To-day there is little inclination in London or Paris to underestimate the providential importance of American intervention. The specter of dwindling manpower in both countries is of itself sufficient to cause them to gaze gratefully and longingly toward our untapped reservoir of human sinews. _What is happening in chaotic and liberty-dazed Russia forces Englishmen and Frenchmen, however disconcerting to their pride, to acknowledge the absolute indispensability of American support_. There are many among them candid enough to admit that democracy’s horizon might now be perilously beclouded if the United States had refrained from playing a man’s part in the battle of the nations. In Berlin, too, the true import of America’s decision is dawning upon government and governed alike. Our Allies expect us to justify our world-wide reputation for speed and organizing capacity and to transfer our activities from the forum of Demosthenes to the field of Mars. They are impressed by what we have already accomplished--I write on the day when the arrival of the first American army in France, well within three months of our entering the war, is officially announced. But amid our remote isolation from the scene of the conflict, safeguarded by geographical guarantees that its consuming fires can hardly ever sear our own soil, Englishmen and Frenchmen wonder whether we are able to estimate the magnitude of the effort required of us if we are to rise to the majestic zenith of our potentialities. Some of them, seemingly no wiser for their myopia of recent times, are frankly skeptical on that point. It is our bounden duty, as I am sure it is our unconquerable resolve, to disillusion our Allies. To us has fallen the privilege of proving that our mighty sword has been drawn in earnest and that we shall not sheathe it until America’s plighted word is gloriously made good. "Make Good!" Leaping to the tasks which await us on land and sea with that indigenous idiom on their lips, our soldiers and sailors need crave for no more inspiring slogan. Allied Europe expects us--expects us almost anxiously--to "make good." London, June 28, 1917. THE ASSAULT CHAPTER I THE CURTAIN RAISER