Soon most of the newspapers were supporting the prime minister. He may have been a dictator, but he got results. He took treason by the throat and strangled it. He took hold of the army and strengthened it. At least three times a week he motors to the front, going so close to the firing line that several times he has been in great danger, and once he narrowly escaped being captured by a German patrol. If that patrol had captured Clemenceau the kaiser would have issued a new medal and had all the church bells in the empire rung, for the prime minister is, of all Frenchmen, the most feared and hated by Germany. He has always seen through the Germans. His newspaper has exposed their intrigues time out of mind. About ten years ago the Germans tried to seduce France into a huge colonial expansion scheme, and if they had succeeded France and Great Britain might have become hopelessly involved. That was one of Germany’s objects. Another was to take France’s mind off Alsace-Lorraine. Jules Ferry, then prime minister, fell into the trap, but not so Clemenceau. He denounced Ferry’s colonial policy, called it by its right name, German intrigue, so tigerishly and so long, that the people woke up and Ferry went out of office. Once when Clemenceau was prime minister before, the German government took offense at something that was said or done to one of its consuls in Morocco. The chancellor sent for the French ambassador in Berlin and demanded an apology. If it were not quickly forthcoming the German ambassador at Paris would be recalled. When this was transmitted to Clemenceau he sent for the German ambassador. He told him without any preamble that there would be no apology. “If you want your passports they are ready for you,” he added. Germany backed down. Clemenceau’s diplomacy is like that. When the Austrian premier dared to put forth the slander that Clemenceau had sent a peace emissary to him the public clamored for a statement. The prime minister, on his way to the front, paused long enough to say over his shoulder to the interviewers: “Count Czernin lies.” And so it proved. The greatest thing that Clemenceau has done was to unite the allied armies under a generalissimo. President Wilson wanted it done long ago. The wisest among the English wanted it done. But there were difficulties that seemed insuperable. Then came the almost fatal break in the British line last March. Clemenceau rushed up to the front, and what he said there has never been revealed. But it was to the point, and it smashed all the insuperable obstacles at one blow. Foch took command. The disaster was averted. “I am not old,” said Clemenceau humorously to a friend. “I am just aged.” That is true. At a time when most men are ready to retire he is crowning his life’s work. He is the most thoroughly alive man in France and one of the greatest men in the world.