In order to check the advance on Valenciennes the Germans broke down the banks and opened the sluice gates northeast and southwest of the city and flooded vast stretches of country. The British, however, continued to drive ahead, and fighting their way into the city from the west, there were spirited fights in the streets between patrols. During the night of October 23-24, 1918, artillery duels increased on the battle front south of the city.
The British gunners wrought fearful damage in the traffic-crowded roads to the rear of the German line. The advance of the British in the moonlight, protected by flocks of night bombing airplanes, offered a strange and moving dramatic spectacle. At Pomereuil they were held up for a time by a heavy concentration of machine guns. Waiting until the advance had made progress north and south of them, they swept around on both sides of the gun nests. They found the German machine gunners occupying positions around a triangular space that had been cleared. The British, ignoring the invitation to enter the clearing, passed the gunners and captured Pomereuil Wood behind the triangle, and thus surrounded the enemy. Then they stormed and carried the position.
Continuing their attacks upon the German lines south of Valenciennes, the British on October 25, 1918, advancing on a front of between six and seven miles, reached the Le Quesnoy-Valenciennes railway, capturing several villages on the way. Simultaneously with this operation the French armies, striking on the Serre and Aisne Rivers over a front of about forty miles, advanced their lines at all points, capturing villages and positions and taking over 3,000 prisoners. East of Courtrai, in the direction of the Scheldt, the British and French troops made further progress, wresting a number of villages and positions from the enemy.
The climax of the French attack was General Guillemat's drive east of Laon against the Hunding position, the elaborately prepared line protecting the German center. Here was a quadruple trench system backed by concrete shelters, five lines of barbed wire each twenty feet deep, and the ground between planted with antitank mines, yet the indomitable French soldiers broke through it on a ten-mile front between St. Quentin-le-Petit and Herpy, and held their ground against deluges of gas and high-explosive shells.
On the center of the great offensive General Mangin's army took Mortiers, on the south bank of the Serre, and gained a bridgehead north of the river.
Farther north the British continued to press forward toward Valenciennes, and on their right General Plumer's troops under command of King Albert continued to cooperate in the drive against the German line on the Scheldt.
On the whole forty-mile front of the offensive which the French began on October 25, 1918, great gains of territory were made. The Germans lost Crecy-sur-Serre in the center, and were forced to abandon a good part of the Hunding position. In two days Generals Debeney and Guillemat captured more than 6,000 prisoners, twenty cannon, and hundreds of machine guns. On October 27, 1918, General Debeney had pushed on to the outskirts of Guise. The Germans on this date launched three fierce attacks against three different points on the British front southeast of Valenciennes, all of which ended for them in disaster and heavy losses.
The British forward movement south of Valenciennes slowed down on October 28, 1918, but the French between the Oise and the Serre drove the Germans back two miles at the apex of their attack in the region of Bois-les-Pargny. On the Aisne front west of Château Porcien they drove forward to the north of Herpy.
In Belgium the Allies' positions became daily more favorable, while the difficulties of the Germans increased proportionately. The Allies were now within five miles of Ghent, and it was only owing to the delay in bringing up artillery that the city had not already fallen. In the hope of destroying the Allies' lines of communication with Bruges the Germans kept Stroobrigge under continuous fire. Maideghem and Aldeghem were also subjected to incessant artillery attacks.
The retirement of General Ludendorff, formerly chief of staff and really generalissimo of the German armies at this time, was an event of the highest importance. As the persistent advocate of war to the bitter end, and which he had never failed to assert would result in the defeat of Germany's enemies, his throwing up the sponge at a time of crisis in his country's destiny could only mean one of two things: he had all the effective power of the empire against him, or he foresaw the triumph of the Allies and was eager to seek cover before the German armies were forced to surrender.