mon cause, while disintegrating the hoary
tyrannies of Central and Eastern Europe.

CHANGES COME FAST AND FURIOUS

Events in the field reacted with powerful effect upon autocratic
Austria. The Austrian throne was built upon the backs of vassal states,
all of which had yielded thousands of emigrants to this country; and
these transplanted peoples, having found freedom, proceeded to incite
the countries of their origin to throw off their burdens and like
Americans, be free to govern themselves.

The moment had come for Bohemia, Poland, and all Czecho-Slav and
Jugo-Slav peoples to rise. The United States Government, in full
sympathy with their yearnings, had received their representatives at
Washington, had furnished funds as well as moral support to their
provisional governments, had supported an independent Czecho-Slav army
in Russia with American reinforcements, with clothing, arms, munitions,
and supplies, and now, at exactly the right juncture, in August, 1918,
recognized the Czecho-Slav as a cobelligerent power lawfully at war
against the central empires.

FERDINAND FALLS FROM THE WAR WAGON

This was the push that brought the break. Germany still had her armies
intact on the soil of other countries, and was a consolidated force,
tired though not beaten. But the fat and filthy "Czar" Ferdinand
of Bulgaria sat in voluntary exile, eating like bread the ashes of
repentance, and mingling his drink with weeping; so that his country,
yellow at best, and frightened by the fear of being done to as it had
done by Serbia, quit abruptly, without shame, almost without firing a
shot. With that defection the last wisp of Germany's long cherished
dream of a boche Middle-Europe and a boche empire stretching from Berlin
to Bagdad, faded forever. In October, 1918, Austria consented to a
reconstituted independent Bohemian state, and with apparent readiness
granted self-government to Hungary.

Meantime, in September and October, 1918, the American and allied armies
chased the Germans from the coast and far into the interior of Belgium,
the Belgian army, financed by the United States, taking part in that
operation. Town after town, city after city in Belgium and France
fell to the American and allied forces, so that the German government
(October 27) addressed a note to the President of the United States
asking him to intercede with our allies for an armistice and a
conference for discussion of terms of peace. This led to four exch