THE ONE IN POSSESSION: "Sorry, old thing; I took it half-an-hour ago."] [Illustration: SWOOPING FROM THE WEST (_It is the intention of our new Ally to assist us in the patrolling of the Atlantic_.)] The British have entered Péronne; the Canadians have captured Vimy Ridge. But the full extent of German frightfulness has never been so clearly displayed as in their retreat. Here, for once, the German account of their own doings is true. "In the course of these last months great stretches of French territory have been turned by us into a dead country. It varies in width from 10 to 12 or 13 kilometres, and extends along the whole of our new positions. No village or farm was left standing, no road was left passable, no railway track or embankment was left in being. Where once were woods, there are gaunt rows of stumps; the wells have been blown up.... In front of our new positions runs, like a gigantic ribbon, our Empire of Death" (_Lokal Anzeiger_, March 18, 1917). The general opinion of the Boche among the British troops is that he is only good at one thing, and that is destroying other people's property. One of Mr. Punch's correspondents writes to say that while the flattened villages and severed fruit trees are a gruesome spectacle, for him "all else was forgotten in speechless admiration of the French people. "Their self-restraint and adaptability are beyond words. These hundreds of honest people, just relieved from the domineering of the Master Swine, and restored to their own good France again, were neither hysterical nor exhausted." The names of the new German lines--Wotan and Siegfried and Hunding--are not without significance. We accept the omen: it will not be long before we hear of fresh German activities in the _Götterdämmerung_ line. Count Reventlow has informed the Kaiser that without victory a continuation of the Monarchy is improbable. The "repercussion" of Revolution is making itself felt. Even the Crown Prince is reported to have felt misgivings as to the infection of anti-monarchial ideas, and Mr. Punch is moved to forecast possibilities of upheaval: Not that the Teuton's stolid wits Are built to plan so rude a plot; Somehow I cannot picture Fritz Careering as a _sans-culotte_; Schooled to obedience, hand and heart, I can imagine nothing odder Than such behaviour on the part Of inoffensive cannon-fodder. And yet one never really knows. You cannot feed his massive trunk On fairy tales of beaten foes, Or Hindenburg's "victorious" bunk; And if his rations run too short Through this accursed British blockade, Even the worm may turn and sport A revolutionary cockade.