only had six months' experience
in the fighting line!--might have turned the effects of a successful
action to greater military advantage than was the case at St. Mihiel.
The British or French critic, mindful of the bitter lessons of four
years of war, is inclined to make the same criticism of most of the
American operations of last year, except the fighting on the Marne in
June and July, when French caution and experience found a wonderful
complement in the splendid fighting qualities of the American
infantry. "But"--adds one of them--"undoubtedly the American Command
was learning _very rapidly_." What an army the American Army would
have been, if the war had lasted through this year! The qualities of
the individual soldier, drawn many of them from districts among the
naturally richest in the world, together with the vast resources in
men and wealth of the nation behind them, and the mastery of the
lessons of modern war which was already promised by the American
Command, during the six months' campaign of 1918--above all, the
comparative freshness of the American effort--would, no doubt, have
made the United States Army the leading force among the Allies, had
the war been prolonged. That is one line of speculation, and an
interesting one. Another, less profitable, asks: "Could the Allies
have won without America?" The answer I have heard most commonly given
is: "Probably yes, considering, especially, the disintegration we now
know to have been going on in Germany, and the cumulative effects of
the British blockade. But it would have taken at least six months more
fighting, the loss of thousands more precious and irreplaceable lives,
and the squandering of vast additional wealth in the bottomless waste
of war."

Thank God, we did not win without America! The effects, the
far-reaching effects, of America's intervention, of her comradeship in
the field of suffering and sacrifice with the free nations of old
Europe, are only now beginning to show themselves above the horizon.
They will be actively and, as at least the men and women of faith
among us believe, beneficently at work, when this generation has long
passed away.

CHAPTER VII

AMERICA IN FRANCE (CONTINUED)

It was late when we left Verdun, on the afternoon of the day which saw
us at its beginning on the southern edge of the St. Mihiel
battle-field, and the winter daylight had passed into darkness before
we began to run through a corner of the Argonne