In the beginning of March General Lukin relinquished the command of the 9th Division to Major-General Tudor, who formerly commanded the divisional artillery, and returned home on leave. While at home he was compelled because of the grave illness of his wife to accept the offer of a tour of duty in England. He had had more than two years of the most arduous service, first as brigadier and then as divisional general, and he left to the profound regret of all his colleagues.[25] It was a departure that could not be without its element of sadness, especially for the South Africans, for it meant a break in that continuity of tradition which they had hitherto preserved. They had begun with Lukin, and till March 1918 they had been directly or indirectly under Lukin. These changes were, as it were, symbolical of the change which was coming over the aspect of the war. The former things were passing away; the long months of almost static trench warfare were about to give place to a stormy season, when all maps had to be redrawn and every conception of war revised. It was the eve of the ultimate phase which at long last was to determine the issue of the campaign. [Sidenote: _Feb. 17._] But before these changes came about one great episode in the past record of the Brigade was commemorated. On the 17th February all its regiments, including the vanishing 3rd, took part in a memorial service at Delville Wood. On the south side of the place towards Longueval a tall wooden cross had been erected, bearing the inscription: “In Memory of the Officers and Men of the 1st South African Brigade who fell in Action in July 1916 in the Battle of the Somme.” Before this cross, among the shattered tree-stumps, the drumhead service was held, and around in a square stood details of the four battalions. First came a lament on the pipes, composed by Pipe-Major Grieve of the 4th Regiment. The service was conducted by the chaplains of the English, Presbyterian, and Dutch Churches, and the hymns included the beautiful Dutch version of the Hundredth Psalm. Sir Douglas Haig wrote to General Lukin:— “I send you these few lines to greet you and all South Africans who meet together on Sunday next in honour of those brave men who, at the call of justice and humanity, came from a distant continent to fight and die for the principles they held sacred. The story of the great struggle of July 1916 for the ridge on which Delville Wood stands, when South Africa played so conspicuous a part, will live for all time in the history of our Empire—a perpetual witness to the strength of those common ideals which bind together all British people. The task of those who fell in Delville Wood and by their gallant death made desolation glorious, has not yet been completed; but I feel confident that those who remain will see to it that their blood shall not have been shed in vain.”