":