And when all is said, when our grave losses in casualties, prisoners, and guns are fully admitted, what was the general result?
The Germans had failed to gain either of their real objectives:--either the Channel ports, or the division of the British Armies from the French.

They wore themselves out against a line which recoiled indeed but never broke, and was all the time filling up and strengthening from behind.
The losses inflicted on their immense reserves reacted on all the subsequent fighting of the year, both on the Aisne and the Marne.

And when the British Armies had brought the huge attack to a standstill--which for the centre and south of our line had been already attained ten days after the storm broke--and knew the worst that had happened or could happen to them; when the Australians had recaptured Villers-Bretonneux; when the weeks passed and the offensive ceased; when all gaps in our ranks were filled by the rush of reinforcements from home, and the American Army poured steadily across the Atlantic, the tension and peril of the spring passed steadily into the confident strength and--expectation of the summer.

The British Army had held against an attack which could never be repeated, and the future was with the Allies.
Let us remember that at no time in our fighting withdrawal, either on the Somme or on the Lys, was there "anything approaching a break-down of command, or a failure in morale." So the Field Marshal.

On the other hand, all over the vast battle-field--in every part of the hard "waiting game" which for a time the British Armies were called to play, men did the most impossible and heroic things.