In 1917 and in the first half of 1918 there seemed no ending to the war
by military means. Even many of our generals who had been so breezy
in their optimism believed now that the end must come by diplomatic
means--a "peace by understanding." I had private talks with men in high
command, who acknowledged that the way must be found, and the British
mind prepared for negotiations, because there must come a limit to the
drain of blood on each side. It was to one man in the world that many
men in all armies looked for a way out of this frightful impasse.

President Wilson had raised new hope among many men who otherwise were
hopeless. He not only spoke high words, but defined the meanings of
them. His definition of liberty seemed sound and true, promising the
self-determination of peoples. His offer to the German people to deal
generously with them if they overthrew their tyranny raised no quarrel
among British soldiers. His hope of a new diplomacy, based upon "open
covenants openly arrived at," seemed to cut at the root of the old evil
in Europe by which the fate of peoples had been in the hands of the few.
His Fourteen Points set out clearly and squarely a just basis of peace.
His advocacy of a League of Nations held out a vision of a new world
by which the great and small democracies should be united by a common
pledge to preserve peace and submit their differences to a supreme court
of arbitration. Here at last was a leader of the world, with a clear
call to the nobility in men rather than to their base passions, a gospel
which would raise civilization from the depths into which it had fallen,
and a practical remedy for that suicidal mania which was exhausting the
combatant nations.

I think there were many millions of men on each side of the
fighting-line who thanked God because President Wilson had come with
a wisdom greater than the folly which was ours to lead the way to an
honorable peace and a new order of nations. I was one of them... Months
passed, and there was continual fighting, continued slaughter, and no
sign that ideas would prevail over force. The Germans launched their
great offensive, broke through the British lines, and afterward through
the French lines, and there were held and checked long enough for our
reserves to be flung across the Channel--300,000 boys from England and
Scotland, who had been held in hand as the last counters for the pool.
The American army came in tidal waves across the Atlant