section_path: Progress of the war/Final years of the war/Allied advance to the Hindenburg Line
section_name: Allied advance to the Hindenburg Line
paragraph_text: Allied advance to the Hindenburg Line
  
  By September, the Germans had fallen back to the Hindenburg Line. The Allies had advanced to the Hindenburg Line in the north and centre. German forces launched numerous counterattacks, but positions and outposts of the Line continued falling, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. On 24 September, the Supreme Army Command informed the leaders in Berlin that armistice talks were inevitable.
  
  The final assault on the Hindenburg Line began with the Meuse-Argonne offensive, launched by American and French troops on 26 September. Two days later the Belgians, French and British attacked around Ypres, and the day after the British at St Quentin in the centre of the line. The following week, cooperating American and French units broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge (3–27 October), forcing the Germans off the commanding heights, and closing towards the Belgian frontier. On 8 October, the Hindenburg Line was pierced by British and Dominion troops of the First and Third British Armies at the Second Battle of Cambrai.