ne felt, on which
everyone brought into contact with him based his unfaltering faith in
the outcome.

"We do not know," says an editorial writer in the New York _Evening
Sun_, "what the judgments of the military critics will be when they
have carefully studied and sifted the evidence, but to a layman it
looks as if Foch was not merely a very great general but one of the
greatest generals of all recorded history . . . as great a general as
Napoleon or Caesar or Hannibal or Alexander."

But whether they put him, as a military man, on a par with Napoleon, or
come sapiently to the conclusion that he was no more than a very able
general fortunate in being in command at the time the Germanic morale
was breaking, it will never be possible to disprove that he was a
supreme leader of men in a great war of ideals--an incarnation of all
those qualities of faith and fervor, of self-mastery and dependence on
the Divine, of self-realization and with it devotion to the rights and
progress of others, which are embodied in the Christian democracy for
whose preservation millions have gladly died.

XVII

BRINGING GERMANY TO ITS KNEES

Faith in the ability of Foch to lead us all to victory was, however, not
to endure without its grave tests.

The German drive of March 21 was checked by his co-ordination of Allied
forces. But checking the enemy just before he reached the key of the
Channel ports was not defeating him; preventing him from driving a wedge
between the British and French armies was only diverting him to another
point of attack. He was desperate--that enemy! He knew that he must win
a decisive victory soon, or see his own maladies destroy him.

He knew the genius of Foch; he knew the immense increase in strength that
the Allies had achieved in unifying their command. He may have
underestimated the worth in battle of our American fighters; but it is
scarcely probable that he underestimated the worth, behind the lines, of
our army of railroad builders, harbor constructors, supply handlers, and
the like. He knew that whether we could fight or not, we had money and
men and were pouring both into France to help win the war.

And he also knew that victory after victory which he had won had not only
failed to increase his might but had, somehow, weakened him; country
after country had fallen before his sword or before his
poison-propaganda--or both!--his plunder was vast, his accessions in
fighting men available fo