well as morally, is now _Germania contra Mundum_. Yet,
while we hail the advent of a powerful and determined Ally, there is no
disposition to throw up our hats. The raw material of manpower in America
is magnificent in numbers and quality, but it has to be equipped and
trained and brought across the Atlantic. Many months, perhaps a whole year,
must elapse before its weight can be felt on the battle front. The
transport of a million men over submarine-infested seas is no easy task.
But while we must wait for the coming of the Americans on land, their help
in patrolling the seas may be counted on speedily.

[Illustration:

THE NEW-COMER: "My village, I think?"

THE ONE IN POSSESSION: "Sorry, old thing; I took it half-an-hour ago."]

[Illustration: SWOOPING FROM THE WEST

(_It is the intention of our new Ally to assist us in the patrolling of
the Atlantic_.)]

The British have entered Peronne; the Canadians have captured Vimy Ridge.
But the full extent of German frightfulness has never been so clearly
displayed as in their retreat. Here, for once, the German account of their
own doings is true. "In the course of these last months great stretches of
French territory have been turned by us into a dead country. It varies in
width from 10 to 12 or 13 kilometres, and extends along the whole of our
new positions. No village or farm was left standing, no road was left
passable, no railway track or embankment was left in being. Where once were
woods, there are gaunt rows of stumps; the wells have been blown up.... In
front of our new positions runs, like a gigantic ribbon, our Empire of
Death" (_Lokal Anzeiger_, March 18, 1917). The general opinion of the
Boche among the British troops is that he is only good at one thing, and
that is destroying other people's property. One of Mr. Punch's
correspondents writes to say that while the flattened villages and severed
fruit trees are a gruesome spectacle, for him "all else was forgotten in
speechless admiration of the French people.

"Their self-restraint and adaptability are beyond words. These hundreds of
honest people, just relieved from the domineering of the Master Swine, and
restored to their own good France again, were neither hysterical nor
exhausted." The names of the new German lines--Wotan and Siegfried and
Hunding--are not without significance. We accept the omen: it will not be
long before we hear of fresh German activities in the _Goetterdaemmerung_
line. Count Reve