Bisbee daily review., 1918-11-28
CObLenz

It IS long way from Chateau hlerry to Coblenz, some two hundred and twenty five miles at least, but the Americans travelled 1t in little more than four months. It is true that they advanced only twenty miles the first month and less than twenty miles the second month, and on the third month their progress was so slow that 1t might have been measured in inches each day. But on the fourth monthl An, then 1t was just question of the marching mile age of laden army per day. The German had quit cold The fight had gone out of him. And so, as a tribute for their terrible month of pounding and punishment and persistent effort along the Mouse, Marshal Foch assigned to the Americans the victory route, that leads to the gates of Coblenz.
 This city of. Coblenz, which will be American headquarters during the life ot the armistice and the peace discussions, IS the capital of Rhinish Prussia, and one of the famous and old cities of Germany. Its existence goes clear back to the days of the Roman empire, and its principal church building was erected nine hundred years ago. For many a long year 1t was one of the principal cities of that lordly and ar rogant line of the bishops of Treves. Sit uated at the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine, it has always been an important city of the Rhine valley and has been noted for its Moselle wines, as well as for its churches and educational institutions.
 Coblenz is Germany incarnate. For cen turies its proud and war-like bishops mixed
 ILL ;. tLo , ec,;-e of tba ay1,y,;ra and were the companions of the German princes. Pride and power have always been its portion. It is watered by both the Rhine and the Moselle and they have given to it every good and i'll thing of German thought and habit and character. Its citizens erect ed a magnificent statue of William in the principal city square, as token of pride and loyalty And every German ruler since Frederick has added his portion to the forts and guns that go to make the city's defenses from the west.
 But no gun will be fired in defense of Coblenz when the lean, brown, tired men of the western world march forward to enter the city gates. Coblenz, the vital and unassailable fortress and waterway of the mighty and invincible Prussian empire, will fall like a ripe persimmon into the Ameri- can lap. The German quit. The way from Chateau Thierry to Coblenz, which looked to be so far and so long from last July, was quick and short way, after all The first few miles were hard, but the last many miles were easy. It is so with many things of life.
 History, in its making, unfolds before our eyes so fast and shows such mighty changes that we simply cannot measure or estimate its full meaning If soothsayer had told the courts of Europe hundred years ago that an American army would occupy Coblenz in 1918, he would have been set up as the greatest fool in the court of fools. How the present kaiser would have mocked and jeered five years ago if his dreams had been interpreted to show an American army taking Coblenz, unop- posed, and American marines pulling that heroic statue of William 1 down from its pedestal with rope And really, how i'm possible and preposterous such prophecy would have been regarded in London, Paris and Washington, as well as Berlin.
 Even now it is hard to fully grasp the meaning of that cryptic assignment of the American army to headquarters at Cob lenz The world moves on, and in every age its children play at the games of set- ting up and taking down, and then they shuffle the cards and play again. History is full of phantoms, phenomena and phanta- sies, but the year nineteen eighteen has placed more of them in the tomb of time than any century of all the past. And the