The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-22
Wins Supreme War Command
on Her Merits.
Past Year Saw France Rise To
Meet Supreme Crisis.
HAS HELPED ALL ALLIES
Has Sent Troops to All Fronts
Officers to All Countries.
This at the Very Time When
the Hun Was at Her Throat.
BY HENRY WOOD.

Copyright, 1918, by the United Press)
With the French Armies Afield, July
1 (by maiD The fourth year of the
great war must irrevocably pass down
in history as the year in which the
genius of the French race, rising to
new heights in the vigor and virility
of its armies and in the soundness and
brilliancy of its generals. was con-
ceded thru the sheer force Of super
iority alone the recognized military
leadership of the allied nations.
The fourth year of the great war
must always be marked by. the fact
that France, sending her armies to
fight on the Macedonian and Italian
fronts, bearing the great shocks and
filling up the breaches and gaps on
her own front, and sending scores OF
her best generals and thousands OF
her best officers to all parts Of the
world to impart her military science
to all of the allied nations, assumed at
last the dominating, controlling role in
the direction of the worlds struggle
for humanity and civilization that
could only be assumed by and conced-
ed to the nation showing the greatest
genius, the greatest fitness and the
greatest superiority.
This triumph was all the more re-
markable in that it came at the mo-
ment when France was generally con-
coded and believed to be at her lowest
extremes. 1t constituted, in fact, the
rising of a Phoenix from her ashes
almost without parallel in the worlds
history.
Effort in Great Crisis.
But remarkable as this was. it was
even more important in the fact that
not only was France able to do this at
a moment when her own fortunes
were lowest, but at a moment when
the fortunes of the entire allied cause
thru the Russian catastrophe, the Ital-
ian misfortune and the Roumanian
tragedy had reached their lowest ebb,
and where the moment called for
someone or something to step in and
stem the tide.
France, after three years of war
fare in which she had suffered losses
exceeding those of any other allied
belligerent and in which she had made
sacrifices out of proportion to her re-
sources. apparently had very little left
to offer in this emergency.
What little she had, however, she
offered freely and backing it up with
the fullest genius and generosity of
her race that rose to new heights in
this great year of appalling crises. she
filled every breach that was made in
the allies fortunes and tided over the
situation to the present hopeful pros
pect, hich with its unity of military
command and Americas contribution
beginning to measure up to her fullest
possibilities, is now opening ahead.
At Years Beginning.
When the fourth year of the Great
War opened. August 1, 1917, France
and her allies were already in the
throeS of the various catastrophes
and crises with which the year was
replete. The Russian revolution had
already reached a point where the
allies were forced to realize that they
must count upon the complete elimi-
nation of Russia as a military factor
the elimination in fact of what for
three years had been their greatest
hope.
Largely as a result of this Russian
detection, the allies big military plans
for 1917 had only reaped a very par
tai success and the French armies es-
pecially had unquestionably received
severe blow to their morale by the
calling off of the April offensive on
which not only the army but the en-
tire French nation had pinned hopes
which up until that time they had
never dared even to entertain
Yet so quickly did the genius of the
french race respond to the critical
situation thus created, to the period
of crisis already opening for the en-
tire fourth year of the war, that on
August 1. the very opening date of
this fourth year, a French army was
ready to cooperate with the British
armies for genel II offensive in Elan
ders- This battle lasted for several
months and thruout its duration the
French army fighting on the English
extreme left won the unstinted praise
OF the EngE high command whic n