ong the worn and homesick soldiers in the trenches the
spirit of the Great Emperor. Cheeringly he claps each man upon the
shoulder.

"Courage, mon brave," he whispers. "On les aura!"

FOOTNOTES:

[C] A nickname for the Hispana-Suiza.

[D] Though great numbers of American-built airplanes have been
shipped to Europe, they are being used only for purposes of
instruction, as they are not considered fast enough for work on the
front.

[E] Commandant Bunau-Varilla was really sent as a compliment to my
companion, Mr. Arthur Page, editor of _The World's Work_.

VII

"THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY"

In watching the operations on the British front I have always had the
feeling that I was witnessing a gigantic engineering undertaking. The
amazing network of rails which the British have thrown over Northern
France, the endless strings of lorries, the warehouses bulging with
supplies, the cranes and derricks, the repair depots, the
machine-shops, the tens of thousands of men whose only weapons are the
shovel and the pick, all help to further this impression. And, when
you stop to think about it, it is an engineering undertaking. These
muddy men in khaki are engaged in checking and draining off an unclean
flood which, were it not for them, would soon inundate all Europe. And
so, because I love things that are clean and green and beautiful, I
am very grateful to them for their work of sanitation.

Because most of the despatches from the British front have related to
trenches and tanks and howitzers and flying men and raiding-parties,
the attention of the American people has been diverted from the
remarkable and tremendously important work which is being played by
the army behind the army. Yet one of the most splendid achievements of
the entire war is the creation of the great organization which links
the British trenches with the British Isles. In failing to take into
account the Anglo-Saxon's genius for rapid organization and
improvization in emergencies, Germany made a fatal error. She had
spent upward of forty years in perfecting her war machine; the British
have built a better one in less than three. I said in "_Vive la
France!_" if I remember rightly, that the British machine, though
still somewhat wabbly and creaky in its joints, was, I believed,
eventually going to do the business for which it was designed. That
was a year ago. It has already shown in unmistakable fashion that it
can do the business and do