[Illustration:  WESTERN FRONT]

The fifth drive opened on July 15 and spread over a front of one hundred miles east of Soissons.  The Allies were fully prepared, and while falling back a little at first, the American and French troops soon won back some of the abandoned territory.

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.—­A glance at a map of the battle front of July 18 will show that the Germans had driven three blunt wedges into the Allied lines.  These positions would prove dangerous to the Germans if ever the Allies were strong enough to assume the offensive.  And just now the moment came for Foch to strike a great counter-blow.  During the spring and early summer American troops had been speeded across the Atlantic until by the Fourth of July over a million men were in France.  On July 18 fresh American and French troops attacked the Germans in the narrowest of the wedges along the Marne River and within a few days compelled the enemy to retreat from this wedge.  On August 8 a British army began a surprise attack on the middle wedge, and by the use of large numbers of light, swift tanks succeeded in driving the Germans back for a distance of over ten miles on a wide front.

The offensive had now passed from the Germans to the Allies.  Under Foch’s repeated attacks the enemy was driven back first at one point and then at another.  He had no time to prepare a counter-drive; he did not know where the next blow would fall.  By the end of September he had given up nearly all his recent conquests, devastating much of the country as he retired.  In several places also he was forced still farther back, across the old Hindenburg line.  In two days (September 12-13) the Americans and French under the direction of General Pershing wiped out an old German salient near Metz, taking 200 square miles of territory and 15,000 prisoners.  Altogether, by the end of September, Foch had taken over a quarter of a million prisoners, with 3,669 cannon and 23,000 machine guns.

It is said that the complete defeat of the German plans was due primarily to three things:  “(1) the dogged steadfastness of the British and the patient heroism of the French soldiers and civilians; (2) the brilliant strategy of General Foch, and the unity of command which made this effective; (3) the material and moral encouragement of the American forces, of whom nearly 1,500,000 were in France before the end of August.”

THE WAR IN ITALY, THE BALKANS, AND SYRIA.—­The summer of 1918 witnessed the launching of a great offensive by the Austrians against the Italian armies holding the Piave front.  It is probable that the chief purpose of this blow was to draw Allied troops into Italy from the battle front in Belgium and France.  The Italians, however, proved themselves amply able to fight their own battle, and the Austrian attempt was repulsed with tremendous losses.