She was
renamed the "Leviathan" and used as a transport, carrying 12,000
American soldiers past the submarines on each trip. She is shown here
entering a French harbor at the end of a passage.
CHAPTER XLI
GERMANY'S DYING DESPERATE EFFORT
In the spring of 1918 it must have been plain to the German High Command
that if the war was to be won it must be won at once. In spite of all
their leaders said of the impossibility of bringing an American army to
France they must have been well informed of what the Americans were
doing. They knew that there were already more than two million men in
active training in the American army, and while at that time only a
small proportion of them were available on the battle front, yet every
day that proportion was growing greater and by the middle of the summer
the little American army would have become a tremendous fighting force.
Their own armies on their western front had been enormously increased in
size by the removal to that front of troops from Russia. Hundreds of
thousands of their best regiments were now withdrawn from the east and
incorporated under the command of their great Generals, Hindenburg and
Ludendorf, in the armies of the west. They must, therefore, take
advantage of this increased force and win the war before the Americans
could come.
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