e North, St. Quentin on the East, Soissons
on the South, Amiens on the West.]
HOW GERMANY ATTEMPTED TO DIVIDE THE ALLIED ARMIES
The map shows the ground covered by the Germans in the terrific
Picardy drive of March, 1918, which had for its object the capture of
Amiens and the push forward along the Somme to the channel, thus
dividing the British army in the north from the French and Americans
in the south.

The strength of the Germans on the western front before the Russian
Revolution was probably about four million five hundred thousand men,
and the withdrawal of Russia from the war had added to that number
probably as many as one million five hundred thousand men, making an
army of six million men to oppose that of the Allies. The Allies,
therefore, must have considerably outnumbered the Germans.

In spite of this fact in nearly all the engagements in the early part of
the great offensive the Allied forces were outnumbered in a ratio
varying from three to one to five to three. This was possible, first,
because in any offensive the attacking side naturally concentrates as
many troops as it can gather at the point from which the offense is to
begin, and second, since the Allies were not under one command it was
with great difficulty that arrangements could be made by which the
forces of one nation could reinforce the armies of another.

The first difficulty of course could not be obviated, but the solution
of the second difficulty was the appointment of General Foch as
Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces.

The appointment was made on March 28th and all the influence of the
United States had been exerted in its favor. General Pershing at once
offered to General Foch the unrestricted use of the American force in
France and it was agreed that a large part of the American army should
be brigaded with the Allied troops wherever there were weak spots.

Foch was already famous as the greatest strategist in Europe. He comes
of a Basque family and was born in the town of Tarbes, in the Department
of the Hautes-Pyrenees, which is on the border of Spain, on October 2,
1851. Foch served as a subaltern in the Franco-Prussian War and at
twenty-six was made captain in the artillery. Later he became Professor
of Tactics in the Ecole de Guerre, where he remained for five years. He
then returned to regimental work and won steady promotion until he
became brigadier-general. He was sent back to the War College as