reports which had been coming through of the severe
fighting in the Salient, during the preceding weeks, were again rising
rapidly. Everybody was full of the success of the initial attack, of
the tanks above all, and what they might mean for the future. At last
Sir Julian Byng had achieved surprise; at last there had been open
fighting; if by happy chance we took Cambrai what might not happen? A
flash of optimism ran through us all. Victory and peace drew nearer.
Yet in the background there were always those dim rumours of the
appalling losses at Passchendaele, together with the smarting memory
of Caporetto, and of the British divisions sent to Italy.

And in ten days more we knew that the German counter-attack had
checked the Cambrai advance, that Bourlon Wood was lost, that Cambrai
was still inaccessible, and we retained only a portion of the ground
gained by the dash and skill of the first days. The moral was, as
always--"more men!" and we settled down again to a stubborn waiting
for our own new recruits, then in the training camps, and for the
first appearance of the American battalions. Meanwhile the news from
Russia grew steadily worse; the Russian Army had melted away under the
Kerensky regulations; and the country was rapidly falling into chaos.
Brest-Litovsk was acutely realised for the German triumph that it was;
and the heads of the Army were already calculating with some precision
the number of German divisions, then on the Eastern front, which must
inevitably be transferred to France for the spring offensive of the
German Army.

It was natural that those really acquainted with the situation should
turn feverishly towards America. When was her Army coming? In the
matter of money America had done nobly towards all the Allies. In this
field her help had been incalculably great. In the matter of munitions
and stores for the Allies she had done all that the state of her
railways, the weather of her winter, and the drawbacks of the American
Constitution, considered as a military machine, as yet allowed her to
do. Meanwhile one saw the President, aided by a score of able and
energetic men, constantly at work removing stones in the path, setting
up a War Industries Board, reorganising the Shipping Board and the Air
Service, and clearing the way for those food supplies from the great
American and Canadian wheatfields without which Europe could not
endure, and which were constantly endangered by the pressure of the