The work done in their debut, by the American troops in conjunction with our own, was magnificent.  They fought against victorious soldiers sure of success, and whipped them.  They were engaged on a difficult terrain.  In the south they were obliged to cross a broad river and wide valleys, to scale cliffs bristling with defensive positions.  In the center they were confronted by a confused entanglement of broken ground, hills and ravines, woods and open fields, bisected by a deep valley half-concealed by trees.  In the north they became acquainted with the snare formed by plateaus falling abruptly away into the wolf-trap of ravines, where the enemy, lying in ambush, refused to give ground.  The Americans triumphed over all these obstacles, and deserve to be reckoned the peers of the best soldiers in the world.  On the other hand, fighting as they have fought in these countrysides, so typically French in their simplicity and grandeur, and seeing all their charms foully outraged, our attractive villages destroyed, our churches—­graceful masterpieces, in almost every case, of the Middle Ages—­desecrated and shattered, they have come to understand France better; they have had a share in her misfortunes and in her hopes.

Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1918.

* * * * *

Throughout the war Germans persisted in the assumption that by nightly raids from bombing machines and Zeppelins they could spread terror among the Allies and weaken their morale.  They did succeed in killing a large number of defenseless men and women, but this was the only result of these attacks.  A vivid account of these night raids is given in the narrative following.

NIGHT RAIDS FROM THE AIR

MARY HELEN FEE

[Sidenote:  Thousands of automobile trucks.]

When the first offensive began to the north of us, we, who were stationed in the American Canteen at E——­, not more than fifteen miles from Rheims, were thrilled by the sight of the thousands of automobile trucks, which like a mighty river flowed ceaselessly by our canteen carrying French troops up to the English front; and we grew sad when we beheld ambulance convoys hurrying in the same direction.

We could not be oblivious to certain signs which pointed to renewed activity in our sector.  The American ambulance boys predicted with the emphasis and at the same time with the vagueness born of surmise instead of exact knowledge, that we should “see something doing” in a few weeks.

[Sidenote:  Few German airplanes.]