‘Highlanders, under the Command of General Carter-Campbell, Commanding the 51st Division; Yorkshire lads, under the Command of General Braithwaite, Commanding the 62nd Division; Australian and New Zealand Mounted Troops; all Officers and men of the XXIInd Army Corps, so brilliantly commanded by General Sir A. Godley—you have added a glorious page to your history. ‘Marfaux, Chaumuzy, Montagne de Bligny—these famous names may be inscribed in letters of gold in the annals of your Regiments. ‘Your French comrades will always remember with emotion your splendid valour and perfect fellowship as fighters.’ It was well and generously said. The XXIInd Corps Commander specially conveyed through Major-General Braithwaite his high appreciation of the Divisional Artillery: ‘The way in which Batteries worked with Battalions, and Brigades with Brigades of Infantry, in open warfare, must have been a source of enormous satisfaction to all Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and men, and the way in which it was done is worthy of the best traditions of the Royal Regiment.’ Other letters and orders were published, and the memory of the Marne was added to that of Bucquoy, Cambrai and Havrincourt in the tradition of the 62nd Division. II.—THE FINAL OFFENSIVE. Events moved quickly from this date, more quickly, indeed, than they were divined except in the swift mind of the great Marshal, and more quickly than they can be conveniently followed in a day-to-day narrative of two Divisions. The greatest battle in all history was planned, and fought, and won, between August 8th and September 9th, 1918, the period described by Sir Douglas Haig as ‘the opening of the final British offensive.’ It is the word ‘final’ which signifies. So definite, in fact, was the issue, that Ludendorff described August 8th as ‘the black day of the German Army in the history of this war,’ and proffered his resignation a few days later. This was not accepted at the time, but at a Council held on August 14th he expounded the situation to the Kaiser and to the ruling German statesmen, with the result that Prince Max of Baden was subsequently appointed Imperial Chancellor with a view to paving the road to peace. These developments, not quite obscurely hinted at in a Note issued by Sir Douglas Haig on the eve of the Battle of Bapaume (August 21st to September 1st), must inevitably dominate our review of the ‘great series of battles, in which, throughout three months of continuous fighting, the British Armies advanced without a check from one victory to another.’[129] The autumn fighting of 1918 differed from that of previous years, in that there was no fifth winter to the war. We have not to follow our Divisions over the top of their trenches, and back again, when the weather failed, into the monotony of trench life. They did not fully know that they were fighting the last battles: it