The Drocourt-Queant switch-line was broken on 2 September. The water-line along the Canal du Nord held tight for awhile and the British did not press it hard. They con tented themselves forcing the Germans back on their Siegfried line. At the same time the French to the southward, Generals Debeney, Humbert and Mangin, had worked their way forivart as far as the.v could until all the ground taken bribe Germans in their offensives of 1918 had been recovered. Foch was wearing down his opponent's strength while conserving his own. Since the beginning of the Allies' at tacks on 18 July, when he took the initiative, he had inflicted losses of 500,000, and the arrival of the Americans on the line had given him an equal number of fresh troops. In comparison with Ludendorff, therefore, his relation to the enemy had improved by a million men, minus the number by which the German was strength ened by those he received from the new class and from the men who were sent back to the army from the hospipals. It is probable, how ever, that Foch received nearly as many men from these two sources as the Germans. It is certain that he grew relatively stronger as his opponent used up his reserves un.. Foch's well devised plan of softening the line without making a great effort to brealc through. By 26 September, although he had shortened his line and thus saved more than 30 divisions, Ludendorff was still in a precarious position. He could only hold his own by rapidly rein forcing points attacked, exposing other points from which he took the reinforcements, so that they were continually smitten by the watchful Foch.
It was at this time that the United States troops under General Pershing launched their first independent attadc against the Germans, driving them from the Saint Mihiel salient on 12 September in a well-planned and well-exe cuted action. Fuller description of the enter prise belongs elsewhere in this sketch; hut it is well to remember that the reduction of the salient not only showed friends and enemies what lcind of soldiers the men of the new army were, but it actually removed a menace to the Allied position around Verdun and cleared the way for later operations, either up the Meuse Valley against Sedan or across country to the northeast against Metz. To threaten either of these important points was a serious thing in the fighting.
The significance of these weeks of continu ous blows was that they cleared the way for greater stroke.s to come. They interfered with Ludendorff's orderly withdrawal to strong po sitions, they 'weakened the momle of his army, they reduced his fighting strength and they cut off the last projecting salient that protected the approaches to his. vital line of coinmunication at Sedan. As preparations for the final stage of the war they derived additional significance from the progress of events on the Eastern Front It was 15 September that Gen. Franchet
d'Esperey began the campaign that resulted in an offer of surrender by Bulgaria on the 26th. It was on 19 September that General Allenby opened the campaign in Syria by which he de stroyed the Turkish armies under Gen. Liman von Sanders, took 60,000 prisoners, occupied the ancient city of Damascus on 1 October and thus reduced the government at Constantinople to the point at which its surrender WaS only a question of days. The effect of these disasters on the spirits of the German soldiers in France was striking. The least enlightened of them could not fail to see that with Bulgaria and Turkey out of the war Austria would be forced to capitulate and that done the end could not be deferred many weeks.
2. The United States and the Wat.--When the war began President Wilson, following a custom established by Washington in 1793, is sued a proclamation of neutrality .and the vast majority of the American people supported his action. It was plain that the conflict grew out of the ambitions and rivalries of European state.s, running badc through many interna tional congresses, matters with which the people of the western world had nothing to do. In trying to carry out a neutral policy President Wilson, however, soon aroused opposition from each of the belligerents. The broad interpreta tion Great Britain and France gave to the rides of international law concenung contraband, blodcade and the right to seize goods bound to the ports of the northern neutral nations of Europe was firmly contested by the Washington goverrunent The protests were not effecttve and claims for damages grew daily in numbers and sum totals against the day when an. in. ternational tribunal would be asked to pass upon them. At the same time Germany gave grounds of offense by conducting a complex system of espionage and propaganda within the United States, by sending out supply ships from Amer ican ports to succor her cruisers at sea, and by using her submarines against Allied merchant men in such a way that she slew American citi zens who were conducting themselves within the provisions of international law. The destruc tion of the Lusitania, a British transatlantic liner, on Z May 1915, by which 102 American citizens, including women and children, were killed, WAS the most striking instance of this series of complaints. Against the second and third kinds of wrongs the government protested to the authorities at Berlin; but as to the first, espionage and propaganda, it was difficult to cite concrete actions on which to base formal complaints. But the evidence of interference were numerous, and it is probable that they contributed little less than the submarine policy to the state of irritation that carried the Ameri can people into the war.