But Foch’s hour had come, and on July 18th he launched that ever-famous counter-offensive on the Soissons-Chateau-Thierry front, which, in Sir Douglas Haig’s quiet words, “effected a complete change in the whole military situation.”

After a moment of bewilderment, attacked on both flanks by irresistible forces of French, British, and Americans, von Boehm turned to escape from the hounds on his track.  He fought, as we all know, a skilful retreat to the Vesle, leaving prisoners and guns all the way, and on the Vesle he stood.  But the last German offensive was done, and Foch was already thinking of other prey.

On the 23rd of July there was another conference of the military leaders, held under other omens, and in a different atmosphere from that of March 25th.  At that conference Foch disclosed his plans and gave each army its task.  The French and American Armies—­the American Army now in all men’s mouths because of its gallant and distinguished share in the June and July fighting on the Marne—­were to attack towards Mezieres and Metz, while the British Armies struck towards St. Quentin and Cambrai—­in other words, looked onward to the final grapple with the “great fortified zone known as the Hindenburg line.”  So long as Germany held that she was undefeated.  With that gone she was at the mercy of the Allies.

But much had to be done before the Hindenburg line could be attacked.  Foch and Haig, with Debeney, Mangin, Gouraud, and Pershing in support, played a great arpeggio—­it is Mr. Buchan’s word, and a most graphic one—­on the linked line of the Allies.  On the British front four great battles, involving the capture of more than 100,000 prisoners and hundreds of guns, had to be fought before the Hindenburg line was reached.  They followed each other in quick succession, brilliantly intercalated or supported by advances on the French and American fronts, Mangin on the Aisne, Gouraud in Champagne, Pershing at St. Mihiel.

The Battle of Amiens (August 8th-13th), fought by the Fourth British Army under General Rawlinson, and the First French Army under General Debeney, who had been placed by Marshal Foch under the British command, carried the line of the Allies twelve miles forward in a vital sector, liberated Amiens and the Paris-Amiens railway, and resulted in the capture of 22,000 prisoners and 400 guns, together with the hurried retreat of the enemy from wide districts to the south, where the French were on his heels.  These were great days for the Canadian and Australian troops.  Four Canadian divisions under Sir Arthur Currie, on the right of an eleven-mile front, four Australian divisions under Sir John Monash in the centre, with the Third British Corps under General Butler on the left, led the splendid advance.  The Field Marshal in his dispatch speaks of the “brilliant and predominating part” played by the two Dominion Corps—­the “skill and determination of the infantry,” the “fine performance” of the cavalry.  By this victory the British Army recovered the initiative it had temporarily lost.  All was changed.  And even more striking than the actual gains in ground, prisoners, and guns, was the effect upon the morale of both German and British troops.  The Germans could hardly believe their defeat; the British exultantly knew that their hour had come.