d held by the Americans.

AMERICAN VICTORIES ALONG THE MEUSE-AISNE RIVERS.

Another corps of the First American Army, in command of General Hunter
Liggett, also made a brilliant attack between the Meuse and Aisne
rivers east of Rheims on a front twenty miles long, where the crack
Prussian Guards were routed. Here in one of the most bitterly contested
battles of the closing days the Americans made an important advance,
capturing half a dozen villages.

As at Chateau-Thierry, the Americans in the face of withering fire and
against all the instruments of modern warfare handled by the best
soldiers in Germany, fought their way through with a bravery that won
for them the praises of the highest commands in the French and British
armies, as well as from General Pershing.

At the very close of the struggle the Americans arose to the heights of
sublime heroism in crossing the river Meuse, capturing the town of Dun
and later the town of Sedan, famous as one of the scenes of bitter
fighting in the Franco-Prussian War.

GREAT VICTORY AT SEDAN.

The Americans forced their way across a 160-foot river, a stretch of mud
flats and a 60-foot canal in the face of terrible fire. Men who could
swim breasted the stream carrying ropes, which were stretched from bank
to bank and along which those who could not swim made their way over the
river. Some crossed in collapsible boats, others on rafts and finally on
pontoon and foot bridges, which were constructed under the enemy fire.

This difficult feat accomplished, the men waded through mud to the
canal, fighting as they went, and again plunged into the water, swimming
the canal, at the far side of which they were compelled to use grappling
hooks and scaling irons to mount the perpendicular banks of the canal,
along which were the resisting Germans. And finally, when the German
Empire fell, famed Sedan was in the hands of the Americans. With the
last forward movement they took possession of Stenay when hostilities
ceased.

The part the American soldiers played in winning the war, merely as a
matter of increased man power, is indicated by the fact that when the
end came there were 2,900,000 men in the forces abroad.

COLLAPSE OF THE TEUTONIC ALLIES.

The failure of the German submarine warfare and the ability of the
British, French and American naval forces to protect troop ships and
permit the landing of as high as 200,000 soldiers in France in a single
month, had much to do