ition
to lean too heavily on us--to depend on us so completely that the
fear arises that they may unconsciously relax their own utmost
efforts when we begin to fight. Yet they can't in the least afford
to relax, and, when the time comes, I dare say they will not. Yet
the plain truth is, the French may give out next year for lack of
men. I do not mean that they will quit, but that their fighting
strength will have passed its maximum and that they will be able to
play only a sort of second part. Except the British and the French,
there's no nation in Europe worth a tinker's damn when you come to
the real scratch. The whole continent is rotten or tyrannical or
yellow-dog. I wouldn't give Long Island or Moore County for the
whole of continental Europe, with its kings and itching palms.

... Waves of depression and of hope--if not of elation--come and
go. I am told, and I think truly, that waves of weariness come in
London far oftener and more depressingly than anywhere else in the
Kingdom. There is no sign nor fear that the British will give up;
they'll hold on till the end. Winston Churchill said to me last
night: "We can hold on till next year. But after 1918, it'll be
your fight. We'll have to depend on you." I told him that such a
remark might well be accepted in some quarters as a British
surrender. Then he came up to the scratch: "Surrender? Never." But
I fear we need--in some practical and non-ostentatious way--now
and then to remind all these European folk that we get no
particular encouragement by being unduly leaned on.

It is, however, the weariest Christmas in all British annals,
certainly since the Napoleonic wars. The untoward event after the
British advance toward Cambrai caused the retirement of six British
generals and deepened the depression here. Still I can see it now
passing. Even a little victory will bring back a wave of
cheerfulness.

Depression or elation show equally the undue strain that British
nerves are under. I dare say nobody is entirely normal. News of
many sorts can now be circulated only by word of mouth. The
queerest stories are whispered about and find at least temporary
credence. For instance: The report has been going around that the
revolution that took place in Portugal the other day was caused by
t