Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/312

 March, 1918, it became apparent that the German submarine campaign had failed. The prospect that confronted the Allied forces at that time, when compared with the conditions which had faced them in April, 1917, forms one of the most impressive contrasts in history. In the first part of the earlier year the cause of the Allied Powers, and consequently the cause of liberty throughout the world, had reached the point almost of desperation. On both land and sea the Germans seemed to hold the future in their hands. In Europe the armies of the Central Powers were everywhere in the ascendant. The French and British were holding their own in France, and in the Somme campaign they had apparently inflicted great damage upon the German forces, yet the disintegration of the Russian army, the unmistakable signs of which had already appeared, was bringing nearer the day when they would have to meet the undivided strength of their enemy. At the time in question, Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro were conquered countries, and Italy seemed unable to make any progress against the Austrians. Bulgaria and Turkey had become practically German provinces, and the dream of a great Germanic eastern empire was rapidly approaching realization. So strong was Germany in a military sense, so little did she apprehend that the United States could ever assemble her resources and her men in time to make them a decisive element in the struggle, that the German war lords, in their effort to bring the European conflict to a quick conclusion, did not hesitate to take the step which