aemmerung_ of the end, conditions were
abnormal, and the two regiments marched on through forest country,
right through the enemy lines towards the Meuse, for about eight
kilometres, capturing machine-gunners asleep at their guns, and
rounding up parties of the enemy on the roads, till in the early dawn
they reached a farm where German officers were sitting round tables
with lights burning--only to spring to their feet in dismay, as the
Americans surrounded them. The cold autumn morning--the young bronzed
faces emerging from the darkness--the humbled and astonished foe:
surely Old and New, Europe and America, were never brought together in
a moment more attractive to the story-teller. A touch of romance amid
the tragedy and the glory! But how welcome it is!

The full history, however, of the Argonne fighting will probably not
be accurately known for some little time to come. No such obscurity
hangs over the glorious fighting on the Marne, through the scenes of
which I passed both on the railway journey from Paris to Metz, and in
motoring from Chalons to Paris on our return. Colonel Frederick
Palmer's book[9] gives an account of these operations, which, it seems
to me, ought to be universally read in the Allied countries. The
crusading courage of whole-hearted youth, the contempt of death and
suffering, the splendid and tireless energy which his pages describe,
if they touch other English hearts as deeply as they have touched
mine, will go a long way towards that spiritual bond between our
nations which alone can make real and lasting things out of Leagues
and Treaties.

[9] _America in France_, by Lt.-Col. Frederick Palmer, S.C., U.S.A.

It was on our way from Rheims to Paris after our drive through the
Champagne battle-field that we passed rapidly through the places and
scenes which Colonel Palmer describes.

As we approached Rheims about midday, a thick white fog rolled
suddenly and silently over the chalk uplands that saw General
Gouraud's campaign of last September and October. We ran through it,
past a turning to Moronvilliers on the left--famous name!--and within
a short distance of Nogent l'Abbesse, the fort which did most to wreck
Rheims Cathedral, and so down in a dreary semi-darkness into Rheims
itself.

Thirty-five years ago I was in Rheims for the first and only time,
before this visit. It was in September, not long before the vintage.
The town and the country-side were steeped in sunlight, and in th