On the following day the Allies struck again on a front of more than thirty miles from north of Cambrai to the south of St. Quentin and completed the breaking through of the entire Hindenburg defensive system from Arras to St. Quentin. The German retreat now became almost a rout, involving thirty divisions.
At 4 o'clock in the morning with only the light of the stars and flares to guide them Canadian and English troops pressing forward from the north and south joined up in the chief square of Cambrai. The Germans were in retreat behind their rear guards, and the whole city was in Allied hands, but the enemy had mined it, and there were constant explosions that reduced many fine buildings to ruins. It was a great day for the Allies, and especially for the British, for in exactly two months they had fought their way back to their old front lines and were now far into the country beyond, which they had never penetrated before. Cambrai, a prize, was won, and the Germans, defeated and broken, were scuttling away with all the speed they could muster.
During October 8-9, 1918, the battle in Champagne continued with increasing violence from the Aisne in the region of Vaux-le-Mouron, which the French captured, to the Suippe River at Bazancourt, which was also won. North of St. Etienne on the Arnes River the Germans made powerful attacks on the positions won by General Gouraud's men, but were unable to regain a foot of ground, while their casualties were enormous. The determined fighting here and on the Suippe River by the Germans was evidently for the purpose of gaining time for a wide retreat. For the persistence and vigor of the Allied pressure had evidently disarranged all their plans, as up to this time they had been unable to prepare a stable position to which their shattered formations could retire in security.
In the Cambrai-St. Quentin sector the Anglo-American forces continued to advance during October 9-10, 1918, the greatest progress being made east and southeast of Cambrai, where Marshal Haig had pushed his lines to the banks of the Selle River, capturing the important German base of Le Cateau. This marked an advance of about ten miles east and fifteen miles southeast of Cambrai in the face of determined resistance by the enemy's rear guards. During this forward sweep many French civilians were found in the captured villages, 2,500 being liberated in Caudry alone.
Farther to the north several villages southeast of Lens were occupied. The French, on the south of the British and Americans, continued to carry out dashing attacks and wrested from the enemy a number of villages northeast of St. Quentin. North of the Aisne they gained possession of the Croix-sans-Tête plateau. In Champagne Liry was occupied.
The Germans began on October 10-11, 1918, the withdrawal from their strong positions north of the Sensee River before the far-reaching advance of the British south of that stream. North of the Scarpe the British pressed on in the direction of Douai, which the Germans were preparing to abandon. From every front came the same story of German retirement, though here and there they continued to hold on to a strong position to hinder the advance of the Allies and secure the safety of their fleeing forces. On the whole front from the Soissons-Laon road to Grand Pré north of the Argonne Forest their hosts were on the backward move. In Champagne, where General Gouraud's army captured Machault after a four-mile advance, they were retreating toward Vouziers, and under pressure of the converging attack west and south of the Chemin-des-Dames were gradually forced off of that famous height, relinquishing some of their strongest positions. In the Laon area the Germans were facing the utmost difficulties, where the Hunding line between the rivers Serre and Sissonne had been turned by the French.
In the night of October 11, 1918, French advance guards occupied Vouziers, which the Germans had burned and looted before retiring. The highroad running west from Vouziers to Pauvres was now entirely in French hands, and German resistance seemed weakening through this sector. West of Pauvres the French held the slopes above the marshy wooded valley of the Retourne.
On the left, General Berthelot's army captured the dominating height of Cæsar's Camp and advanced beyond Mauchamp Farm to the north. Still more important progress was made in the loop of the Aisne River, where French cavalry aided by armored cars took Asfeld-La-Ville, thus creating a new salient between them and the advance to the westward which occupied the greater part of the Chemin-des-Dames.
General Mangin's troops meanwhile were encountering strong opposition as they forced their way forward into the wooded heights that constituted the outer bastion of the St. Gobain Forest. This operation, taken in conjunction with the advance of Generals Debeney and Gouraud on the flanks, rendered the position of the German forces holding the Laon salient increasingly dangerous.
On October 12, 1918, General Mangin seized the greater part of the St. Gobain Massif. La Fère, the outpost to the north on the Oise, was also won. Laon, the last of the great natural obstacles forming the keystone of the German defenses in France, yielded without a fight.