We need not follow this fighting further. During the night of November 28th/29th, the 62nd Division was relieved by the 47th. It moved back to Havrincourt for the night, and marched next day into the reserve area at Bertincourt and Lebucquière. Thenceforward, until the battle was broken off, except for intermittent shelling, the 62nd Division took no further active part in the operations. They had done extraordinarily well, and the fine fighting of the 187th Infantry Brigade in Bourlon Wood on November 27th stands out in the record of brilliance achieved by the 62nd Division during this week at Cambrai. We know what happened immediately afterwards: how the fighting odds proved too tremendous, and the great offensive ended with a retirement on December 4th to the 7th, back from Bourlon, back from Fontaine, back from Mesnières and the Bonavis Ridge, to points corresponding approximately to the line held on November 20th, with certain gains in the regions of Flesquières and Havrincourt, though a little closer to Gouzeaucourt in the South. It would be idle to minimize the disappointment at this result, especially when it was realized at home. In the larger issues of the war, the Battle of Cambrai takes a smaller place than it occupies in the records of the troops which took part in the fighting. A victory had been gained by those troops which could not be turned to defeat, though the advance was turned to a retirement. As a battle, it had been lost; as an experiment, it had succeeded, though the measure of the success was laid up in the future. But the troops were competent to measure it. Their military sense, developed by a year’s continuous campaigning, seized the broad issues of the experiment, and all ranks of the 62nd Division were filled with a just sense of elation. Their allotted task had been performed with what Field-Marshal Lord Haig, in his foreword to this volume, describes as ‘outstanding brilliance,’ and a consciousness of this performance, however modestly concealed, was present to the minds of all who survived the battle. [Illustration]