On Wednesday night Sir Douglas Haig was able to announce
that the enemy's whole defensive system from Arms to St. Quentin had been captured, and that our magnificent armies, with the French on their right flank, were advancing rapidly eastward on the wide front from the Send*, north of Cambrai, to the Somme, east of St. Quentin. The Hindenburg Line in this region with its out- works and its supports formed a stupendous fortified zone, thirty- five miles square. Every village, every farm, every cottage almost, was a stronghokl, and the whole area was seamed with trenehes. The enemy fought for every yard of the ground with the utmost determination, and used his reserves freely in counter-attacks up to the very last. But he could not cheek our superb infantry of the First, Third, and Fourth Armies, who in seven weeks broke through all the enemy's " impregnable " lines, inflicted enormous losses upon him, and took over one hundred and ten thousand prisoners and twelve hundred guns. It is the greatest single victory that British arms have ever won. We are very glad to see that the Prime Minister has sent his hearty congratulations to Sir Douglas Haig and the officers and men of the three armies, who have achieved "a feat of which we are all justly proud and for which the Empire will ever be grateful."
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