Breakthrough

The battered unit is ordered forward as the Allies finally begin to force the German army from positions held for years. Tanks, aircraft, artillery and infantry combine in attacks intended to keep the enemy retreating, but every ruined village and rear-guard line can still exact a severe price. Victory appears possible for the first time, even as the men recognise how few of the original company remain to see it.

Breakthrough concludes the sequence during the Hundred Days Offensive. It contrasts operational success with the exhaustion of the soldiers carrying it out and shows why movement did not make the battlefield safer. The approach of the Armistice gives every casualty added weight: the war is ending, but no man at the front can know whether he will survive its final days.