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 a mixture of wonder and
irritation. A friend of mine, on coming back from France, described to
me his going over a new American dock with two French officers:
"Magnificent!" said the Frenchmen, in a kind of despair--"but when are
they going to _begin_? Suppose the war is over, and France swallowed
up, _before_ they begin?" A large section of American opinion was
shaken with the same impatience.

American letters to English friends, including those of Mr. Roosevelt to
his many English correspondents, among whom, to some small extent, I was
proud to reckon myself, expressed an almost fierce disappointment with
the slow progress of things. Ultimately, of course, an independent
American Army, under its own Commander-in-Chief, and fully equipped
from American factories. But why not begin by sending men in as large
numbers as possible to train with the British and French Armies, and to
take their places as soon as possible in the fighting line, as integral
parts of those armies, allowing the Allies to furnish all equipment
till America was really ready? It was pointed out that Canada and
Australia, by sending officers and men over at once to train and fight
with the British, and leaving everything else to be supplied by the
Allies, had in nine months from the outbreak of war alread