Page:Mr. Punch's history of the Great War, Graves, 1919.djvu/274

 And when Auntie heard by chance That the Curate was in France, Browning's enigmatic lyrics Helped to save her from hysterics.

September, 1918.

INCE July 15th, when the Kaiser mounted a high observation post to watch the launching of the offensive which was to achieve his crowning victory, but proved the prelude of the German collapse, the conflict has raged continuously and with uninterrupted success for the Allied Armies. The Kaiser Battle has become the Battle of Liberation. The French bore the initial burden of the attack, but since August 8 "hundreds of thousands of unbeaten Tommies," to quote the phrase of a French military expert, have entered into action in a succession of attacks started one after the other all the way up to Flanders. Rawlinson, Home, and Byng have carried on the hammer work begun by Mangin, Gouraud, and Debeney. Péronne has been recovered, the famous Drocourt-Quéant switch-line has been breached, the Americans have flattened out the St. Mihiel salient. The perfect liaison of British and French and Americans has been a wonderful example of combined effort rendered possible by unity of command. "Marshal Foch strikes to-day at a new front," is becoming a standing head-line. And this highly desirable "epidemic of strikes" is not confined to the Western Front. As Generalissimo of all the Allied Forces the great French Marshal has planned and carried out an ensemble of operations designed to shatter and demoralise the enemy at every point. The long inaction on the Salonika Front has been ended by the rapid and triumphant advance of the British, French, Serbians, and Greeks under General Franchet d'Esperey. Eight days sufficed to smash the Bulgarians, and the armistice then granted was followed four days later by the surrender of Bulgaria. In less than a fortnight General Allenby pushed north from Jerusalem, annihilated the Turkish armies in Palestine, and captured Damascus. And by the end of the month the Hindenburg line had been