MY DEAR HOUSE:

There's a distinct wave of depression here--perhaps I'd better say
a period of setbacks has come. So far as we can find out only the
Germans are doing anything in the war on land. The position in
France is essentially the same as it was in November, only the
Germans are much more strongly entrenched. Their great plenty of
machine guns enables them to use fewer men and to kill more than
the Allies. The Russians also lack ammunition and are yielding more
and more territory. The Allies--so you hear now--will do well if
they get their little army away from the Dardanelles before the
German-Turks eat 'em alive, and no Balkan state comes in to help
the Allies. Italy makes progress-slowly, of course, over almost
impassable mountains--etc., etc. Most of this doleful recital I
think is true; and I find more and more men here who have lost hope
of seeing an end of the war in less than two or three years, and
more and more who fear that the Germans will never be forced out of
Belgium. And the era of the giant aeroplane seems about to come--a
machine that can carry several tons and several men and go great
distances--two engines, two propellers, and the like. It isn't at
all impossible, I am told, that these machines may be the things
that will at last end the war--possibly, but I doubt it.

At any rate, it is true that a great wave of discouragement is
come. All these events and more seem to prove to my mind the rather
dismal failure the Liberal Government made--a failure really to
grasp the problem. It was a dead failure. Of course they are waking
up now, when they are faced with a certain dread lest many soldiers
prefer frankly to die rather than spend another winter in
practically the same trenches. You hear rumours, too, of great
impending military scandals--God knows whether there be any truth
in them or not.

In a word, while no Englishman gives up or will ever give
up--that's all rot--the job he has in hand is not going well. He's
got to spit on his hands and buckle up his belt two holes tighter
yet. And I haven't seen a man for a month who dares hope for an end
of the fight within any time that he can foresee.

I had a talk to-day with the Russian Ambassador[16]. He wished to
know how matters stood between the United States a