nquered territory are your share of the trophies
of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your
superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of
liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.

American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously
spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded
you during such splendid days and to have fought with you for the
deliverance of the world.

The Germans began backing off the Marne. From that day on, their
movement to date has continued backward. It began July 18th. Two
American Divisions played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their
day. It was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.

CHAPTER XX

THE DAWN OF VICTORY

The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of the German hordes had
begun. Hard on their heels, the American lines started their northward
push, backing the Boche off the Marne.

On the morning of July 21st I rode into Chateau-Thierry with the first
American soldiers to enter the town. The Germans had evacuated
hurriedly. Chateau-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces and
those of the French.

Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, imperialistic longings for
the great prize, Paris, ended here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of
the world had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that America
was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy crumpled at historic
Chateau-Thierry.

That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was comparatively quiet.
Only an occasional German shell--a final parting spite shell--whined
disconsolately overhead and landed in a cloud of dust and debris in some
vacant ruin that had once been a home.

For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupation of that part of
the city on the north bank of the river. Now the streets were littered
with debris. Although the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be in
good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation.

The Germans had built barricades across the streets--particularly the
streets that led down to the river--because it was those streets that
were swept with the terrific fire of American machine guns. At the
intersections of those streets the Germans under cover of night had
taken up the cobblestones and built parapets to protect them from the
hail of lead.

Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot. Along the north bank
of the river on t