Looking back on that time, trying to recapture its sensations and philosophy, I cannot remember any absolute despair in England and France. By all the rules of the game we had nearly lost—within a hair’s breadth—yet we did not acknowledge that. There was no cry of surrender from either of the nations, which still had a fixed faith that ultimately we should win, somehow. There was something astounding in the stolidity of the British people on the edge of great disaster. To men at the front it seemed ignorance of the extremity of peril. But it was the spirit of the race steadying itself again to fresh ordeals, unyielding in pride; they could not be beaten, it was unthinkable. To hint it was a treachery. If more men were wanted the youngest brothers would follow their older brothers. So it happened. Three hundred thousand boys of eighteen, the last reserves of Great Britain, were shipped over to France to fill up the frightful gap. From the factories which had been pouring out the material of war, not only for the British Army but for all the Allies, all but the most indispensable men were enrolled. The physically unfit, soldiers many times wounded, old crocks, were sent out to the depôts in France. AMERICA COMES IN One new power was almost ready for active service on the side of the Allies. If France could only hold out long enough, this new and arduous weight would be bound to turn the scale at last against German man-power, drained down to its last reserves. The United States Army was pouring into France with great tides of men, magnificent in physique, keen in spirit, and unscarred as yet by the fires of the war. They were untrained, ignorant of lessons that could only be learnt by deadly experience, and their Generals were novices in the organisation and handling of vast masses of troops, as the British had been. They were bound to make ghastly mistakes. They would waste their men as ours had been wasted, by faulty staff work; but sheer weight of numbers and the spirit of brave men would in the long run be irresistible. Had we the time to wait for them?...