"In thinking of that great day--the day when victory is near and certain," he said, "I have dreamed a dream, and in this dream I have seen the Allied statesmen and their military leaders gathered for a final conference which they believed will be the last before the end of this greatest of human tragedies. "With the terms for the world settlement outlined and accepted, with a full knowledge of the military situation before them, with a sober certainty that victory is in their hands, though it may be delayed, the conference is ready to disband. And it is then that an American general, whom first the Allied military forces and later the Allied diplomats had come to listen to with respect, if not eagerness, not only for the knowledge and fine judgment that he brought to their councils but because of a quality of spiritual insight which many of them believed to amount to genius--it was then that this American general asked a hearing. "'As you know,' he said, 'I am in the fullest agreement with every conclusion of this conference. I believe that the military situation of the Allied armies has been rightly presented, that nothing has been concealed of either weakness or strength, that the conclusion that the enemy must soon yield is inevitable from the facts that have been laid before us. What I ask the privilege of saying to this conference will add nothing to what you already know, it will add nothing to the plan of world reorganization which has been suggested. It is not a matter on which action is required. It may be called a dream or a vision, as you please. I only beg that you will listen, and not deride, for what I have to say comes from an inner conviction so deep that to withhold it would be for me little better than treason to the great end of all this suffering, this labor of spirit and of mind through which we have gone in these many hard years. "'The enemy will soon yield. I am one of those that believe that he will yield at or before his last line of defense. I believe this, not because I think that line less strong than it has been represented, less strong than the enemy himself has boasted it to be--it may be the most nearly impregnable line of defense that has been constructed in all the history of the world--I believe he will yield because I believe that yielding at this point is the inevitable result of his own lifelong military teachings.