From that day to the signing of the armistice the initiative remained with General Foch. Up and down the long line, now here, now there; the British and Belgians on the north, the French and Americans on the south, first one, then the other, then together, the Allies drove forward with hammer blows on the yielding German armies. That subtle force, so hard to define, the morale of the invaders, was broken down. Their confidence was gone. They knew they were defeated. The one hope of their leaders was to get safely back to Germany, and soon a general retreat was in progress. But to remove armies aggregating several million men, with guns and supplies, from a contracted area, in the face of a victorious and aggressive enemy, without the retreat degenerating into a rout is almost impossible; it requires generalship of highest order. Day by day the remorseless jaws of the Allied military machine, hinged to the north of the Aisne,—British and Belgian forces on the north, French in the center, Americans on the south and east,—were closing, and when the American forces fought their way through the Argonne to Sedan (forty miles northeast of Rheims) the case was hopeless. Only the armistice saved Germany from the humiliation of a surrender, on a scale vastly greater than the surrender of the French armies near that same point in 1870.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE TEUTONIC ALLIES.
With Germany herself falling, it is not strange that the nations leagued with her also went down to defeat. They had been almost forced into the war by Germany; not one of them could carry on a war when deprived of counsel and help from Germany. Only the threat of force kept Austria in the war. As the counter-attack in France gained in force, as the retreat continued, it was recognized on all hands that the end was approaching. The will to war—the morale—was completely broken down; and so on every side the Allied forces gained great victories with surprising ease.
Bulgaria was the first nation to surrender. This was the conclusion of a succession of great victories beginning September 16, 1918, ending by the surrender ten days later. The case with Turkey was hopeless after Bulgaria fell. No reinforcements or supplies could reach them from Germany. The English forces under General Allenby were carrying everything before them. Turkey surrendered October 31, 1918. Austria-Hungary was the third power to surrender. This came as the culmination of one of the greatest drives of the war.
GREAT ITALIAN VICTORY.
In 1917—as we have seen,—Italy suffered a great reverse, losing 200,000 soldiers and immense supplies. In August, 1918, Austria renewed the attack. In his proclamation to his soldiers, the Austrian commander bade them remember "the white bread, the fat cattle, the wine" and supplies they had won the year before. Surely as great rewards awaited them this time, and learned professors assured them and the entire nation that they belonged to a "conquering superior race" and so could be confident of further victory. The drive was a "hunger offensive" on the part of hard-pressed Austria. It was a dismal failure. It is interesting to know that American airplanes, piloted by Americans, rendered great assistance in repulsing this attack. Then came the counter-attack. In this drive American forces assisted. The drive began October 27th; it was attended by a series of most astonishing victories. The drive culminated in the abject surrender of Austria, November 3, 1918. The victories can only be explained by the fact that the morale of the Austrian troops had completely broken down, more than 500,000 prisoners being taken, together with enormous supplies.
THE GERMAN ARMISTICE.
With their armies perilously near rout on the western front, with a great military disaster confronting them, with everyone of her allies forced to surrender, with revolution threatening at home, there was nothing left for Germany to do but to make the best terms possible. Their commissioners met General Foch at Senlis and the drastic armistice terms were signed at 5 o'clock, Paris time, the morning of November 11, 1918, and the last shots in the war were fired at 11 o'clock, that forenoon, Paris time. The war had lasted (from the date of the declaration of war on Serbia) four years, three months and thirteen days. On subsequent pages we shall consider more in detail this skeletonized story, study the enormous political, geographic and economic changes it has necessitated, and mentally view the new age in history at hand.
PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON.
President Wilson's latest photograph.