In the spring of 1917, there had been grave temporary disorder in the French army. When Pétain took command the situation, so far as discipline was concerned, was more serious than at any time since the outbreak of the war. It was in part because of this that the Germans made their long and costly offensive at the Chemin-des-Dames, the reasons for which were obscure at the moment because no great military advantage seemed attainable and the world did not understand the conditions that existed in the French army. Happily under Pétain discipline was restored, and the German offensive beaten down exactly where it started. Pétain's success was evidence of the degree to which the French army had regained its moral strength. At Verdun, in Flanders, and now on the Aisne, French arms in a few months had won notable successes, taken large numbers of prisoners, and proved their superiority over the Germans. This was the real and permanent value of the French victory fought upon ground where Napoleon fought Blücher less successfully more than a century before. It was too soon to talk about a push to Laon, but it was fair to say that one of the main obstacles to such a push had been beaten down.

Late in October French forces in the Aisne region on a front of six miles captured important German positions and a few thousand prisoners, forced the Germans to abandon Monkey Mountain, east of Vauxaillon, the village and forest of Pinon, the village of Pargny-Filain, on the extreme east of the line, some fortified farms and other points of vantage. This drive brought Pétain's army within sight of Laon, the objective sought, which now was a scant eight miles distant. Large quantities of war-stores were abandoned by the Germans in their retreat, and additional guns and prisoners captured. The number of prisoners taken since the French drive began exceeded 12,000, more than 200 of whom were officers. Two thousand prisoners were bagged in one day. The rapidity of the drive was shown in the total number of guns the Germans were forced to leave behind them, which aggregated 120, among them several howitzers, not to mention several hundred small caliber pieces and machine-guns. Pétain's stroke had in

flicted on Germany perhaps her greatest defeat of 1917. Demoralized by triphammer blows, she was abandoning guns in a retreat across the marshy Ailette valley, the Aisne and the Oise Canal. Fighting with the desperation of men who knew they were beaten, Germans gave way before the French wedge until it had been jammed for more than three miles

into the pivotal base of their line curving around the western extremity of the Chemin-des-Dames. The German losses in two days were estimated to be equivalent to three divisions, or approximately 45,000 men. In proportion to the size of the battle-frontt-seven miles-this was the heaviest loss Germany had sustained in a single series of military

operations since her disastrous retreat in the spring of 1917.

The French now dominated the entire Ailette Valley and their hold on the observatories practically rendered untenable the German lines along the northern edge of the Chemin-des-Dames, far to the east, all the way toward Craonne. Five days later began the German retreat along the hilly front of the Chemin-des-Dames. The Germans, tired of the terrible ordeal they had been forced to undergo from French artillery and infantry, seemed ready to fall back on Laon, which, with its network of railways, had been the quest of the French. Among the German prisoners taken were many immature and unseasoned youths of the class of 1918. Only dire necessity accounted for their appearance on the German line. In France the class of 1918 was still at instruction camps, and there had been thus far no occasion to send them to the trenches. The British were much better off for reserves even than the French, and soon the Americans, in ever-increasing numbers, fresh, vigorous, and eager, would take over a part of the French line. The Allies were not yet in possession of Lens, Laon and Roulers, but the business of killing Germans with drumand barrage-fire, and rounding them up by thousands, was going on relentlessly. It had become imperative for the Germans to reinforce their line in the west, not only with boys of the Class of 1918, but with veterans discharged from hospitals and fit for service.

The immediate after-effect of the French success was a German retirement early in November along a fifteenmile front to the Ailette. The best elements in the Crown Prince's army had lost the greater part of their effectives, and were compelled to go to the rear to reconstitute their diminished ranks. On the crest of the Chemin-des-Dames they had suffered daily and nightly an incessant enfilading fire from guns wrested from the Prussian Guards during the battle of Malmaison. They, accordingly, retired to the northern side of the Ailette.

With the approach of winter, a detachment of American infantrymen in the Verdun neighborhood was attacked in front-line trenches by a much superior force of Germans. Cut off from relief by heavy barrage in their rear they fought