s by the
Allied Powers, which were bent on preventing German sympathizers from
using the postal service to neutral countries as a channel for
transmitting money, correspondence, and goods for the Central Powers,
brought a further communication from Lord Grey on October 12, 1916. It
threw no new light on the subject, the bearings of which were dealt
with in a previous volume. The American contentions, so far from being
conceded, were themselves attacked in an argument intended to refute
them. The Allied governments were only prepared to give assurances
that they would continue to lessen the annoyances caused by the
practice and were "ready to settle responsibility therefor in
accordance with the principles of law and justice, which it never was
and is not now their intention to evade."

Lord Grey thus defined the Allied position:

"The practice of the Germans to make improper use of neutral mails and
forward hostile correspondence, even official communications, dealing
with hostilities, under cover of apparently unoffensive envelopes,
mailed by neutrals to neutrals, made it necessary to examine mails
from or to countries neighboring Germany under the same conditions as
mails from or to Germany itself; but as a matter of course mails from
neutrals to neutrals that do not cover such improper uses have nothing
to fear."

Germany's treatment of mails, Lord Grey pointed out, went much further
than mere interception:

"As regards the proceedings of the German Empire toward postal
correspondence during the present war, the Allied governments have
informed the Government of the United States of the names of some of
the mail steamers whose mail bags have been not examined, to be sure,
but purely and simply destroyed at sea by the German naval
authorities. Other names could very easily be added. The very recent
case of the mail steamer _Hudikswall_ (Swedish), carrying 670 mail
bags, may be cited."

The discussion was as profitless as that arising from the blacklist.
As to the blockade issue, involving interference with American
commerce on the high seas, both sides appeared to epistolarily bolt,
and the question remained in suspended animation. The blacklist and
mail disputes acquired a similar status.

PART VII--WESTERN FRONT

CHAPTER LV

THE GERMAN RETREAT ON THE ANCRE

In January, 1917, the British forces in France captured 1,228 Germans,
of whom twenty-seven were officers. The first month of the new