Clemenceau

 I began to write this book in June. We were then holding our breath as we looked on, after the disasters of Cambrai and St. Quentin, upon the British troops still fighting desperately against superior numbers and defending the Channel Ports “with their backs to the wall” and barely left with room to man?uvre. The enemy was at the same time seriously threatening Amiens and Epernay, and the possible withdrawal of the French Government from Paris was being again discussed. It was a trying four months on both sides of the Channel. But England and France never despaired of the future. Both nations were determined to fight on to the last.