This desirable consummation, seems as far off as ever to great numbers of civilians. The troops themselves are much more sanguine, judging by the letters they send home to their relatives. Confidence is the dominant note in everything we hear from the trenches. This feeling seems to be due to a variety of causes, chief of which is the state of demoralization which shows itself frequently, though of course not invariably, among the Germans.
The French soldier, well fed, has the before him the object-lesson of the German soldier surrendering for the sake of food. Another article of belief which seems to be very generally held is that the German artillery fire is relatively inefficient, while that of the French field guns is invariably deadly.
The result is a feeling of confidence on the part of the man in the trenches that he is bei politicians in Paris will be in too much of a hurry to patch up a peace before the work of the army has been properly done and there is no danger of the job be taken in hand again some ten or fifteen years hence. The talk of Japanese assistance in Europ purely civilians' talk. France's soldiers are satisfied that they will be able to do the needful with the assistance of their present allies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.