Ludendorff has described to us the gradual waning of his hopes[117] in face of the unbroken resolution of the British people under Mr. Lloyd George, the swift dying off in the fire of battle of all their best troops, and the failing of human morale which took place under the stress of those costly onslaughts. There is no more dramatic story in history than his account of the way in which the revolutionary poison which the Germans had inoculated into Russia by the sending of Lenin returned back into the German Army and gradually destroyed by its discipline and undermined its desire for victory.[118] But there is another side to that story. Ludendorff describes, without apparently understanding the significance of his narrative, the way in which his troops, when they had captured a position, would spend the precious minutes in overhauling and devouring the stores of food which they found.[119] He seems to regard that as merely a sign of the weakening of military discipline. But the plain fact is that hunger has no respect for discipline; and it was hunger that was eating at the vitals of the German nation—hunger and want of all the essentials of war. The blockade was completing the work of our armies. For our prisoners found that the Germans were lacking in the most elementary medical necessities and that their transport had reached a point of decay which made it almost impossible for them properly to feed and maintain their armies. Ludendorff blames the German nation for not supporting the German Army, but the fact is that this was not a war of armies, but a war of nations. The German Army was still capable of great deeds, but the German nation behind was stricken to the heart. Therefore, the strength of the Army, which drew its vitality from the nation, was rapidly waning even in those moments of victory. With his instinctive insight for the real facts of the situation, Mr. Lloyd George saw that even in the darkest hour here was the governing issue—which nation could hold out the longest. So now he set himself, with all his great powers, to hearten and encourage both the peoples and the Armies in France and Great Britain. He kept travelling between London and Paris, attending the meetings of the Versailles Council, visiting the armies at the front, and exchanging cheerful messages between the fighting men and the civilians. On the day Bailleul was captured, April 15th, he boldly declared that we had lost “nothing vital.” On May 3rd he returned from the Versailles Council with a message from the troops to the nation at home—“Be of good cheer. We are all right!”