King Albert in the field--Great Belgo-Franco-British advance--The last act on the old stage--The prophet of 1915--Renewed advance--Germans desert the coast--Relief of Douai and Lille--The final stage in the subsidiary theatres of war CHAPTER XII THE END APPENDIX INDEX {ix} MAPS AND PLANS Map to illustrate the British Campaign in France and Flanders Advance of Fourth Army, August 8, showing Gains up to August 12, and Final Position after the Fall of Peronne Position of British Corps, end of September 1918 Advance of First, Third, and Fourth British. Armies from August 21, 1918, to September 2, 1918. Arrows point to the Rupture of the Quéant-Drocourt Line General Position of the Allies immediately before the Armistice of November 11, 1918 Allied Advance in the North [Transcriber's note: Because of their size and fragility, it was impractical to scan the above five maps. They have been omitted from this etext.] IN TEXT The Attack on the Selle [Illustration: Map to illustrate the British Campaign in France and Flanders] {1} CHAPTER I THE OPENING OPERATIONS From July 1 to August 8, 1918 The general position--German attack of July 16--French counter-attack of July 18--Turn of the tide--Fifty-first and Sixty-second Divisions on the Ardres--Desperate fighting--The Fifteenth Scots Division at Buzancy--Le Glorieux Chardon d'Écosse--Nicholson's Thirty-fourth Division at Oulchy-le-Château--The campaigns on the periphery. When the year 1918 had run half its course the Germans appeared to be triumphantly in the ascendant. In Flanders they had pushed back the British to positions which were, on an average, to the rear of those occupied in 1914. On the Somme they had more than neutralised all the Allied gains of 1916, and were stretched now from Arras to Montdidier, covering ground which they had not touched since the early days of the war. On the Aisne they had reconquered all that the French had so laboriously won in three campaigns, and were back along the Marne and within gun-shot of Paris. These results had been achieved in three great battles which had cost the Allies some 200,000 prisoners and nearly 2000 guns. In July it would have seemed that the German Empire was victorious, and yet ere the year had ended the very name had changed its meaning in the map of Europe, and was known only in the list of {2} evil things which have had their day and then have passed. How this extraordinary change--the most sudden and dramatic in all history--came to pass is the theme of this final volume.