Troops arrived at a more leisurely pace in France than had been hoped.

Ships and aeroplanes, which American enthusiasm in the early weeks of the war had promised in profusion, delayed their coming; there was congestion on the American railways, interfering with supplies of all kinds; and the Weather God, besides, let loose all his storm and snow battalions upon the Northern States to hamper the work of transport.

We in England watched these things, not realising that our own confidence in the military prospects and the resisting power of the Allies, was partly to blame for American leisureliness.

It was so natural that American opinion, watching the war, should split into two phases--one that held the war was going to be won quickly by negotiation, before America could seriously come in; the other that the war would go on for another three years, and therefore there would be ample time for America to make all her own independent plans and form her own separate army with purely American equipment.

English opinion wavered in the same way.