insisted upon this in his reply to the official communication from Berlin, which seemed to eliminate the Kaiser because of the omission of the customary "Imperial" before the German Government, and which on its face seemed to be an unqualified acceptance of the terms laid down. But in order to the avoidance of any possible misunderstanding, the President in his answer to the authorities at Potsdam, solemnly reminded them that one of the conditions which he had named and which they had accepted was "the destruction of every arbitrary power," and by that he had meant Kaiserism, and this, therefore, must give way to rule by the German people. He also informed the enemy that as to any armistice being granted, this was in the province of the military leaders who doubtless would require adequate physical guarantees, which of course signified that certain German strongholds would have to be yielded for occupation as a pledge of good faith. The collateral put up, whatever it might be, would have to be sufficient to secure fully what was "named in the bond," to insure the strictest carrying out of the behests of the Allied nations.

Meanwhile the foe continued to be driven back. The whole Belgian coast was swept clean, Ostend and Zeebrugge ceasing to be the U-boat bases for the enemy. King Albert and Queen Elizabeth joyfully reëntered Bruges, whose Belfry, the foundations of which were laid 1291 A. D., Longfellow celebrated in the oft-quoted lines:

"In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,

Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the Belfry in the market

Of the ancient town of Bruges."

Those bells on this royal occasion must have pealed forth their most silvery notes and also their most clanging strokes, giving the "low" and the "loud" of the poet, for unaccountably they had not been stolen, as so much else had been, by the robber Germans.

More and more widely extended the victories in the capture of town after town and city after city, whose liberated inhabitants met the victors with shouts and tears and even kisses, with wavings of flags (and especially of the tricolor), which had been long concealed and were suddenly brought forth, and sometimes with showering of flowers upon the heroes from whom happy deliverance had come. What had been perhaps the most masterly retreat known to human annals became a growing disaster because of the sleepless vigilance of the unequalled Foch and because of the strong and unremitting pressure of his jubilant armies which simply would not be halted in their forward march. Under the increasingly disheartening conditions came the reply from Berlin stating that the submarines had been ordered to sink no more passenger ships, and that the constitution of the government had been fundamentally changed, giving the Reichstag full control. Still, however, there was a maneuvering for position, and not a straight-out yielding to the Allied mandates. So hard is it for a nation as well as for an individual to acknowledge wrong that has been done and to make full amends. But the Germans were gradually coming down from their high perch, and were learning to eat from the hands of their conquerors. The swaggering bully who formerly went round with a chip on

the shoulder, defying all creation, became a whimpering coward as the government in its official capacity whined pitiably, "It trusts that the President of the United States will approve of no demand which would be irreconcilable with the honor of the German people." That from a nation which had shown no honor was a most craven appeal for mercy, deserving of very little consideration.

Drastic and humiliating as the clarified demands were and must have seemed, particularly to arrogant autocrats, they ostensibly were accepted without qualification. Because of almost constant double-dealing previously, there had been a wide suspicion that the enemy had "something up his sleeve," that he was camouflaging again. Habitual liars cannot complain if sincerity of action at last is for a while doubted. There was the painful recollection of what Senator Lodge called "the villainous peace" crowded down the throat of Rumania, and there was an equally vivid remembrance of the infamous Brest-Litovsk treaty with Russia, whose declarations of "no annexations, no conquests, no indemnities" were professedly adopted, and when Russia's troops were demobilized, in her helplessness she heard the merciless banging of the mailed fist, and she saw the cruel brandishing of the unsheathed sword, while she was deliberately carved up. Germany came into control of her richest provinces, and exacted the heaviest commercial penalties imaginable. Having tricked the Russians into a false peace, she proceeded to shoot, to burn, to loot, and to break every pledge she had made. There was the forced requisitioning of foodstuffs from protesting and hungry peasants, until rebellion was seething everywhere over supposedly pacified regions. Those who were guilty of such perfidious conduct had only themselves to blame for the distrust with which their overtures were received.

If language is sometimes used to conceal thought in the field of diplomacy, if Pollonius in Hamlet could complain of "words, words, words," if Beaconsfield could say of Gladstone, who was given to great fluency of speech, that he was "inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity," we could imply something similar regarding the ambiguous diplomatic verbiage of Germany in her prolonged peace parleys whereby she sought to gain some concessions. President Wilson, who certainly knows how to express himself with clarity, by one rapier-like statement after another, cutting to the very root of the matter, eventually succeeded in clearing the situation. In his stiff pronouncement of October 23 he gave the wily, adroit, fencing and sparring enemy plainly to understand, reluctant as he was to employ "harsh words," that "the nations of the world do not and cannot trust the word of those who have hitherto been the masters of German policy." He, however, as he had been asked to do, had submitted to the Allies the request of the Central Powers for an armistice, which yet would have to come through the proper military authorities, who, he reminded them, would be certain to insist upon guaranties sufficient to make impossible "a renewal of hostilities" in the event of dissatisfaction with the exactions that might be determined upon.

The terms proposed and nominally at least accepted at the time, being those of victors to the vanquished, implied that we were to have a dictated and not a negotiated peace at the Conference which was to work out the details. The Hun was simply to be told where to put his name, with not a word from him except the meek (as Theodore Roosevelt had said) "Yes, Sir." Rarely has there been such a colossal reversal of fortune in the steady ongoings of an overruling Providence. Ludendorff, who shared with Hindenburg and Mackensen the

unenviable distinction of leading the barbarian armies, at the entry of America into the conflict rattled his sword and bellowed defiantly, "Our will to victory remains unbroken. We settled Russia. We will settle the Americans." The American reply was, "We will settle with you," and now they had done so in furnishing enough additional troops to turn back with a hurrah and not infrequently with the battle-cry of "Lusitania" the brutal Huns rushing tumultuously forward for an anticipated triumph, which proved to be a defeat disappointing as the apples of Sodom, full of ashes, of a bitterness that was sickening because of the realization that all had been lost.

The capitulation of the enemy was under discussion from October 6 for most of the month, and there was impatience with our Chief Executive for not sooner bringing the foe to face the "unconditional and immediate surrender" which General Grant had demanded of the defender of Fort Donaldson. But though there was criticism for a renewal of note-writing such as had characterized the dealing with Mexico, after all there was not much of the dilatory anywhere. Indeed there were the most surprising developments continually, and with the greatest eagerness we awaited our daily paper, both morning and evening, to see what of a momentous nature had happened next, and the thrills were almost constant.

Among the thronging announcements was that of the taking of the entire Turkish force of 7,000 on the Tigris river. On October 31, exactly a month after Bulgaria's signing of the stiffest kind of an armistice, Turkey gave her signature to a document no less severe, as she yielded up the Dardanelles and Bosporus forts, and gave the Allied fleet free access to the Black Sea and to its numerous warships which Germany had taken over from Russia, including