y French to dance and sing and
celebrate the overthrow of autocracy, while an autocracy the like of
which no French King had ever exercised was on the eve of engulfing them.

So the German General Staff said, sneering, as it laid its plans for the
final drive on Paris. They would start that drive on the night of July
14, while the fools were celebrating, when they were least expecting an
attack. Probably most of them would be drunk. Oh, almost certainly!
Their resistance would be weak, And for all time thereafter it would make
an impressive tale for schoolbooks throughout the Pan-Germanized world,
that democracy was dispatched in her last orgy of exultation.

As clearly as if he were not only present in the councils of German
Headquarters, but present inside the thick round skulls about the council
table, this boche attitude and intent was comprehended by the small frail
man at Mormant, where his Headquarters then were.

On that night of July 14 he began the great offensive which never stopped
until the whining boche was east of the Rhine!

His Intelligence Department told him that the German drive would probably
begin at ten minutes past midnight. They might be quite wrong, but that
was their guess. Foch was all-but sure they were not wrong; that it was
not in German nature to reason other than as I have described.

An hour before midnight the Germans were (doubtless) surprised by some
lively action of French artillery. Strange! But it couldn't mean
anything, of course! So the boche came on. The behavior of the French
was not quite what he had expected; one thing after another happened that
was not in his calculations. But that did not argue aught against the
calculations! It was the exasperating habit of the French to do
unexpected things. Most annoying! But not able to affect the outcome,
of course.

On July 18th they got "more unexpected still"--they and sundry "green"
troops from the flaccid, fatuous U. S. A.! Some "hounds of the devil"
were let loose upon the gray-clad armies of righteousness. It was
outrageous the way those sons of Satan fought! They rushed upon the
legions of the Lord's anointed as if killing Germans were the noblest
work a man could be about.

So many things happened that were not down on paper--in the plans of the
German General Headquarters! It became distressingly evident that these
Yanks knew as little, and cared as little, what was expected of them as
the stupid Bri