We had captured and retained in our possession over 12,000 yards of the former German front line from La Vacquerie to a point opposite Boursies, together with between 10,000 and 11,000 yards of the Hindenburg line and Hindenburg reserve line and the village of Ribecourt, Flesquières, and Havrincourt. A total of 145 German guns were taken or destroyed by us in the course of the operations, and 11,100 German prisoners were captured. On the other hand, the enemy had occupied an unimportant section of our front line between Vendhuille and Gonnelieu. There is little doubt that our operations were of considerable indirect assistance to the allied forces in Italy. Large demands were made upon the available German reserves at a time when a great concentration of German divisions was still being maintained in Flanders. There is evidence that German divisions intended for the Italian theatre were diverted to the Cambrai front, and it is probable that the further concentration of German forces against Italy was suspended for at least two weeks at a most critical period, when our allies were making their first stand on the Piave line. General Review 15. I have already summarized in the opening paragraphs of this dispatch both the reasons which decided me to undertake the Cambrai operations and the limitations to which these operations were subject. In view of the strength of the German forces on the front of my attack and the success with which secrecy was maintained during our preparations, I had calculated that the enemy's prepared defenses would be captured in the first rush. I had good hope that his resisting power behind these defenses would then be so enfeebled for a period that we should be able on the same day to establish ourselves quickly and completely on the dominating Bourlon Ridge from Fontaine-notre-Dame to Moeuvres and to secure our right flank along a line including the Bonavis Ridge, Crèvecour, and Rumilly to Fontaine-notre-Dame. Even if this did not prove possible within the first twenty-four hours, a second day would be at our disposal before the enemy's reserves could begin to arrive in any formidable numbers. Meanwhile, with no wire and no prepared defenses to hamper them, it was reasonable to hope that masses of cavalry would find it possible to pass through, whose task would be thoroughly to disorganize the enemy's systems of command and intercommunication in the whole area between the Canal de l'Escaut, the River Sensée, and the Canal du Nord, as well as to the east and northeast of Cambrai. My intentions as regards subsequent exploitation were to push westward and northwestward, taking the Hindenburg line in reverse from Moeuvres to the River Scarpe, and capturing all the enemy's defenses and probably most of his garrisons lying west of a line from Cambrai northward to the Sensée, and south of that river and the Scarpe.