“ Apropos of the fourth anniversary of the war the German emperor issued one of his typical, high-sounding addresses to the army and navy in which he said:
"Serious years of war lie behind you. The German people, convinced of its just cause, resting on its hard sword, and trusting in God's gracious help, has, with its faithful allies, confronted a world of enemies. Your vigorous fighting spirit carried war in the first year into the enemy's country and preserved the homeland from the horrors and devastations of war. ”

“ That was remarkably exhibited in the first great engagement in which Canadians took part, the Second Battle of Ypres. It was equally in evidence at Amiens, Arras, Cambrai, and Mons during the final period of the war. The Canadian never forgot he was a Canadian. He had such a sublime faith in himself and in his army as a whole, that his ambition was only fully realized when he was asked to do more than was usually asked of a soldier in this titanic struggle. He never despised the enemy, but he never lost the feeling that he was physically and mentally the enemy's superior. ”

“ The retirement of General Ludendorff, formerly chief of staff and really generalissimo of the German armies at this time, was an event of the highest importance. As the persistent advocate of war to the bitter end, and which he had never failed to assert would result in the defeat of Germany's enemies, his throwing up the sponge at a time of crisis in his country's destiny could only mean one of two things: he had all the effective power of the empire against him, or he foresaw the triumph of the Allies and was eager to seek cover before the German armies were forced to surrender. ”

“ Never were soldiers watched with more critical interest or deeper appreciation of the influence of the result than our divisions when they were first engaged in violent action at Cantigny and in the Château-Thierry operations in the course of the trying months of the German offensives and the subsequent Allied counteroffensives. Not only had the Europeans wondered if we would fight, but they had grave doubts of our battle skill. The seriousness of the situation deepened their concern. Anyone who really knew America had no doubt that we would fight. ”

“ Where we had been in the trenches we had insistently kept the upper hand over the enemy, meeting his trench raids with better than he gave, answering his artillery fire with heavier artillery fire and pressing him at every point. No feature of war is more underestimated than psychology. The psychology of conviction that you are going to win, confirmed by actual victory in the first shock of arms, is one of the best guaranties of continued victory. ”

“ Especially grateful to the Belgians was the recovery of the ancient city of Bruges which Belgians and British won on October 20, 1918, though German rear guards were in the neighborhood. War had not changed greatly the grand old city built in the middle ages, or injured the beauty of its quaint architecture. The inhabitants massed before the Hôtel de Ville were celebrating their liberation from the Germans' yoke. Everyone had a flag or banner—British, Belgian, or French—and the British troops were received with the wildest enthusiasm and hailed as saviors. ”

“ It was this summit which the American army must gain in advancing over ground in which nature seemed to have had in mind the possibilities of modern warfare in defense. The heights would give observation for the enemy guns which were hidden on the reverse slopes. Numerous patches of woods and tricky ravines made ideal positions for machine-gun nests. One position gained, the victor still looked ahead to higher ground. The enemy could always bring his reserves up under cover while those of the attacking force would be in full view. ”

“ It is possible for us to exaggerate our part in assisting the Allies to final victory, and it is also possible for us to underestimate our part.
If England had not entered the war in 1914, and if Italy and Rumania had not entered later, and if Canada and Australia and the British dominions had not put forth all their strength, and if the United States had not sent an army to France, the Germans would have won. The balance of victory and failure at times hung by a thread. ”

“ Allied observers reported streams of enemy transports and men hurrying eastward in full retreat.
A joyous spirit pervaded the ranks of the Allies as they moved victoriously forward, their cavalry rounding up villages, while tanks and armored cars overran the country clearing a way for the advance of the troops, or destroying the enemy transports. The performance of one tank is especially worthy of record, since it shot up a German corps headquarters. ”

“ The select classes of mankind, said President Wilson, were no longer governors of mankind. The fortunes of mankind were now in the hands of the plain people of the whole world. "Satisfy them and you have justified their confidence not only, but have established peace. Fail to satisfy them and no arrangement that you can make will either set up or steady the peace of the world." In the United States the great project of a League of Nations was regarded as the keynote of the whole. ”

“ On the German second line the troops drew breath and consolidated their gains. The Canadian barrage was laid before them steady as a wall. Fresh troops came up and deployed into position. They waited for the barrage to lift at the ordained minute and lead them on. The enemy's artillery fire—their counterbarrage and bombardment of the Canadian gun positions—was not strong as strength in such things was considered in those days. Prisoners were already hurrying to the rear in hundreds, pathetically and often ludicrously grateful to the fortunes of war that had saved them alive for capture. ”

“ In the unshakable will to victory, in the struggle with opponents who are often superior, and despite the united efforts of the greatest naval powers of the world, my submarines, sure of success, are tenaciously attacking and fighting the vital forces which are streaming across the sea to the enemy. ”

“ They were on a comparatively short front, but their conduct thrilled all the Allied soldiers and people with the rallying conviction that the Americans had brought to France a telling new energy into an old war. The British who had stood out stubbornly against the mighty German thrusts felt more than ever confidence due to the presence of American divisions with their army. More important than generals or staff, the American individual soldier stood in no awe of his enemy, but, on the contrary, was confident of his personal superiority. ”

“ The pluck of the pioneer, the tenacity of the settler, the self-reliance of the rider of the plains, the initiative of the woodsman, the skill of the shantyman and the prospector—all these combined to give the Canadian army a quality second to none among those engaged in the Great World War. ”

“ There was a disposition to think that probably America was not sufficiently in earnest to make any great sacrifice of lives. We were willing to loan the Allies money, to supply them with materials of war and to make some show of military force; but the contemplation of a nation three thousand miles away from Europe fighting with all the heroic disregard of life of the Allies on their own soil seemed a little out of keeping with the accepted traditions of military history to Europeans. ”

“ Wire fills the whole valley with an impassable tangle. It lies half under water in the rushing stream itself and writhes up each wall of the steeply sloping rock on either side. Moreover, on the ledges and in the caves and crannies of those high cliffs were hidden Austrian machine guns to sweep the narrow gorge below.
Yet with a sudden attack at dawn of September 16, 1918, Italian infantry rushed the whole of this barrier system and captured nearly 350 prisoners. ”

“ Such military intervention as has been most frequently proposed, even supposing it to be efficacious in its immediate object of delivering an attack upon Germany from the east, would, in its judgment, be more likely to turn out to be merely a method of making use of Russia than to be a method of saving her. Her people, if they profited by it at all, would not profit by it in time to deliver them from their present desperate difficulties, and their substance would meantime be used to maintain foreign armies, not to reconstitute their own, or to feed their own men, women, and children. ”

“ The American effort in France had been that of many scattered divisions called to fill breaches and then sent into the attack in order to make the most of the turn of the tide. We could not have an American army in our own sector until these detached divisions had assisted in making sure that Paris was forever out of danger, and that there was not enough spirit or force left in the German armies to undertake an offensive of any kind. ”

“ Once we were in the war, the policy of our Government was to put all our preparations in the hands of the regular army and to assist the Allies in every way that was in our power. Our people had learned from observation of the European war that modern warfare required expert direction, and with a unanimity that was startling in a democracy which had always resisted any efforts to form a large army in our country we welcomed the national draft and a centralization of authority in the hands of the President and army chiefs which was out of keeping with all our precedents. ”

“ To move long columns of troops and transport by day was equally an advertisement of our plan for an enormous attack which was the thing that we wished to conceal when the success of the attack was to depend upon secret mobilization and a swift blow. If we were to repair the old roads across the broad area of the shell-crushed no-man's-land and through the trench systems after our attack, this also required the assembling of a great deal of material in view of the enemy. ”

“ All the men of all the divisions had either been sleeping in box cars on railroad trains or they had been in the miserable crowded billets of small villages, getting what rest, after marching at night, they could during the day, in the midst of the rumble of traffic. No corps, divisional, regimental, or battalion commander, no chief of one of the staff sections who had anything to do with the direction of traffic, could say quite how this was accomplished, except by sleepless vigil and grim, sweating effort, but the fact was that the miracle had happened ”

“ While Americans must always realize that comparatively we suffered slightly beside Britain and France and Italy, and that the Canadians were the veterans of cruel and wicked fighting in holding the western front against the enemy in the height of his confidence, numbers, and efficiency, no one will gainsay that at the end of the conflict we were giving our lives as freely as our neighbors and Allies. ”

“ Never did railways as a means of transportation play so important a part in warfare as during the recent World War, in spite of the remarkable development of motor vehicles. It was her superior railway systems which gave Germany her principal advantage over the Russians on the eastern front, and as the great struggle developed, it became daily more obvious that the Allies would have to draw on their resources in railway construction to the uttermost to offset the initial advantage which Germany had in this respect on the western front. ”

“ In coming into this war the United States never for a moment thought that she was intervening in the politics of Europe, or the politics of Asia, or the politics of any part of the world. Her thought was that all the world had now become conscious that there was a single cause of justice and liberty for men of every kind and place. ”

“ I demand everyone's support in the hard task awaiting us. You know how seriously the war has menaced the provisioning of the people, which is the first condition of the people's existence. The political transformation should not trouble the people. The food supply is the first duty of all, whether in town or country, and they should not embarrass, but rather aid, the production of food supplies and their transport to the towns. ”

“ Canada was no more prepared than any other nation for the outbreak of the Great War. Because of their geographical isolation from the turmoil of international politics the Canadians were even more incredulous of war, in their mental attitude, than their kin across the waters. ”

“ General Harbord, with the reputation he had won as a fighter, his magnetism, his understanding of human nature and his capability of promptly grasping the essentials of any problem, soon showed that he had the talent for transforming the spirit of the personnel by applying the indefatigable industry and the patriotic spirit of this vast force in a homogeneous corps, without which the victory of the American forces in France would not have been possible. ”

“ Ever ready for battle, the high-sea forces in untiring work guard the road for the submarines to the open sea and, in union with the defenders of the coast, safeguard for them the sources of their strength.
"Far from home, a small heroic band of our colonial troops is offering a brave resistance to a crushingly superior force.
"We remember with reverence all who have given their lives for the Fatherland. Filled with care for its brothers in the field, the people at home is in its self-sacrificing devotion placing its entire strength at the service of our great cause. ”

“ Vast natural resources lay before them awaiting exploitation and development. The psychology of the Canadian was entirely constructive.
There remained, of course, the sense of responsibility involved in the ties binding the people to the British Empire, a subconscious realization that when Great Britain was at war, Canada, too, would be at war. Yet here again environment and local conditions tended to reduce this consciousness to the quality of abstract theory, a mere convention. The native Canadian, though of British ancestry, knew England only through hearsay or the written word. ”

“ Senator Hitchcock declared that those who opposed the League were thinking in the terms of the past. The fear expressed that the League would open the way to European despotism was without foundation, for the spirit of despotism had vanished. Democracy was the mastering spirit in all the nine nations represented in the executive council, yes, even in Japan. Such a league, he argued, with its provision of arbitration and delay for calm consideration, would make war improbable. The restrictions on armaments would save the great nations billions and eliminate oppressive tax burdens. ”

“ We respect and admire them, but in the struggle for constitutional liberty which has been universal in Europe the German people have not made the same advances as some other nations. I am sure they will agree with me that if the institutions of the land of their ancestors were as free as those of the land of their adoption, this cruel war would never have taken place. ”

“ Though German delegates were on their way to the French front to arrange for an armistice, the Allies continued to fight and advance with the same irresistible ardor as if there had been no question of a cessation of hostilities. In southern Belgium the British continued to carry their lines forward, reaching on November 10, 1918, the Franco-Belgian frontier south of the Sambre. North of the Mons-Condé Canal they pressed on beyond the Scheldt, capturing Leuze, while British cavalry advanced to Ath, which lies sixteen miles east of Tournai. ”