FIELDS OF VICTORY By Mrs. Humphry Ward With Illustrations, Colored Map and Folding Statistical Chart 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons New York Published September, 1919 1919, by The Evening Mail Syndicate CONTENTS CHAPTER A WORD OF INTRODUCTION vii I. FRANCE UNDER THE ARMISTICE 3 II. THE DEFENSIVE BATTLE OF LAST SPRING 27 III. TANKS AND THE HINDENBURG LINE 57 IV. GENERAL GOURAUD AT STRASBOURG 92 V. ALSACE-LORRAINE--THE GLORY OF VERDUN 111 VI. AMERICA IN FRANCE 134 VII. AMERICA IN FRANCE (_continued_) 166 VIII. "FEATURES OF THE WAR" 184 IX. TANKS AND AEROPLANES--THE STAFF WORK OF THE WAR 213 EPILOGUE 258 APPENDIX--EXPLANATION OF CHART 269 A WORD OF INTRODUCTION _May 26th._ It is a bold thing, I fear, to offer the public yet more letters based on a journey through the battle-fields of France--especially at a moment when impressions are changing so fast, when the old forms of writing about the war seem naturally out of date, or even distasteful, and the new are not yet born. Yet perhaps in this intermediate period, the impressions of one who made two journeys over some of the same ground in 1916 and 1917, while the great struggle was at its height, and on this third occasion found herself on the Western front just two months after the Armistice, may not be unwelcome to those who, like myself, feel the need of detaching as soon as possible some general and consistent ideas from the infinite complexity, the tragic and bewildering detail, of the past four years. The motive which sent me to France three months ago was the wish to make clear to myself if I could, and thereby to others, the true measure of the part played by the British Empire and the British Armies in the concluding campaigns of the war. I knew that if it could be done at all at the present moment--and by myself--it could only be done in a very broad and summary way; and also that its only claim to value would lie in its being a faithful report, within the limits I had set myself, of the opinions of those who were actually at the heart of things, _i.e._, of the British Higher Command, and of individual officers who had taken an active part in the war. For the view taken in these pages of last year's campaigns, I have had, of course, the three great despatches of the British Commander-in-Chief on which to base the general sketch I had in mind; but in addition I have had much kind help from the British Headquarters in France, where officers of the General Staff were still working when I paid a wintry visit to the famous Ecole Militaire at the end of January; supplemented since my return to