The morning of Monday, 11th November, was cold and foggy, such weather as a year before had been seen at Cambrai. Very early, while the Canadians of Horne’s First Army were entering Mons, the 1st Regiment attacked, but could make little progress, though a patrol under Second-Lieutenant Cawood managed to gain some ground on the left flank. By 8 o’clock a considerable advance was made on the right, where the 20th Hussars were feeling their way through Sivry. At 10 a.m. Tanner received by telephone the news that an armistice had been signed. “Hostilities,” so ran the divisional order, “will cease at 11 o’clock to-day, 11th November. Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour, which will be immediately reported by wire to Headquarters, Fourth Army Advance Guard. Defensive precautions will be maintained. There will be no intercourse of any description with the enemy until receipt of instructions.” The news must have reached the enemy lines earlier, and he signalized its arrival by increasing his bombardment, as if he had resolved to have no surplus ammunition left when the hour of truce arrived.

Punctually at 11 o’clock the firing on both sides ceased. There came a moment of dramatic silence, and then a sound as of a light wind blowing down the lines—the echo of men cheering on the long battle front. The meaning of victory could not in that hour be realized by the weary troops; they only knew that fighting had stopped, and that they could leave their trenches without disaster. The final “gesture” fell to the arm which from the beginning of the campaign had been the most efficient in the enemy service. At two minutes to eleven a machine gun opened about two hundred yards from our leading troops at Grandrieu, and fired off a whole belt without a pause. A German machine gunner was then seen to stand up beside his weapon, take off his helmet, bow, and, turning about, walk slowly to the rear.

At the hour of armistice the line reached by the advanced guard ran from Montbliart in the south, west of Sautain, through the Bois de Martinsart, round the eastern edge of Grandrieu to the western skirts of Cousolre. It represented the easternmost point gained by any troops of the British Armies in France. The South Africans had the honour of finishing the War as the spear-point of the advance to victory.