Between himself and his brother soldiers of the British and French armies, there exists an entirely manly and reciprocal respect.  And it is reciprocal; both the individual British and French fighting-man, now that they have seen the American soldier, are clamorous to have him adjacent to their line.  The American has scarcely been blooded at this moment, and yet, having seen him, they are both certain that he’s not the pal to let them down.

The confidence that the American soldier has created among his soldier-Allies was best expressed to me by a British officer:  “The British, French and Americans are the three great promise-keeping nations.  For the first time in history we’re standing together.  We’re promise-keepers banded together against the falsehood of Germany—­that’s why.  It isn’t likely that we shall start to tell lies to one another.”

Not likely!

III

THE WAR OF COMPASSION

Officially America declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917; actually she committed her heart to the allied cause in September, 1914, when the first shipment of the supplies of mercy arrived in Paris from the American Red Cross.

There are two ways of waging war:  you can fight with artillery and armed men; you can fight with ambulances and bandages.  There’s the war of destruction and the war of compassion.  The one defeats the enemy directly with force; the other defeats him indirectly by maintaining the morale of the men who are fighting and, what is equally important, of the civilians behind the lines.  Belgium would not be the utterly defiant and unconquered nation that she is to-day, had it not been for the mercy of Hoover and his disciples.  Their voluntary presence made the captured Belgian feel that he was earning the thanks of all time—­that the eyes of the world were upon him.  They were neutrals, but their mere presence condemned the cause that had brought them there.  Their compassion waged war against the Hun.  The same is true of the American Ambulance Units which followed the French Armies into the fiercest of the carnage.  They confirmed the poilu in his burning sense of injustice.  That they, who could have absented themselves, should choose the damnation of destruction and dare the danger, convinced the entire French nation of its own righteousness.  And it was true of the girls at the American hospitals who nursed the broken bodies which their brothers had rescued.  It was true of Miss Holt’s Lighthouse for the training of blinded soldiers, which she established in Paris within eight months of war’s commencement.  It was true of the American Relief Clearing House in Paris which, up to January, 1917, had received 291 shipments and had distributed eight million francs.  By the time America put on armour, the American Red Cross, as the army’s expert in the strategy of compassion, found that it had to take over more than eighty-six separate organisations which had been operating in France for the best part of two years.