usion of an armistice on land and water and in air."

October 10, Austria and Turkey joined Germany in appealing for peace
terms. Notes continued to pass between the Germanic capitals and
Washington, D. C.

But Foch fought on.

The Americans had cleared the last corner of the Argonne of German
machine-gun nests and gunners, and were widening their offensive on the
Meuse. The French had taken Laon, and were pushing on. The British had
taken Lens and Cambrai and were advancing on Douai and Lille.

On the 23rd of October the President of the United States referred the
matter of the armistice to the Allies. On the 29th, the Allied War
Council met at Versailles to fix the armistice conditions.

(Foch meanwhile had launched an offensive against the Austrians on the
Piave.)

Now, an armistice is supposed to be a cessation of hostilities for an
agreed period, all combatants to remain as they were; if the parley for
peace is not successful, the struggle is to resume where it paused,
neither side having gained or lost, except as delay may or may not have
been favorable to them.

Foch had not the smallest intention of granting the hard-pushed enemy
that sort of an armistice--time to recuperate, to parley while Winter
came on and postponed the resumption of his offensive until Spring. To
do that meant to prolong the war probably another year, at enormous cost
in lives, suffering, materials.

What he would grant would be an armistice in which the enemy, so far from
keeping his positions would abandon them all and retire far behind the
Rhine; in which the Allies, so far from keeping their positions, would
follow the retreating enemy into his own country, and police it; in which
the enemy, so far from resting on his sword, would hand it over--his
swords, and his cannon, and his machine-guns, and his fleet and his
submarines and his aircraft and his locomotives; in which he would
release all Allied prisoners and not ask the release of any of his
captured men.

The terms were the most ignominious ever imposed upon a prostrate enemy.
The sole reason for referring to them as "armistice terms" was that peace
terms are final and absolute, and these were not final--they would be
made much worse if the Germans failed to satisfy their conquerors on
every point.

When the Allied War Council had agreed with Foch on the armistice terms,
he said:

"Within ten days or a fortnight I can break the German army in three,
envelop a s