There were many vacant places that evening in the building that served as a mess. Youngsters who, a few hours previously, had left the aerodrome like modern knights of the air, were lying crushed beyond recognition amidst the wreckage of their trusted steeds. The price of victory was a heavy one; the toll of airmen's lives enormous; yet the sacrifice had not been made in vain. The soil of Flanders and Picardy, drenched with British blood, was hourly becoming a wider and stronger barrier between the modern Hun and the shores of Great Britain--shores that, held inviolate from the feet of a would-be invader, had nevertheless felt the effect of German shells and bombs. The worst was over. Fritz was done. The stranglehold of the British fleet had paralysed the most highly-trained military nation in the world, and now the civilian armies of Britain, France, and the United States were reaping the benefit, and were steadily driving the Hun towards the Rhine. No longer was it possible--thanks to the ever-increasing efficiency of the R.A.F.--for German machines to bomb the capital of the British Empire, or even to make "cut-and-run" raids upon the south-eastern ports. Outclassed and outnumbered, Fritz was a back number on land, on the sea, and in the air. There were constant rumours of the Huns clamouring for an armistice, and the fear of an armistice filled the Allies with alarm. They felt themselves in the position of a man who, having caught a burglar on his premises, is compelled to hand the criminal over to be tried by a notoriously lenient judge. They realized that Germany might come to terms that would undo the result of four years' fighting. The diplomat would upset the carefully-laid plans of the soldier; therefore it was imperative to continue to strike hard while there was yet time. From the North Sea to the Swiss frontier the German line had cracked. British and Belgian troops were in possession of Bruges; Ypres was no longer a salient; Cambrai, the scene of a grave reverse that paved the way for a gigantic German offensive, was in British hands; the French had overrun the debatable Chemin des Dames and had put Rheims beyond the range of the German heavy artillery; Big Bertha and her sisters could no longer disturb the equanimity of the citizens of Paris; while the Americans had flattened out the Saint Mihiel salient, and were enveloping the fortress of Metz. After years of trench warfare, the news seemed too good to be true. Secret orders taken on the captured ground gave abundant evidence of the effect of the predominating weight of the Allies. Frantic appeals for reserves and munitions--appeals that, read between the lines, showed a mistrust between German officers and men--orders for the strictest conservation of shells; these and a hundred other signs told of the crisis through which Imperial Germany was passing--a crisis which was bound to tell against her.