"thumping indemnities," and huge annexations were to be imposed on the Western Powers for "their will not to be defeated," for their unwillingness to make peace-a peace of the kind Germany sought. Such was the spirit in which the military masters of Germany still declared they could obtain peace with the sword from the Entente nations. Four months afterward Ludendorff was in flight from the Marne salient and in four months more Germany was in a revolution, in which every crowned head, great and small, lost his throne, and the Kaiser and Crown Prince were fugitives in Holland.

Each day down to March 21 had witnessed an increase in fighting activity along the Western Front. In every theater of war except Russia, infantry and artillery had been at work on March 17. From the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, no day passed without numerous "patrol" encounters, which at times reached the intensity almost of battles. Artillery duels were in violence little short of great exchanges of shells. The most ambitious attempt was made by French troops over a wide front in the Verdun sector, where the attack was delivered after preparatory artillery-fire lasting ten hours, and troops came into hand-to-hand encounter. Haig's men were under heavy bombardments. Particularly violent was the pounding of shells along the BapaumeCambrai road, in the Scarpe Valley, and around Lens. Only one enemy infantry attack was attempted. This occurred. north of Lens and was repulsed. The British were successful in similar maneuvers near Epéhy and Gavrelle. On the American front near Toul the Americans were ever on the alert and frequently opened up with their guns against German positions and compelled the enemy to evacuate sectors under fire. The Toul sector apparently had been picked out by the Germans as a favorite spot upon which to expend noxious gases. Signs that the German High Command was taking the presence of our troops on the front west of Lunéville more seriously were accumulating. They had undertaken to harass our men with artillery fire at all hours of the night. One morning they trained upon one of our Lorraine sectors the mightiest gun yet designed. It was a 380 millimeter (15 inches) howitzer, which, like our heavy

ordnance, was fired from a railroad truck. In all these maneuvers the Teutons met their match.

In none of the raids thus far had any material gain been made by either side, except by the French, who, in the Reims region, penetrated German positions to a depth of about three-fifths of a mile. American troops on the Toul sector continued daily to give the enemy little rest, bombarding towns behind lines and trenches in front of them. Airmen on both sides were keenly active. Both were claiming a heavy toll in aviators shot down during combats in the air. To the French had fallen the task of facing the fiercest in

PERSHING AND BAKER INSPECTING AMERICAN
HARBOR WORK IN FRANCE

fantry fighting. In Lorraine the Germans delivered numerous strong attacks, but all were put down. American troops gave the Germans a dose of their own favorite weaponasphyxiating gas. Four different sectors of Germans were gas-shelled, and the gasses had the desired effect. By March 18 the Belgian army, reorganized and ready for battle, had taken over the coast sector in Flanders, which had heretofore been held by the French, altho British troops had made their appearance there at various times. As the Belgians, who were excellent in morale, had freed French and British forces for action elsewhere on the front, this

demonstrated that the past winter had been one of constructive work.

Secretary Baker was now in France, reviewing the achievements of American engineers, contractors, and workmen. At "a port in France" two miles and more of dock front had been built on ground which in October was only marsh. Slips for steamships had been constructed; concrete warehouses had been completed or were being put up; railroadtracks were spreading in all directions, with a "yard" for thousands of freight-cars. All this work was of a permanent nature, and cost many millions. The port had possibilities that pointed to another Hamburg. Going into the interior, Mr. Baker saw immense supply depots with buildings after buildings, an ice-making plant, the third largest in the world; a storage warehouse a fifth of a mile long; great aerodromes, with hundreds of hangars; artillery quadrangles and base training-camps for troops; a hospital that would hold 20,000 beds; and everywhere railway tracks and sheds, and locomotive assembling and repair-shops. Soon after he completed his tour, Ludendorff launched his long-heralded offensive in the west, basing his attack on Cambrai and aiming at Amiens. Four months later Ludendorff found himself in a class with von Kluck as a general, who had retreated from the Marne.10

10 Principal Sources: Hilaire Belloc in The Tribune (New York), The Daily Chronicle (London), The Times, The World, New York; Associated Press dispatches.