The nation which their publicists had denounced as lacking cohesion and public spirit had adopted conscription simultaneously with their declaration of war, and the people
whom the Germans had affected to regard as devoted only to the pursuit of gain and pleasure had manifested a unity of purpose which they had never before displayed, and had offered their lives, their labours, and their wealth without limit to the cause of the Allies. Up to March, 1918, only a comparatively small part of this American army had reached Europe, but the Germans had already tested its fighting quality and had learned to respect it. Yet all these manifestations would not have disturbed the Germanic calculations except for one depressing fact. Even a nation of 100,000,000 brave and energetic people, fully trained and equipped for war, is not a formidable foe so long as an impassable watery gulf of three thousand miles separates them from the field of battle.
For the greater part of 1917 the German people believed that their submarines could bar the progress of the American armies. By March, 1918, they had awakened from this delusion. Not only was an American army millions strong in process of formation, but the alarming truth now dawned upon the Germans that it could be transported to Europe. The great industries of America could provide munitions and food to supply any number of soldiers indefinitely, and these, too, could be brought to the Western Front. Outwardly, the German chiefs might still affect to despise this new foe, but in their hearts they knew that it spelt their doom. They were not now dealing with a corrupt Czardom and hordes of ignorant and passionless Slavs, who could be eliminated by propaganda and sedition; they were dealing with millions of intelligent and energetic freemen, all animated by a mighty and almost religious purpose. Yet the situation, desperate as it seemed, held forth one more hope. If the German armies, which still greatly outnumbered the French and British, could strike and win a decisive victory before the Americans could arrive, then they might still force a satisfactory peace. "It is a race between Ludendorff and Wilson" is the terse and accurate way in which Lloyd George summed up the situation. The great blow fell on March 21, 1918; the British and the French met it with heroism, but it was quite evident that they were fighting against terrible odds, At
