There was anxious debate, some opposition in unexpected quarters, and finally a unanimous decision.

General Foch, waiting in an adjoining room, was called in and accepted the task with the simplicity of the great soldier who is also a man of religious faith.

For Foch, the devout Catholic and pupil of the Jesuits, and Haig the Presbyterian, are alike in this: there rules in both of them the conviction that this world is not an aimless scene of chance, and that man has an Unseen Helper.
Such, at least, is the story as it runs; and, at any rate, from that meeting at Doullens dates the transformation of the war.

For five weeks afterwards the German attack beat against the British front, bending and denting but never breaking it.

Then at the end of April the attack died down, brought up against the British and French reserves which Ludendorff had immensely underrated, and--strategically--it had failed.
A month later came the "violent surprise attack" on the Aisne, which, as we all know, carried the enemy to the Marne and across it, and on the 7th of June the French were again attacked between Noyon and Montdidier.