General Ricardo returned at this time to England. The strain of the Battle of Cambrai and the counter-offensive had told severely upon his health. Except for a few weeks when he commanded another Brigade, he had been with the 36th Division from the beginning, had indeed, as has been elsewhere recorded, assisted at its birth. His brilliant powers of organization and his concentration upon the whole aspect of any problem presented to him, made him an ideal Brigadier in what has been described as a war of material. He was succeeded by his friend and brother-officer of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, Brigadier-General W. F. Hessey, D.S.O. General Hessey also had been one of the original commanding officers of the 109th Brigade, and had come to France with the 11th Inniskillings, leaving that battalion to command a brigade before the opening of the Somme battle. General Ricardo's organizing abilities were not lost to the British Army. He ended the war as Commandant of the large base of Dieppe. The lessons of the Battle of Cambrai are clear enough, though some of its aspects will remain mysterious till all the secrets of the war are revealed. The piercing of the Hindenburg fortifications was to a certain extent a gamble, since no such operation had yet been attempted in such manner. The very fact that its surprise was complete was perhaps the most remarkable feat of all. It was a triumphant success, though it must be remembered that the Germans were ill equipped with either armour-piercing ammunition or anti-tank guns to oppose it. But, if the break-through was wonderfully achieved, the ensuing exploitation was not. The resistance of Flesquières and a broken bridge at Masnières checked the cavalry in its eastward thrust, but, after all, the Canal de l'Escaut was won, and exploitation east of it, including the capture of Cambrai, was of less importance than the northern advance to the Sensée marshes. "Cambrai," the writer heard a distinguished soldier say, "was either a surprise or it was not. It opened as a surprise, but it was not continued as a surprise should be." It appears probable to-day that had two fresh Divisions been passed through after the troops had reached their objectives--disregarding Flesquières, which actually did very little harm--they could have been firmly consolidated on the Bourlon Ridge by next morning, and possibly reached the outskirts of Cambrai. Mœuvres likewise would probably not have been a hard nut for the teeth of one of the reserve Brigades of the 36th Division that afternoon. As it was, these troops on that first day sat in the rain and were not employed. The supreme difficulty, which was not surmounted, was the passing through of new formations in a fresh state. This difficulty was due to the scanty accommodation in the forward area, which could not be largely augmented without robbing the attack of one of its most essential features--surprise. It was probably this cause which kept the Divisions in the V. Corps so far