great impression and received
a hearty welcome.

That's the only grievance I can at the moment unload on you. We're
passing out of our old era of isolation. These benighted heathen on
this island whom we'll yet save (since they are well worth saving)
will be with us as we need them in future years and centuries.
Come, help us heighten this fine spirit.

Always heartily yours,

WALTER HINES PAGE.

P.S. You'd see how big our country looks from a distance. It's
gigantic, I assure you.

The above letter was written on what was perhaps the darkest day of the
whole war. The German attack on the Western Front, which had been long
expected, had now been launched, and, at the moment that Page was
penning this cheery note to Mr. Polk, the German armies had broken
through the British defenses, had pushed their lines forty miles ahead,
and, in the judgment of many military men, had Paris almost certainly
within their grasp. A great German gun, placed about seventy miles from
the French capital, was dropping shells upon the apparently doomed city.
This attack had been regarded as inevitable since the collapse of
Russia, which had enabled the Germans to concentrate practically all
their armies on the Western Front.

The world does not yet fully comprehend the devastating effect of this
apparently successful attack upon the allied morale. British statesmen
and British soldiers made no attempt to conceal from official Americans
the desperate state of affairs. It was the expectation that the Germans
might reach Calais and thence invade England. The War Office discussed
these probabilities most freely with Colonel Slocum, the American
military attache. The simple fact was that both the French and the
British armies were practically bled white.

"For God's sake, get your men over!" they urged General Slocum. "You
have got to finish it."

Page was writing urgently to President Wilson to the same purpose. Send
the men and send them at once. "I pray God," were his solemn words to
Mr. Wilson, "that you will not be too late!"

One propitious event had taken place at the same time as the opening of
the great German offensive. Mr. Newton D. Baker, the American Secretary
of War, had left quietly for France in late February, 1918, and had
reached the Western Front in time to obtain a first-hand sight of the
great March drive. No visit in history has ever been better timed, and
no event