But the disappointment and exasperation of the Allies at that moment, as to all that had happened in Russia during the preceding months, under the old regime, was so great that the mere change bred hope; and for a long time we hoped against hope.

All the more because the entry of America, and the thrilling rapidity of her earlier action put the Russian business into the shade, may, indeed, have dulled the perceptions of the Allies with regard to it.

In forty days from the declaration of war the United States had adopted Conscription, which had taken us two years; General Pershing and his small force had sailed for France within eighty days; and by the end of June, or within ninety days, America had adopted the blockade policy of Great Britain, and assented to the full use of that mighty weapon which was to have so vast an influence on the war.

President Wilson's speech, when he came to Congress for the Declaration of War, revealed him--and America--to England, then sorely brooding over "too proud to fight," in an aspect which revived in us all that was kinship and sympathy, and put to sleep the natural resentments and astonishments of the preceding years.

Nay, we envied America a man capable of giving such magnificent expression to the passion and determination of all free nations, in face of the German challenge.
Then came the days of disappointment.