The Stars and Stripes fluttered over Europe at far-flung points. On the western front an American army had grown up, and was rated as competent to perform the hardest work of war--to stand an intensive bombardment, to repel the assaults of massed infantry, or to launch counterattacks. Its achievements will be subsequently related; but even if they did not rank in numbers with those of the British and French, the mere presence of American soldiers at the forefront of one of the world's greatest battles stood out as a transcendent historical event. The forces of the New World had appeared to save liberty in Europe. They were there to establish a reorganization of the world on the American plan--not for the glory of the Stars and Stripes, but for a vindication of the ideas which the flag represented. CHAPTER XLIII RAIDING THE NEW FOE American activities had hitherto been confined to what became known as the original American front, facing Lorraine beyond St. Mihiel. This was apparently an irregular line, in the vicinity of the Rhine-Marne canal, and fronting Nancy, Lunéville, Toul, and other towns whose existence became known by General Pershing's reports. It was their "breaking in" ground. American troops there obtained an intimate acquaintance with modern warfare. The numerous trench raids that marked their operations apparently had no strategical relations to the movements on the battle line elsewhere, nor even disclosed any local tactical object. Americans and Germans seemed merely to be watching each other with lynx eyes, each on the alert to catch the other napping and steal a march for the glory of the achievement. The casualties in these skirmishes were usually slight, and a few prisoners now and then would fall to one or the other side. But few raids took place without losses, which gradually became impressive as the engagements increased in frequency and scope. A trench raid is a trivial thing, with an inconsequential outcome when it has any outcome at all; but repeated daily, the casualties such raids produce, added to the fatalities resulting from random artillery fire, assume the dimensions of those of an extensive battle. They do not stand out as distinctive operations; proceeding upon established methods, there was a general sameness in their repetition, and they only became noticeable for the outstanding incidents that were bound to arise in each undertaking.