It was a familiar enough picture. To the jaded observer of war every glimpse only reproduced some scene which was part of a routine of which he was so weary that it made him desire, if for no other reason, the realization of the supreme hope that this should be the final offensive of the war. The great thing, though all the equipment and all the system seemed age-old because of their associations, was that the personnel was new. A new knight had slipped into old armor, and taken up the sword from a tired if experienced hand. D'Artagnan had arrived from Gascony to add his young blade to the blades of the three Musketeers. On the part of everybody there was still the boyish enthusiasm of the beginner in a game. Hundreds of officers who had been to staff schools, or enduring the S. O. S. in fractious impatience, now for the first time were at the front--the front of the Great War; and with them were all the men of the supply units, motor drivers, ambulance drivers, engineer battalions, military police, whose one thought was a sight of that "big show." The French gunners looked on smiling, as a middle-aged woman smiles over the enthusiasm of the débutante. Given the hour of attack, they knew by experience how long it would be before the first wounded and the first prisoners would come down the road. Soldiers who had never seen a German at close quarters perhaps had taken the prisoners; a young intelligence officer might be having his first experience in questioning them. To the French the prisoners looked like all the "sales Boches"; but we were discovering their characteristics afresh. Later came the severely wounded on stretchers which were slipped into the ambulances which bore them away. By nine o'clock in the morning we knew that except for a few strong points which could not hold out we were through the wire and through that elaborate trench system and out in the open, and still going on. VII IN THE WAKE OF THE INFANTRY A successful surprise--The importance of traffic control in maintaining the advance--The "show" in the air--How the engineers built roads--And traffic blocked them--And colonels showed the traffic police how. The veteran accepts his long service as a guarantee of efficiency; the novice is patient under instruction and open to suggestion. Our desire to do everything in the book, our painstaking individual industry under a meticulous discipline, and our willingness as beginners to learn had served us well before the battle in the concealment of our strength and plans from the enemy. There were so many of us and we were so swift in our onset that we gave the enemy the benumbing shock which on many occasions the newcomer, springing aggressively into the arena, has inflicted by a rain of blows upon a hardened adversary who has appraised him too lightly.