We can accumulate troops on his front—veterans from Russia—sufficient to outnumber him by at least three to one. That should suffice, if we stand by our decision about casualties. We will strike hard at his new positions, before his artillery has had time to register thoroughly. We will annihilate his front system of trenches by an intensive bombardment, while our new long-range gas-shells take his rest-billets by surprise and demoralize his Divisional and Corps Reserves. And I think, Majesty, that we have been a little punctilious about things like the Red Cross. After all, hospitals are a mere sentimental handicap to the efficient waging of war. Our new bombing aeroplanes might be instructed to deal faithfully with these, especially as the fool English have organized no preparation for their defence. Yes, I—we—Your Majesty will drive the whole pack of them into the sea this time! The French, isolated, can then be handled at leisure; and with Calais, Boulogne, and Havre in our hands the Americans will find that they have come too late. In fact, we can pick them off as they arrive. Thus it is that Your Majesty, like Cæsar and Napoleon, separates his enemies and then destroys them one by one.… _Divide et Impera!_ Exactly! Most happily put, Your Majesty!” * * * * * And it was so—up to a point. Ludendorff’s plan was adopted. The necessary concentration of troops was effected with admirable secrecy and promptitude, and the parallel enterprises of sweeping the British Army into the sea and expending a million German lives were duly inaugurated. The latter undertaking succeeded better than the former: the line sagged and wavered; it was pushed here and there; but it never broke. Still, the strain was terrible, as news arrived of Monchy gone, Wytschaete gone, Messines gone, Kemmel gone; of Bapaume, Albert, Armentières, Bailleul, all gone—little hills and little towns all of them, but big and precious in certain unimportant eyes because of their associations. But the worst news never arrived. Instead, there came one morning the tale of an all-day assault by the Hun, delivered in mass from Meteren to Voormezeele, every wave of which had been broken and hurled back by impregnable rocks of French and British infantry. So disastrous was the failure of that tremendous lunge that the enemy drew off with his dead and his shame for several weeks, and the non-stop run to Calais was withdrawn from the time-table until further notice.