n of the Danube, where
the Tyrol, the Carpathians, and the Germans protected the few shattered
loyal ones.

There was not a German vessel left on the Seven Seas. Her fleet had been
put to sleep in the Frisian marshes, outnumbered by the British on the
outside, and cut off from supplies by troops landed through Denmark and
Holland.

On the West they stood behind the Rhine. The drive had been rapid and
relentless from all sides. They left their villages empty except for the
dead as they went before the closing ring of steel. They took everything
with them that might be used as fuel, as material for ammunition, and
left their cities razed more completely than the invader could have done
it.

Christmas night found us where Ludwigshafen had been. For two months we
had stood, unable to move an inch farther. The thick deluge of fire the
Germans rolled upon us at every advance amazed us. There could not long
be a bit of iron or copper or saltpeter or food left inside the ring.

We had no knowledge of the source of this indomitable resistance. For
months not a living soul had been able to pass across the lines, nor
had a single message of any kind or a reply to any, by any means, come
out of Germany. For three to five miles about the lines there was a
devastated ring, bare of everything, swept by fire and death. Beyond
that was grim and gruesome silence. The airmen could see little. Houses
were apparently deserted and the people lived in the woods or in the
ground. Every particle of earth that could be spared was used to grow
something to eat. In the large cities buildings and bridges were torn
down. Their cut stone and iron went to the making of fort and cannon.

This Christmas Eve, as we sat in our cement dugout, the silence outside
was brooding and heavy. Snow had fallen for a week and there had been no
fighting. In the intervals of our talk there was only the sound of a
famished cat's wailing outside. We talked of the war, and of what we
were going to do with Germany when the end came.

The talk of the world had been done. The nations at home sat like the
knitting ring about the guillotine, waiting for the final scene to be
staged. Germany was no more in the world's mind. They had tried to
think about her. Their thought had been brought to folly and confusion.
Already she was forgotten. She had become a piece of territory that
shortly their armies would occupy. Condemnations of her culture, of her
aspirations, of her