With the Canadians, Tanks attacked Domeny and twice entered the village, but the 4th Canadian Division could not get forward to consolidate, owing to lack of support on the right.
On the 12th, while six Tanks were still thrashing out the Proyart affair north of the Somme, the 4th and 5th Brigades were withdrawn, to be followed next day by the remainder of the Tanks.
IX
We called a halt, and the Battle of Amiens was at an end, for it was again at last the Allies who chose the time and the place where they would offer battle.
Commanders who had the bitter taste of the forced actions of the March retreat in their mouths, must have savoured this easy choice extraordinarily. There is something thrilling in the assured words of the Despatch. We did not care for the new battle site! We would change it and fight elsewhere!
“The derelict battle area which now lay before our troops, seared by old trench lines, pitted with shell-holes, and crossed in all directions with tangled belts of wire, the whole covered by the wild vegetation of two years, presented unrivalled opportunities for stubborn machine-gun defences....
“I therefore determined to break off the battle on this front, and transferred the front of attack from the 4th Army to the sector north of the Somme, where an attack seemed unexpected by the enemy. My intention was for the 3rd Army to operate in the direction of Bapaume so as to turn the line of the old Somme defences from the north.”
We struck at once. Only four days were given to the Tanks for overhauling machines and patching up the crews, for on August 21 we opened the new battle.
Meanwhile it was hard to realise how great was the moral and physical blow which we had dealt the Germans. The July attacks had been tentative, but the Battle of Amiens was the decisive victory, the sure proof that the Germans had lost all hope of winning the War by force of arms.
But at the time we could not read the thundering sign of our deliverance with certainty. We could see only what were the more immediate results of the battle.