Apart from the important gains in territory made by the Allies in the two weeks' offensive operations, the result of the victories was to shake the belief of the German army in their own invincibility. They had failed in their objectives, first in the thrust toward Rheims, and afterward in their efforts to hold out against a counterassault. Twice they had made determined and exhaustive attempts with large forces of men to stem the advance of the Allies, and had failed in each instance. They had employed their best troops, who fought with courage and daring and with reckless disregard for life, but were unable to build a barrier that the Allies could not shatter. It was not believed by the Allied High Command that the morale of the German fighters had been seriously sapped by their forced retreat, but the news would drift back to Germany in soldiers' letters and in other ways, creating a feeling in the Empire that their army was not equal to its task, and a consequent loss of faith in the flamboyant promises of victory proclaimed by Hindenburg and Ludendorff. PART IX--THE UNITED STATES AS A BELLIGERENT CHAPTER XLI FORCE TO THE UTMOST Only the sword could impose peace. The kaiser said it. His mouthpieces, Count von Hertling and Count Czernin, said it, by way of buttressing much verbal camouflage conveying that their peoples would like peace by gentler means--that is, by the Allies yielding. Lloyd-George said it without camouflage. But it was left to President Wilson to say it with finality. Despairing of drawing from the Central Powers any lucid declaration to show that they were honorable opponents with whom honorable enemies could negotiate, he swept aside German chicanery by leaving no loophole open for the determination of the war by any other means than the sword. Germany had slammed the door of peace in her own face. Hark the kaiser, accepting an address in Hamburg, in February, 1918, on the conclusion of peace with the Ukraine: "He who will not accept peace, but on the contrary declines, pouring out the blood of his own and of our people, must be forced to have peace. We desire to live in friendship with neighboring peoples, but the victory of German arms must first be recognized. Our troops under the great Hindenburg will continue to win it. Then peace will come."