by the Germans. The sergeant led his men back and drove the enemy out, after which he retained possession of the tank until relieved.

At another point a tank was put out of action and the officer ordered the crew to remain inactive. The enemy, seeing the monster apparently helpless, approached in considerable numbers, shouting for it to surrender.

Meanwhile the officer succeeded in fixing the trifling mechanical difficulty and swung his tank around in the midst of the astonished enemy. He then ordered the crew to give the Germans a broadside.

The tank suddenly opened fire on the Germans and drove them back in great disorder.

Certain defeat now loomed ahead in the path of the German Army. Like rats running from a sinking ship the allies of Germany opened negotiations for whatever terms of peace they might make with the victorious Allies.

A death blow was struck against Germany when Bulgaria sued for peace and signed an armistice on September 29th. Hostilities ceased on the Bulgarian front and Bulgaria formally passed out of the war at noon on September 30th.

On October 4th King Ferdinand abdicated his throne in favor of Crown Prince Boris. He found himself an obstacle to the new policies of Bulgaria, and was undoubtedly in fear of revolution. Ferdinand left for Vienna on October 4th.

With the collapse of Bulgaria as a belligerent, Germany's dream of an empire of Mittel-Europa ended. For the realization of this ambitious concept, Germany needed Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey, a dream which came into being when Germany, grown arrogant through military domination of European situations, saw before her a vast expanse teeming with natural resources ready for exploitation under German kultur. A Berlin to Bagdad Railway, a Russia that would be merely a gigantic feeder to German trade and complete overlordship of Asia's riches were components of this dream.

The surrender of Bulgaria was the death knell to these hopes. From the day of that surrender Germany relapsed as a world power into a minor rank.

While Bulgaria was thus being put out of action, the Italians and Serbians were driving the Teuton forces before them in Serbia and Albania. On October 3d Berat was occupied by Italian troops, and the Serbians with a CzechoSlovak division ascended the Vardar to the Morava river, and on October 13th occupied Nish, cutting the Orient railway, the only link between Berlin and Constantinople. On October 13th the Italians occupied Durazzo, whose naval forces had been destroyed by the allied ships, including American submarines, and later with the Serbian and French forces pushed their columns on into Serbia and Montenegro.

Allied aviators took a most active part and gave very great help in the fighting. They constantly sent back information to the command, and without cessation they attacked enemy troops and convoys with machine guns, causing disorder among the enemy forces and preventing them from escaping from the advancing infantry.

AM

CHAPTER XVII

THE ARGONNE: AMERICA'S GREATEST BATTLE

MERICA'S greatest effort was the Argonne-Meuse battle, fought by 1,200,000 men, unified in the 1st Army under the personal direction of General Pershing. Opposed to Pershing and the Americans was the pick of the German Army under General von der Marwitz, with the German Kaiser and the German Crown Prince as interested onlookers and collaborators.

The German position was the strongest that had been occupied by the Teutonic allies since the beginning of the war. The possession of the Argonne with its natural fortresses of battlemented rock was one of the great objectives of the Crown Prince's drive into the heart of France in 1914. Since that time it had been the advanced post that constantly threatened France and the Allies. Back of it lay the SedanMezières railroad, a gigantic feeder for the American forces along the greater front of the German line in France. With that railroad and its branches as a system of transportation, Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff had been enabled to hurl great masses of men, munitions and supplies into strategic positions almost over night.

The objective of the American attack was possession of the Sedan-Mezières railroad. With this line cut, a German retirement along the whole front was inevitable. Upon the vigor and power of the offensive that would cut that line might depend the absolute rout of the German Army.

General Pershing and Marshal Foch agreed that the price of that objective would be a heavy loss in American casualties. Both strategists, however, foresaw that a victory for the Americans in all probability would mean the entire collapse of the German Army and peace in 1918. If the attack were postponed it was certain the war would continue another year with another appalling total of casualties, far greater

than the price that would have to be paid for the possession of the Argonne.

One of the factors making for German defeat and the end of the war in the event of American possession of the

Argonne was the certainty that the great Briey iron fields held by the Germans would have to be evacuated. Germany depended upon these for much of its munition production.

General von der Marwitz, commanding the German Fifth Army, realized all these heavy responsibilities when

reports came to him of American concentration before the Argonne region. He realized that a decisive victory might win for Germany a commanding position at the peace table. He knew that defeat meant the end of the war and utter disaster for the German Empire. He accordingly demanded and received replacements for divisions that needed rest so that when the American attack was launched it encountered the most formidable and seasoned troops that the German Army could muster.

This was exactly what General Pershing had anticipated. He declared that the object of the American movement was "to draw the best German divisions to our front and to consume them." That sentence expresses exactly the outcome of the titanic conflict in the dark fastnesses of the Argonne. As division after division was pulled out of the German line depleted and exhausted, fresh divisions were sent in until every available unit had been used and consumed. Upon the American side every available division was cast into the scale until at the end of forty-seven days, the Americans had virtually consumed the enemy.

It was the night of September 25th when the American troops noiselessly and with the speed of veterans took the places of the French troops which had held the line in the Argonne sector for four years. For a long time the line had been held thinly. The sector had been inactive. When the Americans entered the battle line on that night its right flank was protected by the river Meuse, and the left flank fronted and entered the dark Argonne. From right to left the order of battle was the 3d Corps, holding the line from the Meuse to Malancourt, with the 33d, 80th and 4th Divisions in the line, and the 3d Division in corps reserve; the 5th Corps, holding from Malancourt to Vauquois, with the 79th, 87th and 91st Divisions in line, and the 32d Division in corps reserve; the 1st Corps, from Vauquois to Vienne-le-Château with the 35th, 28th, and 77th Divisions in line, and the 92d Division in corps reserve; the Army Reserve at that time consisted of the 1st, 29th and 82d Divisions.

In that battle line were many green troops. A large portion of the men had never been under fire. They were to