TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES OF BATTLE.
At this point try to realize what these statements imply. We do not grasp their meaning. A battle front of two hundred and fifty miles! And along that line at least ten million men were facing each other with other millions in reserve. Trench lines were strung along most of the front. Not simply one line of trenches, but several, with connecting trenches, the opposing lines being at places only a few hundred yards apart. As the struggle continued, however, it became more and more a war in the open.
This series of struggles are undoubtedly the greatest exertion of military power in the history of the world. Never before had such masses of munitions been used; never before had scientific knowledge been so drawn on in the service of war. Thousands of airplanes were patrolling the air, sometimes scouting, sometimes dropping bombs on hostile troops or on hostile stores, sometimes flying low, firing their machine guns into the faces of marching troops. Thousands upon thousands of great guns were sending enormous projectiles, which made great pits wherever they fell. Swarms of machine guns were pouring their bullets like water from a hose upon charging soldiers. It was an inferno such as Dante never dreamed of. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of history of which we have heard—all put together,—were exceeded day after day in the summer of 1918 when Germany was making her last desperate effort. Thus for weeks the red tide of war ebbed and flowed, while civilization trembled in the balance.
UNIFIED COMMAND.
It was clearly seen by the Allied leaders that appointing a generalissimo to command all their forces was a necessity. This command was given to General Ferdinand Foch, who had won fame in the battle of the Marne and who was recognized as one of the greatest strategists of the day. Events soon demonstrated the wisdom of this step. No general ever commanded such armies as he. Napoleon, Von Moltke, Grant and Lee were great generals, but everything connected with this war was on a scale never before approached, and we can say that the qualities of leadership displayed by Marshal Foch were necessarily on a higher plane of action—and we can say this without in the least detracting from the just fame of other Allied commanders—as Pershing, Haig, Allenby, Diaz and others. When the war opened, Germany had much to say about her unconquerable army; her generals were supposed to be superior in a military way to any others. The war showed that other soldiers were just as brave, other generals just as able. The fetish of German military invincibility was early overthrown.
AMERICAN ASSISTANCE.
No American can read the story of the part America took in the war without experiencing a glow of patriotic feeling. Every Allied nation can say the same thing. We came late into the struggle, but no nation in history ever made such wonderful preparation for war as did our country in the eighteen months that elapsed from the declaration of war to the signing of the armistice. Our preparations in France, representing only a part of our total effort, were on such an enormous scale, that neutral nations—as Sweden and Spain—sent trusted officials to investigate if it were possibly true that America was making such colossal preparations; could it be that men by the hundreds of thousands were disembarking on European soil every week? Were such forces drilled? Were supplies sent them? It was almost unbelievable. Surely, it must be American brag. They came, they saw, they departed convinced but in bewildered wonderment. It was the slowly growing realization of what this preparation meant that spurred Germany on during the early summer of 1918. But it was too late. Already the handwriting of defeat was outlining in letters of fire on the wall.
AGAIN THE MARNE.
May 27, 1918, the Germans opened a drive towards Paris. It resulted in a deep bulge in the line from Rheims west to Soissons, once more the German line in that section had reached the Marne. It was a time of great anxiety in the Allied world. The German tide was rolling on about seven miles a day toward Paris about fifty miles distant to the southwest. The German commanders felt sure of success and were talking about the "strong German peace" they would enforce. The war minister assured the Reichstag that they must exact at least $50,000,000,000 as indemnity, while their economic writers devised an elaborate plan whereby all the trade of the world was to pay tribute to Germany. It was another case of "Thus far and no farther."