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FOREWORD

instrument of a great ideal, and one need not be fanatically religious to see in his success the guiding hand of Providence.

For he was needed and he came, came at a moment which seemed exactly preordained. He was needed by France and needed by America and had his arrival been merely the triumph of a great adventure, the influence of his act would have gone no further than have other great sporting and commercial achievements.

There have been moments here in France when all that my eye could reach or my intelligence fathom appeared dark and foreboding and yet, in spite of all, my soul would be warmed as by some invisible sunshine. At such times, when all human efforts had apparently failed, suddenly the affairs of nations seemed to be taken from out the hands of men and directed by an unseen power on high.

Just before the Battle of the Marne I was standing on the river embankment. A great harvest moon was rising over the city near