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On Tuesday we took Combles in conjunction with the French,

and —what was less expected—ThiepvaL Thiepval had been a thorn to us since the beginning of the " push." Combles was the scene of the Kaiser's ecstatic joy early in the war, when he uttered a panegyric on the heroism of his troops in capturing it and issued a special medal in honour of the event. If Combles required exceptional heroism to capture it then, what did it not require on Tuesday ? The Germans never doubted that Combles and Thiepval,

with all their military catacombs and steel and concrete-bound defences, were impregnable. To have shown them that nothing

is impregnable—this is the greatest of our victories, and must sap and wither their hitherto all-sustaining reliance upon their military science.

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