mans to evacuate the Chemin des Dames position in its entirety and Mangin's forces occupy La Fère. The all-important centre, Laon, also falls on this latter day.

It must not be forgotten that by this time the German Government has opened diplomatic negotiations for peace and that the German soldiers accordingly are fighting for a cause which they know to be already lost. The German lines are everywhere fluid and it is apparent that the Allied forces will slowly but surely reach the German border and proceed to enter the dominions of Kaiser William II, unless an armistice is declared first. Wherever the Allies strike, they gain—and when Ludendorff blocks a gain at one point, he suffers an Ailied gain at another point.

In the month between September 18 and October 18, the Allies have gained a rectangle between St. Quentin and Verdun approximately one hundred miles long and twenty-five miles wide.

IN THE CENTRE OF THE ALLIED ADVANCE

During all this time, the attack on the centre of the battle-front has raged with great intensity. On October 3 and 4 the British break through the German positions behind the Scheldt Canal north of St. Quentin, cross the canal and drive ahead to capture Montbrehain and Le Catelet. On the eighth the British attack along the entire front between Cambrai and St. Quentin and drive back the Germans almost five miles more. On the next day, Cambrai itself is occupied and on October 10 Le Cateau also falls. The depth of the rectangle punched out between St. Quentin and the sea is everywhere becoming more than twenty miles. Not only has the strongest line of German defence, the Hindenburg Line, been completely shattered, but also the chief German points of communication, stores and transportation, such as Cambrai, St. Quentin, La Fère, and Laon have gone.

The sharp British advance in the centre is threatening the very existence of the German armies and the Germans throw in all their available forces and succeed in stopping Haig's further advance in the open country around Le Cateau.

On October 17, therefore, Sir Douglas Haig shifts his attack to the

south. On that day, the British Fourth Army, with the support of American troops, breaks through the German lines northeast of Bohain, which is some ten miles northeast of St. Quentin. At the same time, French troops under Dèbeney below the British break through along the Oise in the neighborhood of Guise. Within three days, the Allied salient which is developing between Cambrai and St. Quentin has penetrated into the German lines to a point only forty miles from Maubeuge.

THE GERMAN WITHDRAWAL FROM BELGIUM

On October 14, the Allied troops in Belgium attack in great force around Roulers. East of Roulers are the Belgians, with French opposite the town, then Belgian troops again, with Plumer's British on the right. The Germans are quite unable to hold their lines and the Allies drive a deep wedge headed in three directions into their positions. With the capture of Roulers, the Allies turn toward the coast and make all speed to get in the rear of the German lines between Roulers and the sea. By this time the attack has spread all along the line. It is surrender or retreat and on October 16 the Germans hastily fall back from the coast up to and including Ostend. On the next day, the Belgians are once more in possession of Ostend, while just below the Belgian border in France the French are occupying Lille, which the Germans have practically evacuated some days before. On the next day, the victorious Belgians continue their advance along the coast and occupy Zeebrugge and Bruges. Despite the rapidity of the German retreat, the Allied forces driving northward succeed in cutting off a number of detachments and thus in taking many pris

oners.

We have already seen that the territory of Holland cuts sharply into Belgium along the seacoast and the wedge driven by the Allies is aimed at the nearest point of the Dutch frontier. It is accordingly necessary for the Germans to abandon all of Belgium between the wedge and the coast, and with that evacuation the Allies have turned the entire west wing of all the German forces. Between October 20 and 25 the Allies cross the Lys Canal and approach Ghent, and

before the end of the month the Belgians have reached the Dutch frontier and are advancing along it. In the first days of November, the Allies continue to re-occupy Belgium practically without opposition. When actual hostilities end on November 11, the Allies have regained all of Belgium west of a line drawn between Ghent and Mons, including the whole Belgian seacoast.

THE END

With one wedge being driven into their lines along the Lys and another north of Cambrai, the Germans caught between the jaws of the pincers, in the lines around La Bassée and Lille, are perforce compelled to retire. So that the Allies' line south of the Franco-Belgian border is being pushed steadily toward Germany and the flanking movement on the west of the entire German armed force becomes extensive.

The entire German army is thus steadily withdrawing toward the German border with all the haste compatible with maintaining battlelines and a military formation. Despite the perilous and feeble position in which von Hindenburg and Ludendorff now find themselves while their Government is dickering for peace, they conduct their retreat with a skill, a masterliness and a foresight which minimize their losses and which promptly call forth ungrudging praise from the Allied leaders. But with all the agility of the German commanders, the front is fast disappearing and the number of prisoners falling into the hands of the Allies every day is so large that if an armistice had not been signed before the beginning of 1919 it is extremely problematical if von Hindenburg and Ludendorff would have had sufficient forces remaining even to dispute the Allied invasion of Germany by the time the Allies approached the Rhine.

The further military events of the War may be chronicled briefly. The advance all along the line is now continuous and one can name only a few of the more prominent points occupied by the Allies as they drive ahead.

In the middle of the Allied advance, between and along the Oise and the Aisne, Mangin presses on rapidly after having captured Laon and La Fère. On Mangin's left are Débeney and Berthelot, and on his

right, Gouraud, with some Italian and Czecho-Slovak forces. On October 24, the Allies capture Terron; on October 25, Mortiers, and with little difficulty approach the German frontier. The Germans. are able to stop the Allied progress at certain points, so that the advance is in sections, one section waiting for the other to catch up before proceeding again. By the end of October, the Allies are well beyond the Oise. When the entire German right flank is turned in Belgium in November, the retreat becomes more rapid. On November 8 the French have reached Mézières, on the next day Maubeuge falls, and before the end of hostilities, Hirson; and the Allies have entered upon Belgian soil beyond Hirson.

On the right of the Allied advance, between and along the Meuse and the Aisne, the French and Americans keep pace with the advance on the left in France and through Belgium. On October 19, the Americans capture Bourrot and on the next day, Brieulles, but they are meeting with stern opposition and do not again get ahead for appreciable gains until the twenty-third. On October 26, they bombard the railroad line between Mézières, Sedan and Metz; and at the end of October they storm Ancreville Ridge and are on the road to Sedan and the German frontier. On November 6 one branch of the Americans captures Sedan and another branch rolls over the Heights of the Woeuvre and brings Metz itself within range of the heaviest American guns. When hostilities cease, the American First Army is preparing to march upon and to reduce Metz while the second is about to march through Lorraine.

When hostilities are ended by the signing of the armistice at eleven o'clock (French time) on the morning of November 11, 1918, the battle-line in the west, the sole battle-line remaining, stretches from the frontier between the Netherlands and Belgium north of Ghent, passes just west of Ghent, bends to the southeast through Grammont, through Mons, enters slightly upon French soil below the Sambre, is again upon Belgian territory east of Hirson, into France again through Rocroi, Mézières, Sedan, Stenay, northeast of Verdun, crossing the Moselle half-way between Toul and Nancy, into the Vosges east of Lunéville, and thence to the border between Alsace and France, whence it impinges slightly upon German soil down to the Swiss frontier.

THE ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS

THE FIRST STEP

On September 15, 1918, Austria-Hungary addressed to President Wilson a request for a conference to discuss peace. The Central Powers were to direct their communications referring to an armistice to President Wilson because the lofty and thorough character of the American President's pronouncements on the question of war aims and peace terms had made him the unofficial diplomatic leader of the Allies. He had also convinced the Central Powers that his purposes and the purposes of his country were freer from self-seeking and the spirit of revenge, and were more fully directed toward realizing a better world order in the future instead of perpetuating the hatreds of the past, than were the purposes of the other Allied leaders and countries. The Austro-Hungarian note was merely an indefinite request for a conference, with nothing to indicate that such a conference would be binding. The text was as follows:

The peace offer which the Powers of the Quadruple Alliance addressed to their opponents on December 12, 1916, and the conciliatory basic ideas which they have never given up, signify, despite the rejection which they experienced, an important stage in the history of this war. In contrast to the first two and a half war years, the question of peace has from that moment been the centre of European, aye, of world discussion, and dominates it in ever increasing measure.

Almost all the belligerent states have in turn again and again expressed themselves on the question of peace, its prerequisites and conditions. The line of development of this discussion, however, has not been uniform and steady. The basic standpoint changed under the influence of the military and political position, and hitherto, at any rate, it has not led to a tangible general result that could be utilized.

It is true that, independent of all these oscillations, it can be stated that the distance between the conceptions of the two sides has, on the whole, grown somewhat less; that despite the indisputable continuance of decided and hitherto unbridged differences, a partial turning from many of the