November, 1918.
The end has come with a swiftness that has outdone the hopes of the most sanguine optimists. In the first eleven days of November we have seen history in the making on a larger scale and with larger possibilities than at any time since the age of Napoleon, perhaps since the world began.
VICTORY!
To take the chief events in order, the Versailles Conference opened on the 1st; on the 3rd Austria gave in and the resolve of the German Naval High Command to challenge the Grand Fleet in the North Sea was paralysed by the mutiny at Kiel; on the 5th the Versailles Conference gave full powers to Marshal Foch to arrange the terms of an armistice, and President Wilson addressed the last of his Notes to Germany; on the 6th the American Army reached Sedan; on the 9th Marshal Foch received Erzberger and the other German Envoys, the Berlin Revolution broke out, and the Kaiser abdicated; on the 10th the Kaiser fled to Holland, and the British reached Mons. The wheel had come full circle. The Belgian, British, French, and American Armies now formed a semi-circle from Ghent to Sedan, and threatened to surround the German Armies already in retreat and crowded into the narrow valley of the Meuse. Everything was ready for Foch's final attack; indeed, he was on the point of attacking when the Germans, recognising that they were faced with the prospect of a Sedan ten times greater than that of 1870, signed on November 11 an armistice which was equivalent to a military capitulation, and gave Marshal Foch all that he wanted without the heavy losses which further fighting would have undoubtedly involved. He had shown himself the greatest military genius of the War. Here, in the words of one of his former colleagues at the Ecole de Guerre, he proved himself free from the stains which have so often tarnished great leaders in war, the lust of conquest and personal ambition. Not only the Allies, but the whole world owes an incalculable debt to this soldier of justice, compact of reason and faith, imperturbable in adversity, self-effacing in the hour of victory. Glorious also is the record of the other French Generals: the strong-souled Pétain, hero of Verdun; the heroic Maunoury; Castlenau and Mangin, Gouraud, Debeney, and Franchet d'Esperey, Captains Courageous, worthy of France, her cause, and her indomitable poilus. In the record of acknowledgment France stands first since her sacrifices and losses have been heaviest, and she gave us in Foch the chief organiser of victory, in Clemenceau the most inspiring example of intrepid statesmanship. But the War could not have been won without England and the Empire; without the ceaseless vigil in the North Sea; without the heroes of Jutland and Coronel, of the Falkland Isles and Zeebrugge, of the Fleets behind the Fleet; without the services of Smith-Dorrien at Mons, French at Ypres; without the dogged endurance, the inflexible will and the self-sacrificing loyalty of Haig; the dash of Maude and Allenby; the steadfast leadership in defence and offence of Plumer and Byng, Horne and Rawlinson and Birdwood.
