to the President of the United States. All
diplomatic eyes were turned toward Washington. Yet not a hint of the
impending events had reached the public. The Germans were being beaten
back, that was known; it was evident that the morale of the German army
was broken; that Foch had turned the tide toward victory; but even the
best-informed military authorities outside of the inner diplomatic
circles, predicted that the war would last until the spring of 1919,
when a final "drive" would end it. Yet, at that very moment, the end of
the war was in sight!

Next Bok went to France to visit the battle-fields. It was arranged that
the party should first, under guidance of British officers, visit back
of the British lines; and then, successively, be turned over to the
American and French Governments, and visit the operations back of their
armies.

It is an amusing fact that although each detail of officers delegated to
escort the party "to the front" received the most explicit instructions
from their superior officers to take the party only to the quiet sectors
where there was no fighting going on, each detail from the three
governments successively brought the party directly under shell-fire,
and each on the first day of the "inspection." It was unconsciously
done: the officers were as much amazed to find themselves under fire as
were the members of the party, except that the latter did not feel the
responsibility to an equal degree. The officers, in each case, were
plainly worried: the editors were intensely interested.

They were depressing trips through miles and miles of devastated
villages and small cities. From two to three days each were spent in
front-line posts on the Amiens-Bethune, Albert-Peronne,
Bapaume-Soissons, St. Mihiel, and back of the Argonne sectors. Often,
the party was the first civilian group to enter a town evacuated only a
week before, and all the horrible evidence of bloody warfare was fresh
and plain. Bodies of German soldiers lay in the trenches where they had
fallen; wired bombs were on every hand, so that no object could be
touched that lay on the battle-fields; the streets of some of the towns
were still mined, so that no automobiles could enter; the towns were
deserted, the streets desolate. It was an appalling panorama of the most
frightful results of war.

The picturesqueness and romance of the war of picture books were
missing. To stand beside an English battery of thirty guns laying a
bar