Some very interesting figures have lately been given as to the forces under General Pershing’s command.  Altogether some 770,000 men seem to have been employed—­both east and west of the Meuse—­of whom 138,000 were French.  Forty-six German divisions, amounting, according to the American estimate, to about 350,000 men, opposed the American advance.  The casualties are given as 115,000—­among them 26,000 killed[8]—­for the American troops, and 7,000 for the French.  The enemy casualties are estimated at 75,000, and 16,000 prisoners were taken.

  [8] According to the latest estimate I have seen.

One incident, relatively unimportant, but wonderfully picturesque, is sure to find a place in the American song and story of the future.  It was during the rapid advance of the last days, when the far vision of the Rhine was already beckoning forward the victorious Allies, and giving wings to the feet of youth.  On the night of November 3rd, after a successful day, the 9th and 23rd Infantry of the Second Division found themselves in column formation on the road leading north to Beaumont, a small town south of Sedan.  The way lay open, and they took it.  They marched on and on through the night, throwing out the usual advance guard and flank patrols, but otherwise unprotected.  By all the rules of war the brigade should have been cut off.  But in this twilight-time—­this Goetterdaemmerung of the end, conditions were abnormal, and the two regiments marched on through forest country, right through the enemy lines towards the Meuse, for about eight kilometres, capturing machine-gunners asleep at their guns, and rounding up parties of the enemy on the roads, till in the early dawn they reached a farm where German officers were sitting round tables with lights burning—­only to spring to their feet in dismay, as the Americans surrounded them.  The cold autumn morning—­the young bronzed faces emerging from the darkness—­the humbled and astonished foe:  surely Old and New, Europe and America, were never brought together in a moment more attractive to the story-teller.  A touch of romance amid the tragedy and the glory!  But how welcome it is!

The full history, however, of the Argonne fighting will probably not be accurately known for some little time to come.  No such obscurity hangs over the glorious fighting on the Marne, through the scenes of which I passed both on the railway journey from Paris to Metz, and in motoring from Chalons to Paris on our return.  Colonel Frederick Palmer’s book[9] gives an account of these operations, which, it seems to me, ought to be universally read in the Allied countries.  The crusading courage of whole-hearted youth, the contempt of death and suffering, the splendid and tireless energy which his pages describe, if they touch other English hearts as deeply as they have touched mine, will go a long way towards that spiritual bond between our nations which alone can make real and lasting things out of Leagues and Treaties.