Serbian soldiers and police, whose campaign of terror against ethnic Albanians provoked the Kosovo crisis, began to pour out of the province yesterday as the Yugoslav authorities implemented the peace deal struck with NATO.
And in the final act of the carefully choreographed process which ended the 78-day-long war, the United Nations Security Council rubber-stamped the agreement by 14 votes to nil, with just one abstention - China.
NATO's political leaders in Washington, London and Brussels were careful not to sound a triumphalist note. President Clinton said there was now a chance to replace violence with peace in the Balkans. NATO had emerged from the war "stronger than ever", he said. He thanked his top military advisers for their "great confidence and calmness amidst criticisms and the early rough going to achieve the victory that they have achieved".
He said: "The United States should feel vindicated when the [Kosovar] people go home and when they're safe, and when we can say that we as a nation played a role in reversing ethnic cleansing."
In London, the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, said NATO had not sought the conflict. "I feel no sense of triumph now, only the knowledge that our cause was just and has been rightly upheld," he said.
He added the war had been about a moral choice: to allow the barbarism of ethnic cleansing happen unchecked or to try to stop it. "Milosevic now knows, and the world now knows, that we will not let racial genocide go on without challenge. We will not see the values of civilisation sacrificed without raising the hand of justice in their defence," said Mr Blair.
Not surprisingly, the beleaguered Yugoslav President, Mr Milosevic, saw matters from a different perspective. He hailed the end of NATO "aggression".
"Peace has prevailed over violence," he said in a televised broadcast. "We have not given up Kosovo."
When the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces was verified as substantial and sustained by NATO spy planes, the organisation's Secretary-General, Mr Javier Solana, called a halt to the bombing campaign. He urged all of the parties to the conflict to seize the opportunity for peace. "Violence must cease immediately," he said. He also emphasised that aid would be given to all of the inhabitants of Kosovo, "whatever their ethnic origin". NATO, he said, would protect the Serbs of Kosovo and defend their rights along with those of other ethnic communities. But last night it seemed likely that many, if not all, of Kosovo's Serb population would leave with their army rather than risk the wrath of the returning Albanian people their security forces had attacked.
British troops will enter Kosovo today. Paratroopers are expected to fly to Pristina while others begin what may be a slower journey by road from Macedonia - slower because of the fear of Serb mines, booby traps and, possibly, irregular forces determined to continue the fight.
Last night, Lieut-Gen Sir Michael Jackson, the British officer who will command the NATO force (KFOR, for short) under the UN mandate, said he would enforce the peace deal robustly.
"What we will do in Kosovo will be . . . both robust and completely even-handed.
"We will be robust because we will be establishing a military presence which will guarantee the secure environment necessary for the safe return of all refugees.
"We will deal firmly and directly with anyone trying to prevent us to achieve this. Violence or non-compliance - wherever it may come from - will not be tolerated."
The Secretary-General of the UN, Mr Kofi Annan, lamented the carnage and abuse of human rights that had occurred in Kosovo and hoped the peace deal offered a better future.
However, many people expect that in the coming days, revelations will emerge of atrocities committed inside Kosovo during the 78-day war that will make normalisation seem a long way off.
Tim O'Brien adds: One hundred members of the Army will be available to fly to Kosovo as part of an "acceptable peacekeeping force" if asked by the UN, the Army press office said last night.