The great British offensive German now tried in had hitherto professed to despise - but it delayed Haig's attack for some weeks. His heavy guns had to be brought up to the new positions over territory rendered almost impassable by the Germans in their retreat, and new lines of communication had to be established. These things were accomplished, however, with a rapidity and efficiency wholly surprising to the German High Command; and in the subsequent British attack the Germans were saved only by the fact that now they were able to transfer all their best divisions from the Russian front to reinforce their troops pressed by the British. Even so, Haig continued to win important successes in Picardy and Flanders from April to November; but the blunder by Nivelle and the collapse of Russia made it impossible for him to "break through" to stay. The Russian military collapse had been caused in part by an exceedingly skillful German propaganda. Russian soldiers had been taught persistently by German emissaries that the war was the Tsar's war, or at least a capitalist war; and that their German brothers were quite ready to give the new Russia a fair peace. A little later the same tactics were repeated successfully against Italy. In August of 1917 the Italian armies seemed for a while to have overcome the tremendous natural difficulties confronting them. They had won important battles and had taken key positions commanding Trieste, when suddenly their military machine, too, went almost to pieces. The Germans had been using with the Italian rank and file a skillful propaganda. England and France, the Italian soldiers were told, were looking only to their own selfish ambitions, and were leaving Italy an unfair share of the burden of the war. Peace could be secured at any moment if only Italy would cease to attack Austrian territory. Meanwhile the wives and children of Italian soldiers were in truth famishing for bread, and information to this effect both reliable and exaggerated-was creeping through to the ranks. While the Italian morale was so honey-combed, the Austrians The Italian suddenly took the offensive. They met at first with almost collapse no resistance. They tore a huge gap in the Italian lines, took 200,000 prisoners and a great part of Italy's heavy artillery, and advanced into Venetia, driving the remnants of the Italian army before them in the rout. French and British reinforcements were hurried in; and the Italians rallied when they saw how they had been tricked and how their country had been opened to invaders. The Teutons proved unable to force the line of the Piave River; and Venice and the rich Lombard plain were saved. Italy had not been put out of the war as Russia had been; but for the next six months, until well into the next year, the most that she could do, even with the help of Allied forces sadly needed elsewhere, was to hold her new line while she built up again her broken military machine. fails The brightest phase of the year's struggle for the Allies was The U-boat at the point where there had seemed the greatest peril. Ger- campaign many's new submarine warfare had indeed destroyed an enormous shipping tonnage, and for a few months had really promised to make good the threat of starving England into surrender. But the English navy made a supreme effort. An admirable convoy system was organized to protect important merchant fleets; shipbuilding was speeded up, to supply the place of tonnage sunk; submarine chasers and patrol boats waged relentless, daring, and successful war against the treacherous and barbarous craft of the enemy. America sent five battleships to reinforce the British Grand Fleet, and more to the purpose a much more considerable addition to the antisubmarine fleet; and newly created American shipyards had begun to launch new cargo ships in ever increasing numbers, upon a scale never before known to the world. The Allies were kept supplied with food and other necessaries enough to avert any supreme calamity. Before September, 1917, the menace in its darkest form had passed. Submarines remained a source of loss and serious annoyance; but it had America's man-power begins to count become plain that they were not to be the decisive factor in the war. Moreover, America was slowly getting into the struggleslowly, and yet more swiftly than either friend or foe had dreamed possible. The general expectation had been that, totally unprepared as the United States was for war, her chief contribution would be in money, ships, and supplies. These she gave in generous measure (Chapter X, below). But also, from the first the government wisely planned for military participation on a huge scale. Congress was induced to pass a "selective conscription" act; and as early as June a small contingent of excellent fighters was sent to France - mainly from the old regular army. In the early fall, new regiments were transported (some 300,000 before Christmas), and perhaps half a million more were in training. By 1920, it was then thought by the hopeful, America could place three million men in the field in Europe, or even five million, and so decide the war. But events were to make a supreme exertion necessary even sooner; and America was to meet the need. CHAPTER IX THE LAST YEAR, 1918 war-weari ness France could stand one more year of war, but she was very French disnearly "bled white," as Germany had boasted. Her working content and classes were war-weary and discouraged, and the Germans had infected all classes in that country more or less successfully with their poisonous and baseless propaganda to the effect that England was using France to fight her battles, and that she herself was bearing far less than her proper share of the burden. French morale was in danger of giving way somewhat as Russian and Italian had given way. It was saved by two things by the tremendous energy of the aged Clemenceau "The Tiger" - whom the crisis had called from his retirement to the premiership; and by the encouraging appearance in France, none too soon, of American soldiers in large numbers. Even in England, peace talk began to be heard, not merely among the workers but here and there in all ranks of society. And among the laborers this dangerous leaning was fearfully augmented when the Russian Bolsheviki published the copies of the "Secret Treaties " between England, France, Italy, and the Tsar's government, revealing the Allied governments as purchasing one another's aid by promises of territorial and commercial spoils. For the first time the charge against the Allies that on their side too the war was a capitalist war was given some color of presumption. 66 Peace feeling in Eng land In Germany, too, the masses of the people were war-weary. Conditions in Germany The entire generation of their young men was threatened with extinction, and their children were being pitifully stunted from lack of food. The Reichstag actually adopted resolutions in favor of peace without annexations or indemnities which from the German viewpoint was extremely conciliatory. But A race between Germany and America Wilson's offensive the junkers and great capitalists were still bent upon complete military victory, which they seemed to see within their grasp; and the German war lords at once made it plain that they recognized no binding force in the Reichstag resolutions. They had knocked out Russia, put out Italy temporarily at least, and might now turn all their strength as never before upon France and England. They were confident that they could win the war before American armies could become an important factor. The Allies, they insisted, had not shipping enough to bring the Americans in any numbers; still less to bring the supplies needful for them; and then the Americans "couldn't fight" anyway without years of training. Thus in 1918 the war became a race between Germany and America. Could America put decisive numbers in action on the West front before Germany could deliver a knock-out blow? While winter held the German armies inactive, the British and American navies carried each week thousands of American soldiers toward the front, English ships carrying much the greater number. And during these same months America and England won a supremely important victory in the moral field. In the summer of 1917 the Pope had suggested peace negotiation on the basis of July, 1914 — before the war began. Woodrow Wilson "diplomatic at once answered, for America and for the Allies, that there could be no safe peace with the faithless Hohenzollern government. This cleared the air, and made plain at least one of the " guarantees the Allies must secure. Then Germany tried another maneuver: she put forward Austria to suggest peace negotiations in hope, no doubt, of weakening the Allied morale. Instead, in two great speeches, Lloyd-George and President Wilson stated the war aims of the Allies with a studious moderation which conciliated wavering elements in their own countries, and at the same time with a keen logic that put Germany in the wrong even more clearly than before in the eyes of the world. Lloyd-George (January 6) demanded complete reparation for Belgium, but disclaimed intention to |