The assault was to be carried out by the Lowland Brigade with the K.O.S.B., 11th Royal Scots, and “Rifles,” each attacking on a two-company front, the first wave in skirmishing order and all succeeding waves in file. In the hope of effecting a tactical surprise, 11 A.M. on the 18th was fixed as zero, and the camouflage device so successfully employed at Meteren was adopted to screen the assembled troops. To ensure that none of the enemy were lurking within our barrage line the 12th Royal Scots established four new posts in six days, and held them against all efforts of the Germans to eject them. These posts were withdrawn before dawn on the morning of the attack.

The operation met with gratifying success. On the right the K.O.S.B. suffered losses from a heavy counter-barrage put down by the enemy between his outposts and his line on the ridge; near the Becque, too, there were some obstinate encounters in which a German machine-gun was knocked out by a Lewis Gun fired from the hip. On the left little opposition was experienced, the enemy being utterly surprised. In their impetuous eagerness our men more than once overran the barrage, some casualties being incurred in consequence. The whole objective of the Division was gained in fine style, and one company of the K.O.S.B. pressing on as far as Outtersteene returned with two heavy machine-guns.

So demoralised was the enemy that a great deal more ground could have been won, but though the men were impatiently anxious to go on, it was not considered advisable to leave the ridge for the low swampy ground beyond. The enterprise had been exceedingly satisfactory, no hitch having occurred at all. Ten officers and 287 other ranks had been captured along with a quantity of material.[121] The ground secured was of real importance as it dominated the whole sector, and unless the enemy had abandoned all hope of an offensive in this district he was bound to counter-attack. But nothing happened; the Germans had their hands too full with our counter-offensive in front of Amiens to contemplate ambitious projects in other parts of the war zone. Four days after the capture of Hoegenacker Ridge the Germans commenced a retreat on this front which did not close until they had abandoned the whole of the Lys salient. This step was probably chiefly due to events farther south, but the loss of the ridge, which afforded wonderful facilities for observation, undoubtedly precipitated the enemy’s retirement.

The Ninth remained in the line until the 24th. Terrapin Farm was not taken over by the troops of the Twenty-ninth Division until the 19th, probably because the amount of ground gained by exploitation was greater than had been expected. On the 22nd the Black Watch, in conjunction with a brigade of the Thirty-sixth Division which was now on our left, advanced their line about 150 yards without opposition. On the same date a patrol of the Camerons encountered a hostile post, which it summarily wiped out; it was then attacked from different directions and retired after shooting two officers who were leading enemy parties. On the 24th and 25th Hoegenacker Ridge was taken over by the Thirty-first Division and the Ninth was withdrawn to rest near Wardrecques.

At the end of August the South African Composite Battalion moved to the Lumbres area preparatory to leaving the Division, its connection with which officially ceased on the 13th September. Heavily engaged throughout 1918 it had once been practically demolished, and it was clear that there was no chance of bringing it up to the strength of a brigade until it was withdrawn from the line. It was only fitting that the Union of South Africa should be represented in France by a force stronger than a battalion; but the severance of the connection thus rendered necessary was a great blow to everyone in the Ninth. The trials and hardships borne by Scots and South Africans at the Somme, Arras, Passchendaele, and the fierce ordeal of the German offensives in March and April had forged a bond, consecrated by common sufferings and triumphs, that will ever link in sympathy such distant parts of the Empire as the misty land of Scotland and the Dominion that extends from the Cape of Good Hope to the Zambesi. The departure took place without fuss or ceremony in the same fashion as tried friends say farewell when duty bids them part. The final greeting[122] of General Tudor to the men who had played such an eminent and distinguished rôle in the Division reflected the sincere feelings of the Scots.

There was some consolation in the report that the place of the South Africans was to be filled by Ian Hay’s battalion, the 10th Argylls; but it was not immediately available, and another battalion of Colonial troops, the Newfoundlanders, tough fighters and good comrades, joined the Ninth under the command of Lieut.-Colonel T. G. Matthias. The 28th Brigade thus reconstituted was placed under the command of Brig.-General J. L. Jack.

Before the end of August the war had taken a turn that was as unexpected as it was gratifying. The German offensive in May and June towards Paris had been foiled by the doughty resistance of French and American troops, and Ludendorff, seeking an easier quest, dealt on the 15th July his final and hazardous blow against Rheims. Marshal Foch’s skilfully excogitated tactics were more than a match for the storm-troops who, lying in a sharp salient near Soissons, Château Thierry, Epernay, and Rheims, experienced a jarring shock when attacked on the 18th July by a French force under General Mangin who had collected it under cover of the forests of Compiègne and Villers-Cotterêts. The Germans were driven from the salient, Soissons was recaptured by the French, and on the 3rd August the enemy was pushed back across the River Vesle.

General Mangin’s stroke on the 18th July was the turning-point in the campaign. Ludendorff’s hope of victory was broken, and the ultimate triumph of the Entente was definitely assured. But few people were prepared for the sequence of brilliant victories that attended the Allies’ arms, and the autumn of glorious hope that succeeded the gloomiest spring of the war. On the 8th August the British Fourth Army struck so shrewd a blow that it disengaged the city of Amiens, and reduced Ludendorff to despair. The resistance of Germany began to crumble, and her forces were driven back in a retreat, which was rapidly developing into a rout, when the Armistice put an end to hostilities. The line of battle extended to the north when, on the 21st August, the British Third Army attacked between Albert and Arras. On the 29th Bapaume fell to the Third, and on the 31st Péronne to the Fourth Army. The First Army, joining in, stormed the formidable Drocourt-Queant line. These events emasculated opposition farther north, and Bailleul, Mount Kemmel, Ploegsteert Wood, and Lens were evacuated. Before the end of September the Germans had lost all their conquests of the spring, and were endeavouring to gain time behind the entrenchments of the Hindenburg Line.

With Germany in the toils all pith and sting dropped from her allies. In the Balkans, General Franchet d’Espercy, now in command of the Entente forces in that area, commenced on the 15th September an attack which in ten days forced the Bulgarians to sue for peace. With the collapse of Bulgaria the Central Powers lost their grasp on the Balkans, and there was no force of any consequence to make even a fight for Serbia. Turkey was now isolated, and suffered a series of catastrophic reverses from the armies of General Allenby, whose cavalry campaign mopped up the greater part of the Turkish soldiery, and eventually with the co-operation of General Marshall from Mesopotamia compelled the Sultan to accept our Armistice terms on the 30th October.

In France the admirable discipline of the enemy’s troops had so far prevented anything like a rout, but every day increased the embarrassments of the German General Staff. Reserves had to be thrown in hastily to stem our advance with no time to consider how they might be employed most usefully. Within Germany itself the rigours of our naval blockade caused acute discomfort, and the failure of the military effort raised murmurs ominous of the Revolution that was to sweep the Hohenzollerns from the Imperial Throne.