We reach now the final stage of the campaign, which had been planned with such hopeful anticipations at the November conference just a year before. There are several ways of regarding the Battle of Cambrai. We may look at it through big, strategic spectacles, as a means, opportune, but timely, of engaging and distracting German Forces which might otherwise have been sent to Italy. This view is not without authority, and it is stated with his usual lucidity by Mr. Buchan in his popular narrative: ‘Italy, fighting desperately on the Piave, deserved by all the laws of war some relief in the shape of an Allied diversion. Weary as his troops might be, Sir Douglas Haig was not able to grant them the rest which they had earned and most urgently required.’[93] It is not within our province to strike a balance between this assumption of ‘all the laws of war’ and the degree of weariness of Sir Douglas Haig’s troops. Again, we may look at this battle through the narrower spectacles of a tactician. It was designed in the nature of a surprise. It was unexpected in time and place, and it brought into operation a new weapon in the form of a mass attack of Tanks in lieu of Artillery preparation. In this aspect the Battle was victorious: it evoked von der Marwitz’s Order to the German Second Army (November 29th): ‘The English, by throwing into the fight countless Tanks on November 20th, _gained a victory_ near Cambrai. Their intention was to break through; but they did not succeed, thanks to the brilliant resistance of our troops. We are now going to turn their embryonic victory into a defeat by an encircling counter-attack. The Fatherland is watching you, and expects every man to do his duty.’ Once more, we shall not attempt to strike a balance. We gained a victory, according to this Order, but it was embryonic and not a success. At the same time, we know that things were serious when the Fatherland was said to be watching. A third way of looking at this battle, and the way best suited to our present purpose, is to regard it as a very gallant enterprise, worthy of the finest traditions of the British Army, and not less worthy because a large part of its hardest demands fell on Territorial Troops. They might muffle the joy-bells in England when the full story of the battle was revealed, but at least they had rung them spontaneously in recognition of a brilliant feat of arms, and the bells still peal in celebration of the dash and heroism of British soldiers.