WHEN THE DAYS OF RECKONING DAWNED

American Troops on All Fronts—Changes Come Fast and Furious—First Hun Cry for Peace—Virtue, Vice and Violence—Austria Surrenders—Opens Up the Dardanelles—Closing Days of Hohenzollern Reign—Killing of Tisza—Terms Prepared for Germany— Armistice Signed by Germany.

AMERICAN TROOPS ON ALL FRONTS

The collapse of Russia in 1917 had released vast bodies of German troops for service in France, but the calamities that overtook them on the French front were so destructive that insufficient man power was left to take care of the southeastern fronts, so that Serbia was enabled to institute a new offensive, and with the aid of Greece, in a few days cut Bulgaria out of the German horde, pressed forward in Serbia, and pushed ahead through the Balkan regions. Meanwhile American strength was greatly augumented in the west and at the same time American troops appeared on the Murman coast in the north and Siberia on the Pacific east, on the Piave front in Italy, and at every other point where hostile strength was greatest or strategic advantage was to be gained by their presence.

Concurrently, the United States navy swept the western seas of Europe free of German submarines. Our naval forces were combined with those of Great Britain as the sea arm of a united command, under the joint name of the Grand Fleet; and American troop ships landed newly trained American soldiers in France at the average number of about 250,000 a month—over 2,200,000 in little more than a year; at the same time helping to reopen in safety the lanes of ocean commerce by which the trade of our European allies was fully restored, German ports corked tight, and Germany thereby thrown back absolutely upon her own interior resources. Out of this vigorous and abundant American action emerged the conditions that insured a "Peace of Justice."

These things were the quick work of the latter part of 1917 and the campaigns of 1918. The achievement was gigantic, but it had no effect in taking attention or diverting action from those movements that offered at once an advantage to our common cause, while disintegrating the hoary tyrannies of Central and Eastern Europe.

CHANGES COME FAST AND FURIOUS

Events in the field reacted with powerful effect upon autocratic Austria. The Austrian throne was built upon the backs of vassal states, all of which had yielded thousands of emigrants to this country; and these transplanted peoples, having found freedom, proceeded to incite the countries of their origin to throw off their burdens and like Americans, be free to govern themselves.

The moment had come for Bohemia, Poland, and all Czecho-Slav and Jugo-Slav peoples to rise. The United States Government, in full sympathy with their yearnings, had received their representatives at Washington, had furnished funds as well as moral support to their provisional governments, had supported an independent Czecho-Slav army in Russia with American reinforcements, with clothing, arms, munitions, and supplies, and now, at exactly the right juncture, in August, 1918, recognized the Czecho-Slav as a cobelligerent power lawfully at war against the central empires.

FERDINAND FALLS FROM THE WAR WAGON

This was the push that brought the break. Germany still had her armies intact on the soil of other countries, and was a consolidated force, tired though not beaten. But the fat and filthy "Czar" Ferdinand of Bulgaria sat in voluntary exile, eating like bread the ashes of repentance, and mingling his drink with weeping; so that his country, yellow at best, and frightened by the fear of being done to as it had done by Serbia, quit abruptly, without shame, almost without firing a shot. With that defection the last wisp of Germany's long cherished dream of a boche Middle-Europe and a boche empire stretching from Berlin to Bagdad, faded forever. In October, 1918, Austria consented to a reconstituted independent Bohemian state, and with apparent readiness granted self-government to Hungary.

Meantime, in September and October, 1918, the American and allied armies chased the Germans from the coast and far into the interior of Belgium, the Belgian army, financed by the United States, taking part in that operation. Town after town, city after city in Belgium and France fell to the American and allied forces, so that the German government (October 27) addressed a note to the President of the United States asking him to intercede with our allies for an armistice and a conference for discussion of terms of peace. This led to four exchanges of notes, in which Germany's expressions were specious, and assumed a right to negotiate. The last of these notes was submitted by President Wilson to the allied council at Paris; and the council answered by referring the whole question of armistice to Marshal Foch and the allied military chiefs.

THE "CROOKED KAMERAD"

In those same months of September and October, 1918, Austria and Turkey made proffers of separate surrender. This was the logical sequence of a "crooked kamerad" peace-offensive inaugurated by Germany as soon as she found herself being rolled, helplessly, toward the Rhine. It was at once the most vicious game that her genius for the vicious had ever prompted, and it was put forward at the very time when the fourth liberty loan was in course of being floated.

Our soldiers on all fronts had often suffered through a trick of false surrender by German soldiers. It is best described by one of our boys who was lying on a table in a base hospital, waiting his turn to be operated upon, when he heard another who was being wheeled out from the operating room and was muttering through the ether fumes:

"Fired at me ten feet away, he did, point blank, and then he dropped his rifle and stuck up his hands and called me 'Kamerad'! Kamerad, the dirty crook! Didn't I stick 'im pritty, Bill"!

It had been a common thing on the western front for a group of boches to come running toward the American lines unarmed, with their hands in the air, crying "Kamerad! Kamerad!" And then, when our men went out to receive them, fall flat, to make way for a force of armed boches immediately behind them, who opened fire—plain murder as ever was done.

So it was a crooked Kamerad cry, a peace offensive intended to sing us to sleep, that Germany launched in September, 1918. Of a sudden, our newspapers were filled with what appeared to be straight news dispatches dated at Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, Paris, Geneva, and even Berlin, telling tales (that were not so) of starvation and disaffection in Germany, or broken morale in the German armies, and riotous demonstrations demanding peace. The impression was immediate and came near to being disastrous.

Many urgent requests were being made just then for public help from America. The gigantic fourth loan, the needs of the Red Cross, the thousand and one things, big and little, that had to be taken care of, and the very earnest and pressing call for a sharper realization of war's awful facts, were being driven with might and main, all over the land; and all was going well.

Within three days, before even the Associated Press discovered the fraud, these outrageous German lies had taken effect. Subscriptions to the loan began to slacken, alarmingly. Interest in the battle news began to fade. People were telling each other the war was over.

PRINCE MAX WRITES A NOTE

Then on October 6th, 1918, came the note of the German Chancellor, Prince Maximilian of Baden, asking an armistice and a peace conference—in essence, an astounding request for time to reconsolidate the German armies and bring up fresh guns and munitions. America might have been fooled into a frightful error if the great war-organizations had not come forward with a roaring counterblast. The peace offensive failed. More than that, the people resented it in a prompt and highly practical way. They oversubscribed the six billion loan. Most of them, especially the smaller subscribers, doubled their subscriptions in the last two days of the time allotted for the flotation. October 7th, President Wilson answered Prince Max's request with a refusal.

But it was a fortunate thing for the allied cause that the peace offensive was made, for its one effect was to create a profound distrust of all war news coming out of Amsterdam or Copenhagen. It revealed the fact that Berlin had been closely censoring all news dispatches that assumed to disclose the state of affairs in the central empires; censoring them rigorously, and inventing most of them. Germany had not yet learned that lies would not win the war; but the rest of the world had learned that Germany, as a liar, was so supernally endowed that her feeblest efforts in that domain would have made Ananias, Baron Munchausen, and Joe Mulhatton look like a trio of supersaints, choking with truth.

FIRST HUN CRY FOR PEACE

Germany's definite turn toward peace came in October, 1918, in the form of further and very awkward notes written by Prince Maximilian of Baden, the German Chancellor, and Doctor Solf, German Minister of foreign affairs. While the first of these notes was coming along, the Leinster was sunk by a German submarine on the Irish coast. The Leinster was a passenger ship, employed in regular service on a long ferriage. She had a full passenger list, nearly 400 people, peaceable folk all, just about such as may be found any day aboard a Staten Island ferry boat. It was not in any sense an act of war, but mere and open piracy, killing for the love of killing. It was one of the most horrible acts in a long, long list of horrors for which Germany has learned she must account in the long reckoning she has been forced to face.

VIRTUE, VICE AND VIOLENCE

At the same time, strangely contrasting with the virtuous attitude assumed in the notes, towns and cities in France and Belgium were being blown up before evacuation by the Germans, their men were being marched away to slavery in Germany, their women and young girls assigned as "orderlies" in the service of German officers—such "orderlies" as Turkey buys and sells for its harems. The contrast between German professions of virtue and German bestiality of act was ghastly. It is hard to believe that such things could happen between earth and sky, and they who did them still live; yet the things, hypocritical on one side and sickeningly horrible on the other, were actually done.

RESULTS OF A FEW BUSY MONTHS

Between the day when that little group of Americans stopped the hordes of hell at Chateau Thierry, and Germany's acceptance of the American and allied armistice terms, these other and happier things had come to pass.

Bulgaria had been forced to quit. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey sued for peace. Turkey's military power was broken in Asia Minor, Germany undertook the greatest retreat in history, and these countries and Austria-Hungary were suffering from serious internal dissensions.

The allies took about half a million prisoners and some 4,000 cannon. They destroyed more than 300 airplanes and 100 balloons. They recovered more than 7,000 square miles of territory in France and Belgium, 20, square miles in Serbia, Albania and Montenegro, and 15,000 square miles in Asia Minor.

In France, the cities of Lille, Turcoing, Roubaix, Douai, Lens, Cambrai, St. Quentin, Peronne, Laon, Soissons, Noyon, La Bassee, Bapaume, St. Mihiel, Chateau Thierry, Grand Pre, Soissons, Vouziers, LaFere, LeCateau, Juniville, Craonne, and Machault were reoccupied. Valenciennes fell to the British. Reims and Verdun were freed, after four years' artillery domination.

The St. Mihiel salient was wiped out by Pershing's American army, the great St. Gobain massif recovered, the Hindenburg line and lesser defensive systems shattered, and the Argonne massif won.

The Belgian Coast was cleared of the enemy and the Belgian cities of Bruges, Ostend, Zeebrugge, Roulers, Courtrai, Ghent, Audenarde, and Tournai were recaptured.

The allied advance in France was about fifty miles eastward from Villers-Bretonneaux, near Amiens, and nearly the same distance northward from Chateau Thierry. In Belgium, the allies had progressed about forty miles eastward from Nieuport.

Three-fourths of Serbia, four-fifths of Albania, and a large slice of Montenegro were repatriated.

The allied advance covered more than 200 miles northward to Negotin, on the Danube, within twenty-two miles of Hungarian Territory.

The British in Asia Minor advanced over 350 miles and took Aleppo, possession of which gave them the key to Constantinople from the south.

The British expedition in Mesopotamia began an operation designed to capture Mosul and open the way to the eastern terminus of the proposed Berlin-to-Bagdad railway, which ends at Nesibin.

In Russia the allies advanced 275 miles up the Dwina river and penetrated about 350 miles southward from the Murman coast. They also pushed 600 miles inland from Vladivostok.

OPENS UP THE DARDANELLES

On the very last day of October, 1918, Turkey surrendered to the British, opening the Dardanelles and through those waters giving the allied fleets access to the German-dominated Black Sea and the coast of southern Russia, and putting at the mercy of the allies the only active units of the German navy. The surrender included Palestine and the Mesopotamian fronts. General Allenby's farther drive at Constantinople became unnecessary, having served the purpose of hastening Turkey's decision; and Allenby himself was assigned to the occupancy of the Turk Capital.

The same day, October 31, 1918, the Austrian government ordered demobilization of the Austrian armies, and the Austrian forces began a hasty retreat from Italy. The retreat became a rout before evening of that day, the Italians pursuing and capturing over 50,000 men and cannon, and cutting off some 200,000 Austrians in a trap between the Brenta and Piave rivers. General Diaz, the Italian commander, after considerable entreaty, consented to receive General Weber of the Austrian command, who brought a plea for armistice.

The result of their conference was an agreement for an armistice that should go into effect at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of November 4th—an allowance of time sufficient to get the acceptance signed at Vienna. Meanwhile there would be no cessation of fighting.

AUSTRIA SURRENDERS

The terms were thorough and severe. They amounted to Austria's unconditional surrender, disarmament, demobilization of armies, delivery of the major fleet and all submarines to the United States and allies, restoration to Italy of all the Italian provinces that Austria had taken in older wars, free passage to American and allied forces through Austrian territory, abandonment of land, sea and island fortifications to the Americans and allies, immediate release (without reciprocation) of all American and allied soldiers and sailors held prisoner in Austria, return of all allied merchant ships held at Austrian ports, freedom of navigation on the Danube by American and allied war and merchant ships, internment of all German troops remaining in Austria by November 18th, 1918, and immediate withdrawal of all Austrian troops serving with the German armies anywhere between the Swiss border and the North sea.

The terms were accepted in full by the Vienna government, but between the time it was delivered by General Diaz to General Weber and 3 o'clock of November 4th, the Austrian armies on Italian soil stampeded in a panic so complete that the pursuing Italians had taken 200,000 of them prisoner, making altogether nearly half a million taken since October 24th. In the same time about 7,000 guns, 12,000 auto cars and over 200,000 horses were captured, and Austrian fatalities ran into numbers almost equal to the largest army Napoleon ever had under command in any one of his great campaigns.

Austria had begun to yield during the last week of October, when Hungary abandoned the empire, released its civil and military officials from their oath of allegiance to the imperial crown, and formed arrangements for an independent government of its own. Count Tisza, formerly premier of Hungary, and the most reactionary of Hungarian statesmen, was assassinated toward the close of that week.

THE KILLING OF TISZA

An Amsterdam report dated November 3d quoted from the Vossische Zeitung of Berlin an account of that event, from which it appears that about o'clock in the evening three soldiers invaded Count Tisza's residence and presented themselves in the drawing room. Count Tisza, with his wife and the Countess Almassy, advanced to meet the intruders, asking what they wanted. "What have you in your hand?" a soldier demanded of Tisza. Tisza replied that he held a revolver. The soldier told him to put it away, but Tisza replied: "I shall not, because you have not laid aside your rifles." The soldiers then requested the women to leave the room, but they declined to do so. A soldier then addressed Tisza as follows: "You are responsible for the destruction of millions of people, because you caused the war." Then raising their rifles, the soldiers shouted: "The hour of reckoning has come." The soldiers fired three shots and Tisza fell. His last words were: "I am dying. It had to be." The soldiers quitted the house, accompanied by gendarmes, who previously were employed to guard the door.

It was the removal of Count Tisza that really cleared the way for the new Hungarian state. Bohemia and the other Slavic vassal states of Austria had already broken away. President Wilson had recognized Poland as an independent and belligerent state. Austria's remaining dependence, after Hungary's defection, was upon the German population of its north and northwestern provinces, and the provinces wrenched from Italy forty years before. Austrian armies numbering more than half a million men had driven the Italians back from the territory they had won in 1917 under General Cadorna, and had been brought to a stand on the river Piave, where a deadlock somewhat resembling that in front of Verdun had been maintained many months. These armies were affected by the movement that was dissolving the empire, and gave way, with the result above stated.

The terms of the Austrian armistice were furnished to General Diaz through Marshal Foch, by the American and allied council sitting at Versailles.

During the interim between the delivery and the acceptance of the Austrian Armistice and the surrender of Austria, the Versailles Council prepared terms of an armistice that had been sued for by the German government.

TERMS PREPARDED FOR GERMANY

On November 4th, 1918, Berlin was notified by the Versailles council that Marshal Foch had in his hands the terms on which armistice would be granted. November 8th, a German commission of five were admitted to audience with Marshal Foch, who read and delivered the document, with notice that it must be accepted and signed within seventy-two hours. A request by Herr Erzberger, one of the German commissioners, that fighting be suspended during that time, was curtly refused; and the armistice terms were communicated by the commissioners to the German revolutionary government, which had come into power by voluntary transfer of the chancelorship from Prince Maximilian of Baden to Friedrich Ebert, Vice-president of the social democratic party.

The revolution began in the German fleet at Kiel, where the sailors mutinied and hoisted the red flag. It spread with great rapidity and very little disorder throughout all the German states.

November 9th the Kaiser was compelled by the revolutionists to abdicate, and the crown prince signed a renunciation of his right to the succession. The abdication of the Kings of Bavaria and Wurtemburg occurred at the same time. The ex-emperor and the crown prince, in an attempt to reach the British line and surrender themselves, were headed off by the revolutionary forces and took refuge in Holland.

ARMISTICE SIGNED BY GERMANY

November 11th, 1918, the armistice was signed by the German commissioners, upon orders from Berlin. On the morning of that day, at 11 o'clock Paris time, fighting ceased on all fronts.

The terms of the armistice were in substance as follows. They demanded:

Evacuation within thirty-one days of Belgium, France, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, Russia, Roumania and Turkey, all territory that had belonged to Austria-Hungary, and all territory held by German troops on the west bank of the Rhine.

Renunciation of the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest.

Delivery to and occupation by American and allied troops within nineteen days, of Mayence, Coblenz and Cologne, together with their bridgeheads. The bridgeheads include all German territory within a radius of eighteen miles on the east (German) bank of the Rhine, at each of these points.

The surrender of 5,000 cannon, 25,000 machine guns, 5,000 motor lorries, 8,000 flame throwers, 1,700 airplanes, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 wagons (railway cars) and all the railways of Alsace-Lorraine.

Establishment of a neutral strip twenty-four miles wide on the east (German) side of the Rhine, paralleling that river from the Holland border to the border of Switzerland.

The return within fifteen days, of all inhabitants removed from invaded countries, including hostages and persons under trial or convicted.

Release of American and allied prisoners of war held by Germany—the American and allied powers to retain all Germans held by them as prisoners of war.

Surrender of half of the German fleet to America and the allies, together with all submarines, other miscellaneous German ships, and all American and allied merchant ships held by Germany. The other half of the German fleet to be disarmed and dismantled.

Notification to neutral countries by Germany that they are free to trade on the seas with America and the allied countries.

Access by way of Dantzig or the Vistula river, to all territory in the East evacuated by Germany.

Evacuation by all German forces in East Africa within a time to be fixed by the allies.

Restitution for all damage done by German forces.

Return of the funds taken by the Germans from the National Bank of Belgium, and the gold taken from Russia and Roumania.

These terms, which not only constitute Germany's unconditional surrender, but reduce Germany to a condition that absolutely prevents her resumption of war, form the base of the final treaty of peace.

CLOSING DAYS OF HOHENZOLLERN REIGN

Into the four months preceding November 11, 1918, were crammed events that drove the Germans back, deprived them of their allies, brought the utter collapse of Imperial government, drove the emperor into exile, saw a socialist republic set up with Berlin as its capital, brought the whole of what had been the empire to a state of seething unrest and change touched with the poison of bolshevism. November 4, a memorable date, found Germany alone and unsupported against a world triumphant in arms. All the laboriously built up structure of her military state was brought to a futile struggle for life, the whole vast fabric of her underground diplomacy, her intricate, world-penetrating spy system, her marvelously elaborate and totally unscrupulous propaganda, crumbled away; nothing remained of the earlier vigor but a memory—that shall be a stench forever.

November 11, 1918, will go down in history as the memorable day in which the last surviving medieval tyranny in Europe disappeared in blood and smoke; for its final act was filled with characteristic hate and brutality.

In the very last hours before armistice took effect, German batteries poured a deluge of high explosives and poison gas on Mezieres, where there were no allied soldiers at all, but only civilians, men, women and children, twenty thousand of them, penned like rats in a trap, without possibility of escape. Says one correspondent, describing that horror: "Words cannot depict the plight of the unhappy victims of this crowning German atrocity. Incendiary shells fired the hospital, and by the glare of a hundred fires the wounded were carried to a shelter of cellars where the whole population was crouching.

"That was not enough to appease the bitter blood lust of the Germans in defeat. Cellars may give protection from fire or melinite; but they are worse than death traps against the heavy fumes of poisonous gas. So the murderous order was given, and faithfully the boche gunners carried it out. There were no gas masks for the civilians and no chemicals that might permit them to save lives. Many succumbed."

FINAL ACT OF THE HUN AT SEA

The final act at sea was almost concurrent with this tragedy. The 16,000-ton battleship Britannia was torpedoed off the entrance to the straits of Gibraltar, November 9, and sank in three and one-half hours.

FOLLOWING THE DAYS OF RECKONING

And so, spewing murder in its last writhing, the monster died. It had begun by furiously ravaging Belgium in August, 1914; it ended with the awful, wanton murder of noncombatants at Mezieres in November, 1918. Throughout four years, three months and ten days, it had ramped and raged over the land, under the sea and in the air, slaughtering, poisoning, ravaging, without cessation, killing wherever it could, robbing with colossal greed, defiling what it could neither kill nor carry away, leaving across the pages of history a trail of blood and filth and slime that all the tears of all the angels cannot ever wash away.

But it left a world of nations free to work out their several destinies, self-determining, not subject any more to the threat of causeless war at the hands of a government steeled to barbarity. A world cemented by the blood the monster itself had caused to be shed; by the memory of brave sons fallen that others might live; by the tears of countless women and children made widows and orphans; by a new understanding between all the nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth, because of mutual sacrifices in a common cause; by a knowledge that the long night of medieval tyranny had faded out and a new day had come, in which power shall arise from and be wielded by the peoples, never again by kings or emperors. And so our planet shall be ruled as long as man inhabits it. Out of bitter darkness, in the splendor of this new day the spirit of liberty has risen, with healing on its wings.

We who have lived through the struggle may say with gratitude, each of us, "I saw the light! I saw the morning break!"

AMONG THE LAST SHOTS FIRED

While Berlin was trying to get into touch with Marshal Foch, and the end was coming into sight, the Americans along the Meuse put forth all the energy that was in them, in their eager desire to hand the enemy a final series of wallops. It was here one of the most brilliant exploits of the war occurred.

On the night of November 4, American troops, though under very heavy artillery and machine gun fire, succeeded in building four pontoon bridges across the Meuse, a little more than a mile east of Brieulles. Early in the morning one of these was destroyed, but a strong force crossed over the other three, and swept forward with such rapidity, though in the face of superior numbers, that by noon the enemy was in disorderly retreat northward. By nightfall the Americans on that side of the river had captured Liny-Devant-Dun and Mille-Devant-Dun, on the east bank of the river, while a large American and French force pushed back the Germans on the west bank, capturing Beaumont, Pouilly and several less important places, and taking positions on three sides of Stenay, the pivot on which the whole German retirement had turned. American troops the 5th and 6th of November had advanced to within five miles of the main communication line of the Germans between Metz, Mezieres, Hirson and the north.

After destroying the bridge connecting Stenay with Laneuville, the Germans had opened the locks of the Ardennes canal and flooded the river to a width of about two-thirds of a mile.

It was here the Americans undertook and accomplished the impossible. They picked out the best of their swimmers, who crossed the stream carrying light lines attached to heavy cables, which were drawn after them, and by a hasty pontoon construction got the whole force across. Then, in the face of heavy firing, they pounded their way over a mud flat nearly a mile wide, and hit the canal, which by then, had been drained, forming a deep ditch that would have stopped any other soldiers. But the Americans rustled up some grappling irons and hooks, which they tied to the ends of ropes, and throwing them to the coping, then swarmed up and chased the disconcerted Germans out of their last position in that sector.

On November 7th American troops entered Sedan and cut the German line of communication between Metz and the north.

The same day, troops from Ohio, under command of General Farnsworth, took the Ecke salient sixteen miles southwest of Ghent in Belgium, and were advancing on the city when the Germans suddenly evacuated it, departing in haste toward the German frontier.

Stenay was the last town to fall into American hands. It was occupied without resistance, an hour before the armistice went into effect. While preparations for attack were in course, paroles came in reporting that the Germans had cleared out. The American troops at once poured in, and established occupation at 10:45 in the forenoon, just a quarter of an hour before word came that the armistice had taken effect.

In a few minutes flags of the allies were flying from housetops, and the church bells were ringing out the war. It was over.

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

The last morning on the fighting lines was busy wherever American troops were placed, from the Moselle to Sedan. All the batteries kept their guns going, and the Germans replied in kind. The American heavy guns fired their parting salvo at 11:00 o'clock, less two or three seconds. To this final crack the Germans tossed a few over, just after 11:00. There was a strong American infantry advance, northeast of Verdun, in the direction of Ornes, beginning at nine o'clock, after lively artillery preparation. The German artillery responded feebly, but the machine gun resistance was stubborn. Nevertheless, the Americans made progress. The Americans had received orders to hold the positions reached by 11:00 o'clock, and at those points they began to dig in, marking the advance positions of the American line when hostilities ceased.

Then the individual groups unfurled the Stars and Stripes, shook hands and cheered. Soon afterwards they were preparing for luncheon. All the boys were hungry, as they had breakfasted early in anticipation of what they considered the greatest day in American history.

THE ALL PULL TOGETHER SHOT

There was a regular celebration at Pepper hill, north of Verdun, where a battery of Rhode Island artillery rigged a twenty-foot rope to the lanyard of a .155 cannon, and every man in the company, from the captain to the cook, laid hold of it and waited. At the tick of eleven o'clock they gave that rope one mighty yank, all together, and the gun roared out the last shot of the war.

—The Last Yank of the Yanks.

AT THE END OF THE WORLD WAR

The great drama is ended. For the first time in four years the sound of giant cannon cannot be heard anywhere along the long line from the channel to the Adriatic; the deadly rattle of machine guns is stilled. No gas fumes poison the winter air. No clouds of burning cities darken the sun. Better than all, no life blood flows; the fighting men rest in their lines, the bayonet is sheathed, the bullet sleeps harmless in its clip.

This at last is peace. In the great cities, the towns and hamlets of Europe and America, a vast wave of emotion inundates the hearts of men; in the allied lands there is exultation; in Germany there is at least relief, and perhaps the dawning of a new hope.

We have had our day of glorification. It is now time for our best thought, and the first of this thought will be for the men who have given their lives for our cause and for the men more fortunate, but not less willing to give all, who in France and Flanders have covered our flag once more with undying glory, the soldiers of the Marne, of Cantigny, of the great German repulse east of Reims, of Chateau Thierry, of St. Mihiel, the Argonne, and Sedan. The graves of our men have consecrated these immortal battlefields and our sacred dead will live on in the memory of the republic forever. As for those who return, crowned with victory, they shall now be first and foremost under the roof tree of the great motherland, who sent them forth with aching yet uplifted heart, confident that they would honor her even as they have done.

In this hour we salute our army and our navy, which have not failed us at any point, in any test, however arduous or fiery. Under commanders devoted, efficient, indefatigable, our regiments have met the most famous troops of the enemy and crushed their resistance, have set new records of sanguinary valor under punishment, and driven always and irresistibly on to victory. They have written a page in the annals of the republic and in the history of war which will shine down the ages with unsurpassed magnificence.

It has been terrible, yet glorious, to live through such a time, even for us who have not passed through the great experience of battle, who have not watched and taken part in the heroic charge of our infantry across death-swept meadows, or heard with our ears the thunder of the great guns or felt the earth shake under the tread of marching legions. We at home have had our own experiences, our deep anxieties, our doubts, our griefs, and always we have been conscious of the might of forces in grapple and the high issues that hung upon the fate of the armies. In the background of all our thoughts at all times has been the solemn consciousness that the destiny of mankind was at work in mighty throes toward an end hidden to our knowledge if not to our faith and hope. We have none of us passed through this experience without receiving its mark. Life can never be altogether what it was before for any of us. New generations will spring forth innocent of the memories which are ours and the unexpressible lessons of our day. But for us it has been, with all its tragedy and vast destruction, a day of illumination and inspiration.

Standing on the threshold of a peace restored, we must pray that out of the epic experience of the great conflict something more than the stern negative of our victory shall be preserved for the time to come, something positive of good, something of that divine light of men's heroic sacrifice which shone out in the darkest hour, something of new strength and understanding of life and of human potentialities.

We have before us now a tremendous task of restoration. America is in a more fortunate situation than the nations of Europe; yet to return our resources to the channels of peace, to free our institutions from the hasty improvisations of war emergency, and to protect them from the effects of forced and abnormal application, is a task which will test the wisdom and character of our leaders and our people.

If our war experience has proved anything of America, it has been the soundness and beneficence of American institutions and the life they make possible. Let us realize that truth, and resolve that these institutions shall be strengthened in peace and not weakened, and that the life which has grown up and flowered under their influence shall be jealously preserved for our children and our children's children, and for the sake of our heroic dead."

THE CROWNING HUMILIATION

The Crowning Humiliation, or Before and After Seeing Foch, might be the appropriate title for the latest story now added to the pages of world history.

Four years and four months ago the German leadership, fully confident of its strength, assured of its weapons, arrogant beyond anything in recorded history, challenged the organized and unorganized forces of the civilized world to mortal combat. They thrust the Imperial German sword through all the covenants and commands of civilization and of justice. Bursting out upon an unprepared and unsuspecting world, they were, despite their incredible strength, checked by France on the battlefield of the Marne, encircled by the British fleets, and like Napoleon after Leipzig, condemned to ultimate defeat. At the hour when the white flag was brought to the French lines, British armies were approaching the field of Waterloo, American armies stood victorious in Sedan, and French armies were sweeping forward from the Oise to the Meuse. The crowning humiliation came with the admission of defeat. Germany sought armistice at the hands of a Marshal of France!

FOCH—"THE GRAY MAN OF CHRIST"

In the closing days of the great war a striking contrast was drawn by the Los Angeles Times between William Hohenzollern and Marshal Foch, from the religious standpoint. The former German monarch coupled Gott with himself as an equal, while Ferdinand Foch was called, with apparent reason, "the gray man of Christ."

"This has been Christ's war," said the Times. "Christ on one side, and all that stood opposed to Christ on the other side. And the generalissimo, in supreme command of all the armies that fought on the side of Christ, is Christ's man. * * * It seems to be beyond all shadow of doubt that when the hour came in which all that Christ stood for was to either stand or fall, Christ raised up a man to lead the hosts that battled for him." And the Times continues:

"If you will look for Foch in some quiet church, it is there that he will be found, humbly giving God the glory and absolutely declining to attribute it to himself. Can that kind of a man win a war? Can a man who is a practical soldier be also a practical Christian? And is Foch that kind of a man? Let us see.

"A California boy, serving as a soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces in France, wrote a letter to his parents in San Bernardino recently, in which he gives, as well as anyone else could give, the answer to the question we ask. This American boy, Evans by name, tells of meeting Marshal Foch at close range in France.

"Evans had gone into an old church to have a look at it, and as he stood there with bared head satisfying his respectful curiosity, a gray man with the eagles of a general on the collar of his shabby uniform entered the church. Only one orderly accompanied the quiet, gray man. No glittering staff of officers, no entourage of gold-laced aides were with him; nobody but just the orderly.

"Evans paid small attention at first to the gray man, but was curious to see him kneel in the church, praying. The minutes passed until full three-quarters of an hour had gone by before the gray man arose from his knees.

"Then Evans followed him down the street and was surprised to see soldiers salute this man in great excitement, and women and children stopping in their tracks with awe-struck faces as he passed.

"It was Foch! And now Evans, of San Bernardino, counts the experience as the greatest in his life. During that three-quarters of an hour that the generalissimo of all the Allied armies was on his knees in humble supplication in that quiet church, 10,000 guns were roaring at his word on a hundred hills that rocked with death.

"Moreover, it is not a new thing with him. He has done it his whole life long."