That great result, according to General Gouraud, was finally achieved by General Pétain's reforms. He gave as a proof of it that on the night of the Armistice, he and his Staff, at Châlons, unable to sit still indoors, went out and mingled with the crowd in the streets of that great military centre, apparently to the astonishment and pleasure of the multitude. "Everywhere along the line," said the General, "the soldiers were cheering Pétain! '_Vive Pétain! Vive Pétain!_'" Pétain was miles away; but it was the spontaneous recognition of him as the soldiers' champion and friend. Gouraud did not say, what was no doubt the truth, that the army at Châlons were cheering Gouraud no less than Pétain. For one can rarely talk with French officers about General Gouraud without coming across the statement: "He is beloved by his army. He has done so much for the soldiers." But not a word of his own share appeared in his conversation with me. The talk passed on to the German attack on the French front in Champagne on July 15th, that perfectly-planned defence in which, to quote General Gouraud's own stirring words to his soldiers: "You broke the strength and the hopes of the enemy. That day Victory changed her camp. She has been faithful to us ever since." It makes one of the most picturesque stories of the war. The German offensive which broke out, as we know, along the whole of their new Marne front on July 15th, had been exactly anticipated for days before it began by General Gouraud and his Staff. The Fourth French Army, which Gouraud commanded, was lying to the north-east of Rheims, and the German attack on the Monts de Champagne, already the scene in 1916 and 1917 of so much desperate fighting, was meant to carry the German line down to the Marne that same day. Gouraud was amply informed by his intelligence staff, and his air service, of the enemy preparations, and had made all his own. The only question was as to the exact day and hour of the attack. Then by a stroke of good fortune, at eight o'clock on the very evening preceding the attack, twenty-seven prisoners were brought in--of whom some are said to have been Alsatian--and closely questioned by the Staff. "They told us," said Gouraud, "that the artillery attack would begin at ten minutes past midnight, and the infantry attack between three and four o'clock that very night. I thereupon gave the order for our bombardment to begin at 11.30 p.m. in order to catch the assembling German troops. I had 200 _batteries secretes_ ready--of which the enemy had no idea--which had given beforehand no sign of their existence. Then we sat with our watches in our hands. Was it true--or not true? 12.5--12.6--12.8--12.9.--Probably it was a mare's nest. 12.10--_Crac!_--the bombardment had begun. We sprang to our telephones!" And presently, as the captured German officers began to come in, their French captors were listening to their bewildered astonishment "at the number of our batteries they had