As the war neared its end, the Canadian Corps pressed on towards Germany and the final phase of the war for the Canadians was known as the Pursuit to Mons. It was during these final thirty-two days of the war that the Canadians engaged the retreating Germans over about seventy kilometres in a running series of battles at Denain and Valenciennes in France and finally Mons in Belgium where they pushed the Germans out of the town on November 10–11. Mons was, coincidentally, where the British had engaged the German armies for the first time in battle in the Great War on August 23, 1914. As such, Mons is considered by some to be the place where the war both began and ended for the British Empire.