realizing what the motor truck means to war. It brings the army
impedimenta close up to the army's rear; it means a reduction of road
space occupied by transport by three-quarters; ease in keeping pace
with food with the advance, speed in falling back in case of retreat.

All that day I did not see a single piece of French army transport
broken down. And this army had been fighting for weeks; it had been
an army on the road. The valuable part of our experience was exactly
in this: a glimpse of an army in action after it had been through all the
vicissitudes that an army may have in marching and counter-
marching and attack. Order one expected afterwards, behind the
siege line of trenches, when there had been time to establish a
routine; organization and smooth organization you had here at the
climax of a month's strain. It told the story of the character of the
French army and the reasons for its success other than its courage.
The brains were not all with the German Staff.

That winding road, with a new picture at every turn, now revealed the
town of Soissons in the valley of the River Aisne. Soissons was ours,
we knew, since yesterday. How much farther had we gone? Was our
advance still continuing? For then, winter trench-fighting was
unforeseen and the sightseers thought of the French army as
following up success with success. Paris, rising from gloom to
optimism, hoped to see the Germans speedily put out of France. The
appetite for victory grew, after a week's bulletins which moved the
flags forward on the map every day.

Another turn and Soissons was hidden from view by a woodland.
Here we came upon what looked like a leisurely family party of
reserves. The French army, a small section of French army, along a