The situation had become of serious national consequence. One of the traits of Indian warriors was a desire to be on the winning side. Under the impetus of two crushing defeats administered in quick succession to the American troops, even those tribes which had been peaceable and inoffensive began joining with the war-mad tribes and all white settlements were endangered. There was strong reason to believe, as was later substantiated, that the British who had not evacuated posts in Michigan despite the Treaty of Paris, were aiding and abetting the red man. Washington realized that decisive steps must be taken if the Northwest was to be saved to the United States, and appointed General “Mad” Anthony Wayne of Revolutionary fame to lead the next expedition against the Indians and their allies. [Illustration: ANTHONY WAYNE _Drawn by Herbert Krofft, Zanesville, Ohio_] After two years of preparation in drilling his troops and building several forts to protect supply trains, he led an army of 2,000 regulars and 1,500 militia to the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers. Enroute from Fort Greenville he had performed a notable strategy, which led the Indians on the westward to believe he would attack near present Fort Wayne, Indiana, and those to the east to conclude that he would attack them near present Toledo, Ohio. In reality he drove straight north to the mouth of the Auglaize where he built Fort Defiance, and thus, because of their absolute dependence upon the Maumee River for transportation, split the Indian forces in half. Taking ample time and with his now well-disciplined army, he attacked the Indians at Fallen Timbers, west of present Toledo. Here, behind trees blown down by a tornado, an army of 2,000 Indians waited for an attack. On the morning of August 20, 1794, Wayne’s army finally crushed the strength and spirit of the Indian hostility. The British troops at Fort Miami, which was on American soil, four miles away from the battlefield, did not go to the assistance of the Indians, although a number of Canadian soldiers and officers were captured or killed in the battle. This failure of support and the smashing defeat which had been administered to them made possible the Treaty of Greenville, made by Wayne with the Indians on August 5, 1795. The boundary lines established by this treaty extended somewhat beyond those of the Fort McIntosh Treaty of ten years before. What Wayne and the Greenville Treaty did accomplish was to convince the Indians and their British backers that America meant to hold the Northwest. They remained convinced until the War of 1812, when the matter was settled for all time.