Our enemy came nearer to overthrowing us by the result of the Russian Revolution than by anything else. The defection of Russia, the liberation of the German and Austrian Eastern armies, nearly took victory away from us, and we have God and our cause to thank for salvation. In the late summer and autumn of 1917 the tide of victory turned and began to roll the other way. At the battle for Passchendaele commenced the last year of the war. In that year we experienced every emotion of victory and defeat. The year opened inauspiciously at Passchendaele where so many fell trying to traverse an infernal area of wire and pits and mud, facing the reinforced machine-gunners, facing the new gas, facing the fire of a vastly increased artillery. Many a cheery boy with muddy uniform and bright morning face stood up for the last time at Passchendaele, and unexpectedly--died for England. You may seek their bodies in the Flemish earth to-day. Perhaps one of them is the unknown soldier in the Abbey. But their spirits are far away from here. They are watchful and radiant and celestial now--not so lovable perhaps in their immortality, for how can mortals feel for the immortals, but enormously more lovable in our mortal conception of them than ever they were when alive--the dead of the last year of the war. Passchendaele was followed by the sudden triumph of the Austrian armies in the Italian Alps, and the surrender of a hundred thousand Italians and a thousand guns. Revolutionary propaganda was said to have been ravaging the Italian soldier's mind. Others said the Italians sold the day to the enemy. But the prime cause of Austrian victory was to be sought in the great accession of strength due to the Russian lapse from war. No more offensives of Brusilof; no Grand Duke Nicholas any more to terrify Vienna; not even a Kornilof! Austria naturally rounded upon her Southern foe with double might. Vienna bells rang forth and Berlin floated in military joy. Wilhelmstrasse, the street of the Kaiser, reflected deeply and sucked in the significance of the new victory. After a desperate summer of peace-seeking suddenly a last hope of triumph dawned like a fiery star late in the night and nigh unto morning. The thought of coming with a white flag to the Council of Europe was banished. Instead the stern decree of war to the uttermost bound the German mind to the old choice of "complete victory or downfall." Despite our opinion of the enemy conveyed in sneers at concrete dug-outs and funk-holes and the "Kamerad" cry, the Germans decided to come all out and win or lose on a gambler's throw. It was perhaps more calculated and more calculable than the cast of the dice, but if the Allies won, Germany had no second chance and would know that she had lost.