And in ten days more we knew that the German counter-attack had checked the Cambrai advance, that Bourlon Wood was lost, that Cambrai was still inaccessible, and we retained only a portion of the ground gained by the dash and skill of the first days.  The moral was, as always—­“more men!” and we settled down again to a stubborn waiting for our own new recruits, then in the training camps, and for the first appearance of the American battalions.  Meanwhile the news from Russia grew steadily worse; the Russian Army had melted away under the Kerensky regulations; and the country was rapidly falling into chaos.  Brest-Litovsk was acutely realised for the German triumph that it was; and the heads of the Army were already calculating with some precision the number of German divisions, then on the Eastern front, which must inevitably be transferred to France for the spring offensive of the German Army.

It was natural that those really acquainted with the situation should turn feverishly towards America.  When was her Army coming?  In the matter of money America had done nobly towards all the Allies.  In this field her help had been incalculably great.  In the matter of munitions and stores for the Allies she had done all that the state of her railways, the weather of her winter, and the drawbacks of the American Constitution, considered as a military machine, as yet allowed her to do.  Meanwhile one saw the President, aided by a score of able and energetic men, constantly at work removing stones in the path, setting up a War Industries Board, reorganising the Shipping Board and the Air Service, and clearing the way for those food supplies from the great American and Canadian wheatfields without which Europe could not endure, and which were constantly endangered by the pressure of the submarine attack.  Perhaps in all that anxious winter the phase of American help which touched us English folk most deeply was the voluntary rationing by which hundreds and thousands of American families, all over the vast area of the States, eagerly stinted themselves that they might send food overseas to Great Britain and the Allies—­sixty million bushels of wheat by January 1st—­ninety millions before the 1918 harvest.  We knew that it was only done by personal sacrifice, and we felt it in our hearts.

Meanwhile, on this side of the sea, the anxiety for men grew steadily stronger.  Who knew what the coming spring campaign would bring forth?  The French Army during 1917 had passed through that depression morale of which I have spoken in an earlier letter.  Would a country which had borne such a long and terrible ordeal of death and devastation be capable of yet another great effort during the coming year, whatever might be the heroic patriotism of her people?  One heard of the enormous preparations that America was making in France—­of the new docks, warehouses, and railways, of the vast depots and splendid camps that were being laid out—­with