It was late on September 3rd that the effects of this long-sustained struggle became apparent. The whole of Péronne and most of the high ground in its vicinity were, by then, definitely in our hands, and although the little suburb of Flamicourt held out determinedly for another day, the further resistance of the enemy began to fade away.
Doubtless the loss of Mont St. Quentin was a controlling factor in the decision which was forced upon him to undertake a retreat, for with that eminence in our possession, he could not have maintained himself for many days in the town, nor would its retention have been of any tactical value to him.
As an immediate result, the high ground of the Flamicourt spur just south of Péronne fell into our hands on September 3rd, and the enemy outposts spread along the banks of the marsh in front of the 32nd Division sought safety from complete envelopment by a hasty withdrawal; a number of their isolated posts were, however, left unwarned of this retreat, so that these were, later on, captured by us from the rear.
I must now briefly turn to the doings of the Third Australian Division during these four epic days. Its three Brigades (9th, 10th and 11th) daily performed prodigies of valour. The Division carried our line, inexorably, up the Bouchavesnes spur in a north-easterly direction. The seizure of this very important ground not only powerfully aided but also strongly confirmed our seizure of Mont St. Quentin.
The Division, having been given its general rôle, was necessarily left to a large extent to decide for itself its detailed action from day to day, seeing that it still had to perform the function, inevitable for a flank Division, of a link with my neighbouring Corps. Fortunately the arrival of a new, fresh Division (the 74th) from the Eastern theatre of war, which came into the Third Corps and was promptly thrown in, enabled that Corps to keep up fairly well with the general advance.
The British Third Army, too, was now beginning to make its pressure felt, and was approaching the line of the Canal du Nord over a wide front. The Third Division was therefore free to conform its forward movement to that of the rest of the Australian Corps; its energetic action gave me elbow room for the manœuvring of so many Brigades in the region of Cléry, and its capture of so much valuable ground east of the Canal du Nord served greatly to widen the breach.
By the night of September 3rd, the main tactical purposes on which the Corps had been launched on August 29th had been achieved in their entirety. Their execution furnishes the finest example in the war of spirited and successful Infantry action conducted by three whole Divisions operating simultaneously side by side.
Lord Rawlinson has more than once referred to the operation as the finest single feat of the war. Inevitably the dramatic and unlooked for success of the Second Division in the rapid storming of the Mount enthrals the imagination and overshadows all the other noteworthy incidents of these pregnant days. But none will begrudge the rain of congratulations which fell upon the head of Major-General Rosenthal. A massive man, whose build belies his extraordinary physical energy, he always was an egregious optimist, incapable of recognizing the possibility of failure. That is why he invariably succeeded in all that he undertook, and often embarked upon the apparently impossible. An architect before the war, he served for the first two years as an Artillery officer, both as a Brigade Commander and as a General of Divisional Artillery. He gained his Infantry experience as Commander of the 9th Brigade, and so was well qualified by versatile service to assume the command of the Second Division. His leadership of the latter contributed in no small measure to the fame which it has won.
The text of the congratulatory message issued on this occasion by the Fourth Army read as follows:
