The Rue Faidherbe, Café Jean, Grand Hôtel, Grande Pharmacie de France, part of the Rue des Ponts-de-Comines, and the whole of the Rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Poulets, were in ruins. The Hôtel Continental in the Parvis-St.-Maurice Square, was a mere heap of rubbish. The Rue de Béthune, Rue de l'Hôpital-Militaire and Rue du Molinel were partially destroyed. In the Boulevard de la Liberté, the premises of the "Belle Jardinière" Stores were wiped out _(p. 38)_. At 9 a.m., on October 13th, while hundreds of fires were still burning, five companies of Bavarian troops entered the town, followed throughout the day by Uhlans, Dragoons, Artillery, "Death Hussars" and Infantry. The occupation had begun. [Illustration: The Manœuvre of Marshal Foch _This map shows the successive advances of the Allies, from August 1st (1/8) to October 18th (18/10). On October 16th (16/10) the line reached (shown by thick dots) threatened Lille with envelopment, and forced the enemy to retreat along a wide front._] The Deliverance For more than three years the inhabitants of Lille had heard the guns thundering almost at their gates, as for a long while the front was bounded by Armentières and Lens. In _December, 1914_, the Battle of Artois partially cleared Arras. The offensive of _May-June, 1915_, was marked by the capture of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Ablain-St.-Nazaire, Carency, Souchez, stopping at Vimy Ridge and hemming in Lens on the south. The victory of _September-October, 1915_, cleared Lens further to the north, by the capture of Loos. In _March, 1918_, a powerful German offensive from Armentières, forced the Allies back for several months, until the successive and correlated offensives of the Allies, under Foch, beginning on July 18th, finally liberated the French soil, town by town, and village by village. In August and September there was an advance along the whole front from the Argonne to the Artois, while in October, the Artois-Picardy front also burst into flames. While the _French_, in the centre of their line of attack, crossed the Oise at Mont-d'Origny, to the south-west of Guise, the _British_, north of Douai and east of Lens, encircled Lille more closely on the south, and approached Séclin, Aubourdin and Quesnoy-sur-Deule. At the other end of the front, on the left, _Belgian_, _British_ and _French_ forces under the _King of Belgium, Albert I._, took the offensive, and on the 14th, 15th and 16th. of October, in spite of the rain and mud, took Roulers and Thourout. Meanwhile, the 2nd British Army captured Menin, crossed the Lys 9 miles from Lille, taking from the rear the northern defences of the latter. In possession of Menin and Bouchain, the British continued to encircle Lille and Douai, and approached the two ends of the important Menin-Tourcoing-Roubaix-Cysoing-Orchies-Somain-Cambrai railway.