ecisely here that "the enemy" did attack!--capturing
prisoners (4,000 of them by the end of the day, with 70 guns) and
German batteries in action, before the German Command had had time to
realise the direction of the attack.

It was not, however, at this point that the severest fighting of the
battle occurred. Across the great tunnel to the north of Bellicourt,
where the Canal passes for nearly two miles underground, ran the main
Hindenburg system, carrying it eastwards over the Canal itself, and it
was here that the fiercest resistance was put up. The two American
divisions had the post of honour and led the advance. It was a heavy
task, largely owing to the fact that it had not been possible to
master the German outpost line completely before the advance started,
and numerous small bodies of the enemy, left behind in machine-gun
posts, tunnels, and dug-outs, were able to harass it seriously for a
time. But the "Americans fought like lions"--how often I heard that
phrase from our own men in France! The American losses were no doubt
higher than would have been the case with more experienced troops,
seasoned by long fighting,--so I have understood from officers present
at the battle. It was perhaps partly because of "their eagerness to
push on" without sufficiently clearing up the ground behind them that
they lost so heavily, and that advanced elements of the two divisions
were for a time cut off. But nothing daunted these fresh and gallant
men. Their sacrifices, as Marshal Haig has recently said, addressing
General O'Ryan, who commanded the 27th Division in this fight, were
"made with a courage and devotion unsurpassed in all the dread story
of this war. The memory of our great attack on the Hindenburg line on
September 29th, 1918, in which the 27th American division, with troops
from all parts of the British Empire, took so gallant and glorious a
part, will never die, and the service then rendered by American troops
will be remembered with gratitude and admiration throughout the
British Empire."

That misty September day marks indeed a culminating moment in the
history of the Empire and the war. It took six more days of sharp
fighting to capture the last remnants of the Hindenburg line, and six
more weeks before Germany, beaten and demoralised by sea and land,
accepted the Armistice terms imposed by the Allies. But on September
29th, the war was for all practical purposes won. General Gouraud at
the time was making