y
different in temper from the first. There were many, perhaps
constituting a majority, who like George Thario wanted a peace, almost
any kind of peace, to be made. Others attempted to ignore the presence
of a war entirely and to conduct their lives as though it did not exist.
Still others seemed to regard it as some kind of game, a contest carried
on in a bloodless vacuum, and from these to the newspapers and the
Wardepartment came the hundreds of plans, nearly all of them entirely
fantastic, for conquering an enemy now unassailably entrenched.

But while pessimism and lassitude governed the United States the
intruders were taking energetic measures to increase their successes. "I
have been present at the questioning of two spies," reported General
Thario, "and I want to tell you the enemy is not going to miss a single
opportunity, unlike ourselves. What they have in mind I cannot guess;
they can't fly over the grass any more than we can as long as they want
to conciliate world opinion and I doubt if they can tunnel under it, but
that they intend to do _something_ is beyond question."

Often the obvious course is the surprising one; since the Russians
couldnt go over or under the grass they decided to march on top of it.
They had heard of our prewar snowshoe excursions on its surface and so
they equipped a vast army with this clumsy footgear and set it in motion
with supplytrains on wide skis pulled by the men themselves. Russian
ingenuity, boasted the Kremlin, would succeed in conquering the grass
where the decadent imperialists had failed.

"It is unbelievable--you might even call it absurd, but at least they
are doing something, not sitting twiddling their thumbs. My men would
give six months' pay to be as active as the enemy. To be sure they are
grotesque and inefficient--so was the Army of Italy. Imagine sending an
army--or armies if our reports are correct--on a six hundred mile march
without an airforce, without artillery, without any mechanized
equipment whatsoever. Unless, like the Army of Italy, they have a
Bonaparte concealed behind their lunacy they have no chance at all of
success, but by the military genius of Joseph Eggleston Johnston, if I
were a younger man and not an American I would like to be with them just
for the fun they are having."

By its very nature the expedition was composed exclusively of infantry
divisions carrying the latest type of automatic rifle. The field
commissaries, the ambula