could have better played into Page's hands. He had been urging
Washington to send all available forces to France at the earliest
possible date; he knew, as probably few other men knew, the extent to
which the Allies were depending upon American troops to give the final
blow to Germany; and the arrival of Secretary Baker at the scene of
action gave him the opportunity to make a personal appeal. Page
immediately communicated with the Secretary and persuaded him to come at
once to London for a consultation with British military and political
leaders. The Secretary spent only three days in London, but the visit,
brief as it was, had historic consequences. He had many consultations
with the British military men; he entered into their plans with
enthusiasm; he himself received many ideas that afterward took shape in
action, and the British Government obtained from him first-hand
information as to the progress of the American Army and the American
determination to cooperate to the last man and the last dollar. "Baker
went straight back to France," Page wrote to his son Arthur, "and our
whole cooeperation began."

Page gave a dinner to Mr. Baker at the Embassy on March 23rd--two days
after the great March drive had begun. This occasion gave the visitor a
memorable glimpse of the British temperament. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr.
Balfour, Lord Derby, the War Secretary, General Biddle, of the United
States Army, and Admiral Sims were the Ambassador's guests. Though the
mighty issues then overhanging the world were not ignored in the
conversation the atmosphere hardly suggested that the existence of the
British Empire, indeed that of civilization itself, was that very night
hanging in the balance. Possibly it was the general sombreness of events
that caused these British statesmen to find a certain relief in jocular
small talk and reminiscence. For the larger part of the evening not a
word was said about the progress of the German armies in France. Mr.
Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour, seated on opposite sides of the table,
apparently found relaxation in reviewing their political careers and
especially their old-time political battles. They would laughingly
recall occasions when, in American parlance, they had put each other "in
a hole"; the exigencies of war had now made these two men colleagues in
the same government, but the twenty years preceding 1914 they had spent
in political antagonism. Page's guests on this occasion learned much
pol