But if there was some failure in those matters where neither bravery nor natural intelligence can take the place of long training, and experience in the field, there was no failure in ardour or in spirit.  In spite of heavy losses, General Pershing never failed to push on.  Starting from a line on the northern edge of the great Verdun battle-field, Montfaucon, the German headquarters during the Verdun fighting of 1916, was captured in three days.  Then came severe fighting against fierce counter-attacks, and great difficulties with transport over shell-torn ground and broken roads, difficulties increased by bad weather.  But on October 4th the gallant attack was renewed, and by October 10th, owing to the combined effects of the British drive in the north and the pressure on both sides of the Argonne, from General Gouraud on the west and the Americans on the east, the enemy fell back and the famous forest was cleared.

The third and last phase of the fighting began on the 23rd of October.  The enemy was now weakening rapidly along the whole of his line.  For while the American Army had been stubbornly fighting its way north from Varennes to Grandpre, where it stood on November 1st, the British Armies, in the great Battles of Cambrai-St. Quentin, Ypres, and Courtrai, had not only captured the Hindenburg line and some fifty thousand prisoners, but had brought about—­without fighting—­the evacuation of Laon and the retreat of the Germans to the line of the Aisne; the German withdrawal, also, to the Scheldt, involving the freeing of Lille and the great industrial district of France; and finally, in concert with Belgian, French, and some American units, the clearing of the Belgian coast, and the recovery of Ostend, Zeebrugge and Bruges.  The end, indeed, was rushing on.  Co-operation was everywhere maintained, and blow followed blow.  “During this period” (6th to 31st October), says the British Commander-in-Chief, “our Allies had been pushing forward steadily on both sides of the Argonne.  The enemy was held by their attacks on his southern flank, while to the north the British offensive was driving forward rapidly behind his right.”

Then, with November, the British Army, in the Battle of the Sambre, “struck at and broke the enemy’s last important lateral communications, divided his forces into two parts on either side of the Ardennes, and initiated a pursuit which only stopped with the Armistice.”  About one hundred thousand prisoners had been taken by the British Armies since September 26th.  “Victory, indeed,” in General Gouraud’s phrase, “had changed her camp!” Led by her, the British, French, and American Armies streamed east and north through the few days that remained, pursuing a beaten and demoralised enemy.  The final American advance was begun on November 1st, and on November 7th patrols of the 42nd Division reached the Meuse at Wadelincourt, opposite Sedan; while the Fifth Division was in the Forest of Woevre, and the 90th Division had captured Stenay.