This confession, coming from such a quarter, needs little comment.

It seems to justify all the arguments by which I have tried to show

how tanks, when at length properly employed, determined not only the

duration, but also to a large extent the actual result, of the war.

Yet, as I write, there appears to be every probability that no tank

corps will be included in the post-bellum army! The cavalry, useless

and inefficient, is of course to remain at full strength; infantry

and artillery are to be cut down to a minimum to provide money for

ameliorating the lives of coal miners; and the Tank Corps, as an

unnecessary extravagance, is in danger of total abolition. Truly we are

a remarkable people.

III.

After the 8th August the Germans began feverishly to devise anti-tank

measures of every kind. It is doubtful if the immense fronts which

modern armies occupy can ever be protected satisfactorily by artificial

means against whole-hearted tank attacks; and in any case the Germans

were allowed no time to perfect such stationary defences. Field

artillery remained to the end the best anti-tank weapon. Special guns

were now brought forward near the front line, to remain silent until

the moment of attack, when they were to concentrate on tanks. Our

barrage, however, usually accounted for most of these advanced pieces

before they could do much harm, while the remainder were overrun by

the tanks in the first rush, which always took place at dawn. More

dangerous were reserve guns which moved up to selected positions

further back as soon as the attack started. “Finally, all German

batteries, including howitzers, had general instructions to plan their

positions in such a way that advancing tanks would be subject to a

direct fire at about 500 or 600 yards’ range. In the event of a tank

attack the engagement of our machines was now to be the first call

upon the artillery, to the exclusion of counter-battery or any other

work.”[28]

The only novel weapon of offence introduced was the anti-tank rifle.

This was a huge affair, 5¹⁄₂ feet long, and provided with biped legs

and an ordinary wooden stock. It fired armour-piercing bullets of .530

calibre and had no magazine. “It was obviously too conspicuous and too

slow a weapon to be really effective against tanks, though the steel

core could penetrate the armour of British tanks at several hundred

yards’ range. The chief disadvantage of the anti-tank rifle, however,

was that the German soldier would not use it. He was untrained in its

use, afraid of its kick, and still more afraid of the tanks themselves.

It is doubtful if more than one per cent of the A.T. rifles captured in

our tank attacks had ever been fired.”[29]

A great variety of fixed obstructions were set up in village streets,

on roads, and at other suitable points. None of these gave us any

serious trouble. Usually they could be avoided. The road obstacles,

in fact, comprising craters, barricades of carts filled with bricks,

and concrete blocks, allowing only a narrow passage which could be

closed with railway iron, seem primarily to have been intended to hold

up whippets and armoured cars. Land mines, on the other hand, which

were used rather extensively, while generally ineffective, served to

impose caution on any tank commander who knew of, or suspected, their

existence. They generally took the form of high-explosive shells with

light fuses, buried in rows a few inches below the surface of a road

or across some other likely defile, and fitted with a simple wooden

device which the weight of a tank pressed down upon the nose-cap, so

detonating the fuse. One or two large mine-fields were laid, in which

a more elaborate apparatus was used. Oddly enough, it was one of our

own mine-fields, prepared before the March retreat and afterwards

forgotten, which caused the only serious disaster tanks ever suffered

from this form of defence.

Two more unusual types of obstacle came within my own experience.

Along the valley which runs between the first and second Hindenburg

Lines from Pronville to Inchy-en-Artois, on the Canal du Nord, was the

dried-up bed of a stream called the Hirondelle. Its banks were lined

with stout willows, and where the gaps between these were wide enough

for a tank to pass through, the Germans had planted lengths of railway

line, upright but inclining forward, the ends embedded in concrete

blocks sunk in the ground. As this part of the line was taken in

reverse by the capture of Quéant, tanks had no opportunity of testing

this obstacle. I think the rails would have been pushed over with

ease, but the process might have held up the tanks for a few dangerous

minutes in full view of the second Hindenburg Line. In the main street

of Inchy itself were two massive blocks of concrete 6 feet high,

with the usual narrow passage between, and each furnished with half

a dozen of these inclined iron rails, which rose to the house-tops.

This barricade would have stopped any tank. More interesting than this

defence scheme, however, was the elaborate but unfinished stockade

at Achiet-le-Grand. The Arras-Bapaume railway curves across most of

this region on a high embankment. This in itself was not generally

unsurmountable, but tanks in the act of climbing over it would stand

out as magnificent targets for the German batteries, which then were

posted on the other side. At one point, just north of Achiet-le-Grand

station, a rise of ground caused the embankment to fall away to nothing

for two or three hundred yards, and attacking tanks, it was thought,

naturally would make for this crossing. In front of it, therefore,

parallel to the line, the Germans began a really formidable anti-tank

stockade. It was made of lengths of railway line and stout telegraph

poles, three rails or two poles being lashed together, fixed in cement

bases, and buried in the ground, above which they rose to a height of

4 feet. Inclining forward, these stakes were planted 7 feet apart in

several rows, each row covering the spaces of the one in front. It was

found that tanks could force a passage through this _abattis_ only

by approaching it obliquely and crushing down one row of stakes at a

time, a slow process which would have exposed them helplessly to the

batteries close beyond. In the attack on this position on 21st August

1918, when a great number of tanks were knocked out along the railway,

the stockade was not attempted. There was a similar form of obstacle on

the Bapaume-Cambrai road, and there may have been others.

Taken as a whole, these various artificial impediments inevitably

proved a failure. There was no time for the Germans to cover every

vulnerable point in such a fashion, and isolated obstacles were useless

against a tank attack on a wide front. In any case, the principle of

passive defence was bound to be fatal in the end; and the Germans,

realising this, were at work when the war finished upon an instrument

which they hoped would replace all these makeshifts. This instrument

was the “Tuf” or _Tank und Flieger_ machine-gun, a huge Maxim firing

armour-piercing bullets of 13 mm. diameter. This formidable weapon

must have been deadly against our Mark IV.’s and V.’s, for its stream

of heavy bullets would have gone clean through the armour. Profound

importance was attached to its speedy production, in which sixty

factories were engaged, and it was given priority over submarines and

aeroplanes (another testimony to the German fear of tanks). Major

Williams-Ellis, in ‘The Tank Corps,’ gives the following interesting

details of the fate of this invention:--

“No less than 6000 of these guns were to be in the field by

April 1919, and delivery was to begin early in the previous

December--just a month too late. However, when the armistice

was signed the firms were already in possession of the greater

part of the stores and raw material for the manufacture of

the guns, a quantity of which were by then well on the way to

completion. Immediately after the signing of the armistice

all the factories, without exception, were instructed by

telephone to continue manufacturing the ‘Tuf,’ and about 20th

November they received confirmation in writing of this order,

and were instructed to keep on their workmen at all costs.

Our occupation of the left bank of the Rhine proved a serious

drawback to a continuation of the manufacture, as it completely

interrupted communication between several of the factories.

The Piaff Works of Kaiserslautern (Palatinate), and the great

Becker Steel Works of Crefeld, which played an important part

in the manufacture of the guns, had to close down, both being

on the left bank of the Rhine.

“The Minister of War, throughout the period of its manufacture,

asked for daily and minute reports as to the progress of the

‘Tuf.’ But once more, as ever in all that concerned tanks, the

Germans were several months too late. We were never destined to

face this particular weapon with the Mark V. The modern tank

fears it not at all.”

IV.

It may seem ill-mannered to relegate an account of the French Tank

Corps to the tail-end of a discursive chapter devoted mainly to the

Germans and their doings. But the subject of the _Artillerie d’Assaut_,

if treated adequately, would require a book to itself, and is, in fact,

outside the scope of this narrative. Considerations of space, already

becoming urgent, would alone forbid any detailed history. I wish merely

to outline very briefly here the inception and growth of the new arm in

the French service.

The French tank was evolved independently of our own. Its author may

be said to have been Colonel Estienne, of the Artillery. This officer,

observing in 1915 the Holt tractors used by the British Army, was

inspired by the same idea which Colonel Swinton and his colleagues

already were perfecting in England. At the end of the year Colonel

Estienne put his views before General Joffre. After an interview

with the latter, he approached the Schneider Engineering Company on

the subject, and drew up with them the design of the machine he had

in mind. In February 1916, Schneiders received a definite order to

construct 400 machines, and a little later a second firm was told to

build another 400 of a heavier type. These last were the St Chamond

tanks, driven by petrol-electric motors. An instructional ground was

established at Marly-le-Roi, and Colonel Estienne was recalled from

Verdun to command the new unit.

The design of these French tanks differed in an important feature from

our own. It is better, perhaps, to say that they remained in a more

primitive stage of evolution. The idea of the wheel, and the subsequent

modification which produced the unique shape and capabilities of the

British tank, does not seem to have occurred to the constructors of

the Schneiders and St Chamonds. Both these types were modelled on the

ordinary tractor, and in consequence worked under severe limitations.

Obstacles that were negligible to a British tank they found impassable.

On the other hand, they carried a far heavier gun than our machines,

the 75 mm. field-piece of famous memory. In appearance they were small

editions of the German copy, the _Panzerkraftwagens_. Their light

weapon was the Hotchkiss automatic rifle, carried on our Whippets and

Mark V.’s.

Ten companies, of 16 tanks each, were formed in April 1917, one company

only consisting of St Chamonds. In various actions during the year,

the Schneiders did excellent work, but the St Chamonds proved to be a

failure. In the meantime, still working on very similar lines to our

own, Colonel Estienne was evolving an idea for a light tank. The result

was the remarkable little Rénault machine, of which no fewer than

3500 were ordered in June 1917. If we had designed the better heavy

tank, the French made a leap ahead with the Rénault; and it is highly

interesting to see how national habits of thought appear manifestly in

this connection. Our bias, in any sort of constructional work, leans

towards the heavy, durable, and expensive article. We have a horror

of anything cheap and fragile. This inclination, together with the

ingenious design of the large tank, worked for good in the case of the

latter; but when we came to build what we called light machines, our

limitations were very apparent. The Whippet was nearly as conspicuous

and as costly as the Mark IV. or V., was far more vulnerable and

intricate, was incapable of surmounting any serious obstacle, and

possessed only one merit--superior speed. It was absurd to describe it

as a light tank.[30] Colonel Estienne and his colleagues, on the other

hand, determined to produce a little, simple, inconspicuous machine

which could be manufactured rapidly at a small cost, and which was to

be capable of performing, under modern conditions, the task of the

French _Fantassin_, or skirmisher. The Rénaults, in fact, were to be

used in clouds in front of the infantry, like armoured light troops. If

20, or 50, or 100 were destroyed, they could easily be replaced. They

were not expected to cross wide trenches or climb vertical obstacles;

this was the preliminary task of the heavy tank. While the Whippet was

a weak compromise between the two types, the Rénault was definitely

limited in its functions. It was experimental in the sense that all

tanks during the war were experimental. There was no time in which to

play about with various designs, and in consequence the accepted model

had many faults, but it was a strikingly successful experiment on

novel lines. In appearance, with its hunched-up shoulders topped by a

bell-shaped cupola, and its curving iron tail introduced to prevent it

from turning on its back, it looked like some fabulous cross between

a grasshopper and a scorpion. Compared with all previous tanks it was

ridiculously small--a mere toy, even, beside a Whippet. It carried two

men, a driver who sat on the floor, and a gunner who swung half-upright

behind him in a sort of leather sling and fired a Hotchkiss from the

cupola, which revolved. It had a Rénault engine of only 17 h.p., narrow

sprung tracks, passing over a big idle wheel in front and a small

driving sprocket behind, and could travel on good ground at a speed of

six to seven miles an hour. It was extraordinarily handy, and by means

of two levers which threw the tracks out of gear it could be spun about

like a top. Owing, however, to its light weight and springy motion, it

must have been extremely awkward to aim from while on the move.

Astonishing rapidity of production was one of the chief merits of the

Rénault. After the victorious counterstroke against the Château-Thierry

Salient, in which these little machines played a decisive part, whole

battalions, each of 75 tanks, became available at the rate of one a

week! This permitted of tired units being replaced speedily by fresh

ones. The French Tank Corps was established on the normal continental

infantry basis, in regiments of three battalions; and it was proposed

to form, in addition to the regiments of Schneider and St Chamond

heavies, thirty battalions (ten regiments) of Rénaults. By August 1918

the personnel of the Corps numbered already 14,600 of all ranks. During

1918, 3988 individual tank engagements were fought, to which number the

diminutive Rénaults contributed 3140.

It is impossible here to give details of any of these tank actions.

What is called the Battle of Soissons--the brilliant series of

operations from 18th July onward which inaugurated the combined allied

offensive--was the Cambrai of the French Tank Corps. After that date

tanks were employed wherever possible, not only on the main front,

but at St Mihiel and even in Flanders, where the 6th French Army was

sent to strengthen General Plumer and the Belgians; and a company of

Rénaults went as far afield as Salonika. “Finally,” to quote ‘Weekly

Tank Notes,’ “it may be stated that as there can be no doubt that the

18th July was the second greatest turning-point in the war, the first

being the Battle of the Marne in 1914, so can there be no doubt that

the Battle of Soissons would never have been won had not the French

possessed a powerful force of tanks whereby to initiate success. The

German General Staff, which should be the best judge of this question,

candidly admit that the French victory was due to the use of ‘masses

of tanks’; neither was the General Commanding-in-Chief of the French

Armies reticent, for on the 30th July he issued the following special

order of the day to the French Tank Corps--

‘_Vouz avez bien merité de la Patrie_,’

whilst General Estienne, to whom so much was due, received the Cravat

of the Legion d’Honneur and was promoted to the rank of General of

Division for the great services he had rendered to his country.”

In England, it seems, we do not know how to do these things--or at

least to whom to do them.

CHAPTER XV.

THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE. MEAULTE, BOUVIGNY, AND BÉTHUNE.

I.

A further expansion of the Tank Corps, as indicated already, was the

natural result of the Battle of Cambrai. The rejected proposal for

an 18-battalion establishment was now almost obsequiously adopted. A

little later, indeed, the War Office (dragging with it a reluctant

Treasury) rushed recklessly in where it had feared to tread before,

and sanctioned a still larger increase. Before all this had happened,

however, an outward and visible sign had testified to the dawn of a

new era. The tanks were formally manumitted from the paper control

of the Machine Gun Corps, and became in name what they had always

been in fact, a separate organisation. For reasons of simplicity and

common-sense I have written throughout of the “Tank Corps,” where a

pedantic conscience would have impelled me to speak of the H.B.M.G.C.,

for this change of nomenclature, with all that it implied, was not in

force until late in 1917.

Two new tank brigades, the 4th and 5th, were now to be formed

immediately in France. Pending the completion of these arrangements,

as well as of those for the disposal of the various units in the

coming year, the three old brigades, or what was left of them, were

concentrated for the winter between Albert and Bray, on the edge

of the Somme battlefield. There was much to be done before any of

the battalions would be fit for another offensive battle, and it

was suspected already that defensive rather than offensive measures

would be our portion for the next few months. In the meantime, Tank

Corps Headquarters, faced with the dazzling prospect of a great and

possibly indefinite expansion, made a simple calculation and found

that it was in danger of exhausting the resources of the alphabet.

Eighteen battalions, denominated alphabetically, would leave only

eight letters for future emergencies; while to continue the illogical

practice of numbering the companies consecutively throughout a

growing corps promised in the end a surfeit of figures as well. And

so another revolutionary translation came about. Letters and figures

changed places. Our old battalion designations, which had acquired

a sentimental significance, were abolished at a stroke, so that A

Battalion, Tank Corps, became the 1st Tank Battalion, and, what was

more harrowing, G became the 7th. This reform, however necessary, was

painful to the victims. It might mean nothing to the new battalions

forming in England, but we, in France, felt that we had lost our

individuality. It was as if the law, without obtaining my consent, had

decreed that I was to be called Smith or Jones. The old names, however,

are not dead. In any gathering of officers or men from the first three

brigades, you will find the battalions still spoken of as A or B, F or

G, and so on, as the case may be.

At the same time that this nominal change took place, the numerical

order of companies was abolished also. The three companies of a

battalion were known in future as A, B, and C.

I have explained how I came to be absent at Cambrai. Just before

Christmas I was released from convalescent quarters (cynically

so-called) at Barly, near Avesnes-le-Comte, where I had been living

with other unfortunates in the coldest château in France--an outwardly

imposing but actually gimcrack house like “Hardwick Hall, more glass

than wall,” and short of coal into the bargain. With some difficulty

(for R.T.O.’s and other dignitaries whose business it was to know such

things invariably were ignorant of the whereabouts of tank units) I ran

the 1st Brigade to earth in a camp of huts outside Meaulte, two miles

from Albert. I will not dilate upon the arctic winter we spent at this

unholy spot, beyond remarking that the camp, like all similar military

establishments, was built on the bleak northern slope of a hill.

There was no intervening shelter, so far as I could judge, between

us and the North Pole. We contrived, however, to exist cheerfully,

and indeed for a fortnight after Christmas almost too cheerfully. The

celebrations common to that season and to the New Year were involved

with others consequent upon the announcement of the Cambrai honours,

and the promotions and partings brought about by the expansion of

the corps. These last affected the 7th Battalion--as I hate to call

it--very materially. Colonel Hankey, to every one’s profound regret (a

feeling not so common as the conventional accounts of such departures

might lead the unsophisticated to suppose), left us to take over

the new 4th Brigade, carrying with him several others. Major Fernie

became Battalion Commander, and was succeeded in A (late 19) Company

by Winters. Major Broome left C Company to command another battalion.

There were a number of minor promotions, due to these changes and

to casualties; and Henriquez, of A Company, having become battalion

reconnaissance officer, his vacant post as company R.O. was offered to

me. The work had always appealed to me, and I was the more pleased with

the opportunity at the time because I believed then that most of my old

friends in C Company were leaving the battalion for more exalted posts

elsewhere.

Few incidents worth recording marked our stay at Meaulte. Heavy snow

fell, which added, in my opinion, to the general discomfort, and the

road up to the camp remained for weeks a corrugated and painful slope

of ice, down which one slid helplessly into the village. Fuel, in more

senses than one, was always a burning question, and next in importance

came that of leave, now six or seven months overdue. A driving school,

supplied with the few fit tanks the three battalions could muster,

was started at Bécordel, on the old front line near Mametz. Drafts of

officers and men came from the depot to replace casualties. And in

January began the reshuffling of units necessitated by the formation

of two new brigades. Of the old 1st Brigade the 7th Battalion only was

left. The 4th and 5th (late D and E) went to join the 1st Battalion

in the new 4th Brigade, under General Hankey, as he was now, and in

their place we received, with hot rum-punch and such other amenities

as the arctic conditions indicated, two fledglings from England--the

11th and 12th (K and L) Battalions. The former suffered from a surfeit

of Rifle Brigade officers, was rent always in consequence by internal

dissensions, and, thus handicapped, struggled rather obscurely through

its short active career. The 12th Battalion, to which I was posted

shortly before the Armistice, was more normal and human; and, after a

series of successful actions, wound up in a blaze of glory as the only

one of the five surviving tank units selected to represent the corps in

Cologne itself.

In February, amid half-incredulous rejoicings, the first leave

allotments reached the 7th Battalion. I came to England in the middle

of the month, returning in the first days of March to find our huts

stripped and deserted, a rear party packing up a residue of stores and

kit, and the main body of the battalion, with all the tanks, already

departed northward for the 1st Army area. I followed by lorry the same

afternoon. This was the last I saw of Meaulte, which then was full of

inhabitants and little injured by war. A month later it was in ruins

and occupied by the Germans.

II.

It was known by now that a German offensive on a large scale was

imminent, and might be directed at any one point, or at several

simultaneously, on the long front from Béthune to the Aisne. The move

northward of the 1st Tank Brigade was part of a defensive scheme for

the protection of the Bruay coal-fields, should the enemy make a direct

attack upon them from the Lens-La Bassée sector. The front allotted

to the Brigade extended from the La Bassée Canal to the Scarpe, and

was divided into three parts--one to each battalion. These battalion

fronts overlapped, while each unit was supposed to have some knowledge

of the whole brigade area. The 12th Battalion was responsible for that

part lying between the La Bassée Canal and Loos, the 7th Battalion for

that between Vermelles and Vimy, the 11th for the remainder of the

sector to a point south of Arras, where the 2nd Tank Brigade carried

on the defensive line. It was assumed from the first that if tanks

were employed at all it would be in a counter-attack, the probable

directions of the enemy’s offensive being (1) against the Hill 70

sector, (2) a frontal attack against the Vimy Ridge, and (3) a flanking

movement from the south. He occupied already so large a part of the

coal district that the repulse of any further attempt was essential;

and in the event of his capturing some vital point in the defence line

(such as Hill 70 itself), the tanks would be employed at once to assist

in driving him out. This being the general idea, little or no time was

to be spent at first in collecting information about the ground beyond

our front line. Reconnaissance was confined to the region between the

tank-parks and the main zone of resistance, known as the Black Line.

By the middle of the month this reconnaissance was in full swing.

Taken as a whole, the country was not bad for tank operations; but the

wide belt of shelled ground and crumbling trenches which marked the

old front line before Lens, the numerous large mining villages which

radiated out from that town, and the Vimy Ridge itself, so convulsed by

high explosive that only three possible tank crossings could be found,

presented difficult and dissimilar problems. A tank counter-attack in

this unique region must have been extremely interesting.

Had such an attack taken place, almost the whole battlefield would

have been spread like a map below our camp. I do not think there can

have been in France any point of view quite so remarkable, in the

circumstances, as the everyday outlook from the 7th Battalion’s huts

above Bouvigny-Boyeffles. This camp--it was a single row of Nissens,

occupied only by the officers--was situated halfway up the bold

ridge which ends to the southward in the famous spur of Notre Dame

de Lorette, overhanging the rubbish-heap that used to be Souchez. In

front of us there was nothing but the immense flat plain of Lens and

Douai. On a clear day we had only to step out of our huts and look over

a hedge garnished with a screen of camouflage netting; and before us,

across a stubble-field and the roofs of Boyeffles village, there rolled

away to north and east and south-east the fruitless battlefields of

three and a half years--Vimy and Liévin, Loos and Hulluch, La Bassée

and Neuve Chapelle. And, for a background, this astonishing panorama

took in Mont Rouge and Mont Noir and Kemmel Hill, thirty miles distant,

near Ypres, the low ridge that covered Lille from view, the towns of

Bailleul, Armentières, and Béthune, the score of wretched suburbs

about Lens, with more rising ground ten miles behind, the numberless

_crassiers_ and towers of the coal-fields, the smoke of trains on the

Lille-Douai railway, the huge bulk of Drocourt Fosse behind which

Douai itself was hidden. With my glasses, on many fine evenings before

sunset, while standing at the back of my own hut, I have distinguished

the church and the individual houses of Mons-en-Pevèle, a little

village on a hill twenty-three miles from where I stood, and at least

fifteen beyond the nearest point of the German lines. Nearer at hand

in this crowded scene were other familiar landmarks--the churches

of Harnes and Carvin, behind Lens, the fallen “Tower Bridge” of

Loos, the white water towers of Fosse 21 and 22, the huge red-brick

building with its three steel spires which had been the works of the

Metallurgique Company. And everywhere, far and near, rose the black

_crassiers_--the slag-heaps--of the coal-mines. Some of these were

long and dwarfish, as you may see them in Lancashire, but those which

took the eye were pyramidal, like colossal sable sugar-cones. Beside

them were the skeletons of iron buildings, each with its tower and

wheels. The foreground of all this was a jumble of white and red--white

where patches of incongruous chalk were turned up along the miles of

trenches, old and new, from Liévin to Loos, and red with a million

shattered houses in the miners’ _cités_ which clustered about Lens--St

Pierre, St Auguste and St Laurent, Calonne and Maroc, Angres and Avion.

Lens itself, lying on low ground by the Souchez river, was hidden from

our camp.

The men of the 7th Battalion were billeted in Bouvigny village, close

to the officers’ huts. Battalion H.Q. took over the principal house in

Boyeffles, a few hundred yards away at the foot of the ridge. The tanks

were elaborately concealed on the very summit, amid the trees of the

Bois de Bouvigny, a straggling wood which ran along the crest almost to

the site of the demolished chapel of Notre Dame de Lorette, where the

French line had run in the early days of the war, and where one still

came across skeletons and rusted rifles three years old. North of us,

in the Bois d’Olhain, were the 1st Brigade headquarters and the 12th

Battalion, both in huts. The 11th Battalion was at Mont St Eloi, on our

right. The troops holding this front were the Canadian Corps. During

the past year they had captured Hill 70, Liévin, and a number of other

suburbs of Lens, and their front line now ran through the outskirts of

that dreadful town, reeking of poison gas and corruption. It was held

only by German outposts, in many places occupying the half of a ruined

house of which the other moiety was held by the Canadians; but it could

not be taken permanently until Sallaumines, a suburb on a hillock

immediately behind, was in our hands. The Canadians, always energetic,

and especially anxious to round off their work by the capture of Lens,

were full of schemes by which Sallaumines was to be carried with

the help of tanks, but none of these materialised. While the German

offensives burst upon us and drove past us to north and south, the Lens

sector was privileged to remain the quietest part of the whole British

front.

My new work as Reconnaissance Officer made me only too familiar with

this region. For two months I did nothing but explore it. To begin

with, I took part in a preliminary survey with Henriquez, Beale

of B Company, and Jack Brown of C. (Gordon had left us to start a

Reconnaissance School at Le Tréport.) This business presupposed

ability to ride a motor-bicycle--all R.O.’s being provided with these

abominable machines. I learnt eventually to ride mine with a certain

amount of confidence and spirit; but to the end I knew nothing about

its internal mechanism, and did not want to. I was so fortunate as

to possess a draughtsman who understood petrol-engines, and I left

the upkeep of my bicycle in his capable hands. Having with its help

acquired a general knowledge of our area and of the routes we decided

to follow if called upon to move, I proceeded to initiate the officers,

N.C.O.’s, and drivers of A Company into these mysteries. In this work

I had the aid, and, what was better, the congenial companionship, of

Maelor Jones, who was the assistant R.O. of the company. Day after day

he and I tramped about the melancholy region behind our line, exploring

roads, examining bridges, selecting lying-up points, repeating every

journey half a dozen times with our parties of learners, like a pair

of Cook’s couriers. “On your left you now see Fosse 16, _dit de

Lens_; beyond is Fosse 7, _de Béthune_. That handsome edifice far in

front--it is not advisable to try to reach it--is the Metallurgique

factory at Wingles....” I have never been so heartily wearied of any

piece of country as I became of the Lens coal-fields. I came to know

by name and to loathe at sight every pithead, every road, every clump

of derelict red-brick houses. And yet, with all this repetition and

monotony, the work and the place had unusual points of interest. It is

the worst of a book on any set subject, that the writer cannot be as

irrelevant as he would wish, for I should like to write now at some

length about those two months. I should like to write of Bully-Grenay,

where one could buy almost anything, and where children played about

in streets that stank of poison gas; of Les Alouettes, where a woman

(apparently the sole remaining inhabitant) took in washing and kept a

chicken-run amid a battery of 8-inch howitzers; of the family of Aix

Noulette, in whose house (rebuilt largely of biscuit-tins and brown

paper) I ate so many omelettes; and of that exposed portion of the

Souchez road where Jack Brown and I were sniped by a 5.9 at a moment

when my wretched bicycle refused to climb a gentle slope on anything

higher than bottom speed. But as these various adventures led to

nothing in the end, space does not permit of any further discursions.

The tanks, for whom all tribulations were undergone, were never called

upon in this sector, although, before we had finished, we had extended

our reconnaissance southward until we knew Souchez and the whole Vimy

Ridge, with its craters and its tunnels, as well as we knew Piccadilly

or Hyde Park--in the case of some of us, a good deal better.

In the meantime, startling events were happening elsewhere, and from

our sort of peninsula we watched with increasing bewilderment and

anxiety the great tide of the German offensives sweeping past on both

flanks. On the morning of March 21, every one heard the roar of a

heavy bombardment. It was known next day that the enemy was making

rapid progress south of the Somme. For nearly a week the news became

daily more disheartening. The four other Tank Brigades involved in the

general debacle had lost nearly all their tanks, and were fighting as

machine-gun units. And then, on the 29th, the Germans launched their

expected attack against the Vimy Ridge and the northern part of the 3rd

Army front. It was a costly failure--so costly north of the Scarpe that

no further attempt was made against the ridge. But while the result

was in doubt, detachments of the 7th and 12th Tank Battalions were

hurried down to Roclincourt, in front of Arras, with Lewis guns, and

took up a defensive position there. This party was known to us as the

Oppy Expeditionary Force. Full of warlike zeal, but ignorant of the

situation and even of its own whereabouts--for it arrived in the middle

of the night, and was pushed immediately into holes and corners along

the Roclincourt Ridge--it passed several anxious hours of darkness

in the mistaken belief that a bloodthirsty and victorious enemy was

close at hand. As a matter of fact, he was still four miles away, and

never approached any nearer. The strain was broken with the dawn, amid

shouts of laughter, by the appearance of a Decauville railway train

which puffed deliberately across the front which the Lewis gunners were

holding so tenaciously. The attack having definitely collapsed, the

detachment returned on the 29th.

Throughout this exciting week, filled with appalling rumours, our

reconnaissance continued more busily than ever. The activities of

the 7th Battalion were now concentrated on the Vimy Ridge, which we

explored from end to end. The 11th Battalion, some of whose tanks were

now in Roclincourt, was extending its own reconnaissance far to the

south of Arras. As the 3rd Army, conforming to the retreat of the 5th,

withdrew its right and centre, there seemed an increased likelihood

that the enemy would attempt the third alternative mentioned earlier in

this chapter--a flanking attack through Arras against the rear of the

Vimy Ridge. His reoccupation of Monchy-le-Preux and Orange Hill, in

consequence of our withdrawal, enabled him once more to overlook the

reverse slope of the ridge. Arras was shelled daily, and nearly all its

inhabitants were removed; and villages far behind suffered from the

German artillery. On account of this threat, and of the crippled state

of the 2nd and 3rd Tank Brigades with General Byng, the 12th Battalion

was transferred early in April from Olhain Wood to Simencourt, north

of the Arras-Doullens road. The tanks trekked the whole way, by roads

and across country--a distance of nearly twenty miles. Concentration at

Simencourt was completed by the 10th April. The 11th Battalion, with

its Headquarters and some tanks still at Mont St Eloi, was now in the

centre of our increased brigade frontage. The 7th Battalion, having

become the most northerly tank unit, would be the first involved in

any developments in the La Bassée area; and such developments, of a

startling character, were at hand.

During the reconnaissance of the Vimy Ridge one had been able to

follow to some extent the progress of the German advance north of the

Somme. From points about the southern end of the ridge, near where the

road from Arras to Lens passes the crest and drops abruptly toward

Vimy village, I watched through my glasses on successive mornings the

dappled clouds of smoke pushing westward like the trail of some great

conflagration. Viewed thus from a flank, the new salient appeared even

more pronounced and ominous than it was in reality, especially as the

Germans were shelling busily many places far in our rear. And when one

climbed to the summit of the ridge and looked eastward over the wide

flat plain south of Lens, everything was normal; a few brown puffs of

dust where our occasional shells were bursting, the distant smoke of

German trains, the black company of slag-heaps, and, far away but often

very clear, the three spires of Douai. It was a singular contrast, and

one felt like a privileged spectator watching, from a high gallery,

the two halves of some gigantic tableau representing the extremes of

modern war. But, as it happened, the tableau was incomplete. There was

a third scene about to open, and one which our unrivalled situation at

Bouvigny allowed us to witness without stirring from our camp, until we

were drawn into the fringe of it ourselves.

III.

In the first days of April we were busy with what was known in the

Tank Corps, from a remark by General Elles, as the “Savage Rabbit”

scheme. The military outlook was gloomy, and the communications

from those in authority were unusually pessimistic; and among other

omens was a secret précis of instructions to be followed in various

possible emergencies, including a prolonged retreat, and even a rout.

The “Savage Rabbit” act was an application of tank warfare to such

unpleasant circumstances. Tanks, instead of being held in hand for

counter-attacks or concerted rearguard actions, were to be scattered in

a long line and hidden--remaining hidden, in the event of a disaster,

until our infantry had retreated through them and the enemy was

close at hand, when the machines would appear from their holes, like

“savage rabbits,” and sacrifice themselves to hold up the pursuit.

This was a nice encouraging proposition; it was also a very faulty

and wasteful method of using tanks, and could only be done once. I do

not know who was responsible for it. Very fortunately there never was

any need to carry it into practice, although the 12th Battalion and

others actually took up their positions of concealment. In our case,

it meant stringing our tanks out along the base of the Lorette Ridge,

from Bouvigny to Souchez. Especial attention was to be paid to the

latter place. A feature of the new tactics employed so successfully by

the Germans in their offensive was the skilful use of valleys, or any

sort of low ground, for the purpose of infiltration. It was thought

now that if they advanced from the direction of Loos and Hill 70 (the

first alternative previously mentioned), and succeeded in reaching the

foot of the Lorette and Vimy Ridges, they would endeavour to turn both

these obstacles by penetrating between them up the Souchez Valley.

Souchez, where the French suffered so terribly in 1915, blocks the

quite narrow gap that separates the Lorette spur from the northern and

highest end of the Vimy Ridge; and through it ran several vital roads

to Ablain St Nazaire, Carency, and Arras. Two sections of A Company

(6 tanks) were therefore detailed to hold it at all costs. The tanks

were to be hidden close to the roads, so that, in the event of the

place being lost, they could swing across them and be blown up to form

obstructions. For several days I was exploring the country behind

the Lorette Ridge for routes by which the tanks could be taken into

Souchez. Hiding-places were selected about the village (which had been

destroyed with quite exceptional completeness), and also others for the

remaining two sections along the road from Souchez to Aix Noulette, on

the eastern face of the ridge. But on the day when these preparations

were finished, and nothing remained but to move the tanks to their

posts of sacrifice, another scene of our local tableau opened with a

shattering crash; and our eyes and thoughts were diverted instantly in

the opposite direction.

The 12th Battalion, as we have seen, moved south from the Bois d’Olhain

about this time. Its last company trekked on the 8th April, and the

following day came the new German blow along the Lys. The attack was

expected, and seems to have been launched in moderate force, and with

no very ambitious designs; but that fatality (or fatuity) which on

several occasions during this period marked our dispositions, had

dictated that a Portuguese division should still be holding our line in

front of Estaires. The Portuguese infantry, utterly worthless troops,

fled at once, casting away their arms--except a few who retained

theirs long enough to shoot down some of our own people who tried

to stop them. The artillery, on the other hand, behaved better, in

some cases keeping their guns in action to the last. The Germans, in

the meantime, found in front of them a wide gap, and pushed through

it. One battalion penetrated--most of the way in column of route--for

three or four miles without firing a shot, when its commanding officer,

suspicious of this extraordinary luck, went on ahead to reconnoitre

and was captured by the 51st Division, which was hurrying up from

support. It was said that we had been so rash as to rely on the

Portuguese holding out for an hour; but they did not hold out for five

minutes. And from this period also dates the rumour that the famous

Army Order about our “gallant allies” had been formally cancelled.

In any case the mistake was made, and brought on its heels a most

disastrous retribution. In ten hours Von Quast’s 6th Army had punched

a hole 12 miles wide and 5 deep in our defences; and in front of him

consternation and chaos were rolling onward like a flood.

From our huts on the slope above Bouvigny this new battlefield lay

visible in its entirety. It was twelve miles away, but from our

elevated site it was easy with good binoculars to follow the course

of the advance. The country north of the La Bassée Canal is utterly

flat, drained by innumerable small streams and ditches, and covered

with orchards and villages, then full of prosperous people and hardly

touched by war. It had been a quiet front since Neuve Chapelle. Even

Armentières, two miles behind the line, was an inhabited town, with

shops and cafés open, until the Germans began to shell it in earnest

shortly before 21st March. And now, evening after evening, we used

to gather with our maps and field-glasses behind our row of huts and

watch the great wedge of burning villages pushing farther and farther

westward behind Béthune. Those evenings were exceptionally clear, so

that far across the smoking plain the church tower of Bailleul was

visible against the grey background of Mont Rouge. Bailleul was a

charming little town, with a wonderful red-brick belfry to its Hotel

de Ville, and one of the best officers’ clubs in France. Within a

fortnight it was in ruins.

Certain dates I cannot remember, and I have no diary or other aid

to memory, but it must have been on the 11th or 12th that an urgent

message came through demanding Lewis-gun detachments. All the gunners

in the battalion, with a proportion of officers and 70 Lewis guns,

the whole under Major Norton, the second in command, with whom was

Winters of A Company, left that same evening by lorry. By dawn next

day they were in the line at Robecq, in front of St Venant. There

were rumours that the rest of us, with the tanks, would be moving

somewhere by train. On the evening of the 13th or 14th, those of us

who were left in A Company held a sort of guest night, interrupted

by a bombing raid--the last guest night I attended until the war was

over; and the following morning we received orders to trek after dark

to Hersin station, to entrain for the north. The tanks at this time

were in Noulette Wood, at the foot of the ridge, having moved down from

the Bois de Bouvigny on the crest in order to take part in various

training schemes with the Canadians. All that afternoon Jack Brown and

I were marking out with small metal flags, painted white, a route from

Noulette Wood to Hersin. It was after six when we returned to camp, and

already growing dark. I was met by the news that only B and C Companies

were entraining--the former for Lillers and the latter for Aire. I had

got to lead A Company by road to a wood near Vaudricourt, south of

Béthune. A route was indicated roughly on the map, but none of us knew

the country. We were, of course, very short-handed, having about half a

dozen subalterns and our three drivers per tank; and all the tanks had

their sponsons unbolted and pushed in, preparatory to entraining. The

Major being away at Robecq with the Lewis-gun detachment, the conduct

of affairs fell to Moore, the second in command of the company, Rudd,

the only remaining section commander, and myself.

I packed a few things in a haversack, ate a cold supper, filled a

flask, and reached Noulette Wood in a box-car about nine o’clock. I

knew there was no immediate hurry, as the depleted tank crews had to

pull out and bolt all the sponsons again. As a matter of fact, it was

after ten when we moved off. The night was clouded and pitchy dark, as

it usually is on these occasions, and our supply of electric torches

was miserably small. The distance to be covered--about nine miles--was

not excessive; but I knew the difficulties that attend a company of

twelve tanks moving along an unknown route on a black night, and I

was prepared for a very tedious journey. And in fact no other trek

that I can remember, except our mule fight on the St Julien road, left

me so thoroughly exhausted and foot-weary. We made only one mistake,

missing in the darkness a short-cut out of Sains-en-Gohelle, which cost

us half a mile; but until dawn we could see practically nothing, all

the electric torches gave out, and the leading tanks, as necessarily

happens in a column of a dozen, had to be halted continually to let

the rear ones close up. What with scouting ahead in inky blackness for

cross-roads and turnings, imperfectly studied on the map by the light

of a match or an expiring torch, and trotting up and down the column to

give warning of misleading features or to find out the reason for some

delay, I must have covered nearly double our nine miles that night; and

as I had been all the day on my feet, the latter may be excused for

giving unequivocal signs of wear. We did not, however, cover our full

distance. Dawn broke while we had still some way to go, and at eight

o’clock, when we came to an excellent sunken road near Houchin, a mile

short of Vaudricourt, we decided to call a halt. The country was open,

and we were getting rather too near the line by Béthune to make it

advisable to move tanks about in daylight. We camouflaged the machines

in the sunken road, took off our boots, and had some breakfast.

Our ultimate destination we knew to be Fouquières, a village on the

outskirts of Béthune, and it seemed the obvious thing now to make

one bite of the remaining cherry that evening, and pass Vaudricourt

without stopping there. It had been given us only as an approximate

halting-place. After breakfast, therefore, Rudd and I walked--or

staggered, to be correct--on to Fouquières, to find a lying-up point

for the tanks, and if possible billets for ourselves. There were a

number of small woods and plantations about the village, but all were

occupied in force by transport and ammunition trains of the 1st Corps,

which held this part of the line. Billets seemed unobtainable, for the

whole neighbourhood was crowded with troops. We found a fair piece

of cover for the tanks under the trees of a road which led down to a

tributary of the Lawe river, and then we searched the village for food,

coming to rest eventually in a cottage where they gave us omelettes and

cheap champagne. We subsisted very largely upon this diet for the next

three or four days.

The tanks moved on to Fouquières that evening, except one which broke

down in the main street of Douvrin and remained there for some time,

to the endless joy of the inhabitants, who had never seen these

machines before. At the foot of the road where the others parked up

was a large white house belonging to the _Maire_ of Fouquières. It was

full of officers, including the headquarters of a company of the 11th

Tank Battalion which was in the line at Givenchy with Lewis guns. We

managed to find floorspace here for the night in a sort of hall on the

top floor, into which opened innumerable doors. These were opening

and shutting all night, as the occupants of the rooms into which they

led came and went (and trod heavily upon us in transit) on mysterious

errands of their own. However, we slept, after a fashion, and, as it

fell out, we remained in this house for a fortnight.

The Major turned up next day with our gunners from Robecq. Thrust into

an attenuated and almost solvent line, whose elements included every

sort of man who could hold a rifle, with little artillery, no trenches,

and the vaguest idea of the general situation, the detachment had

passed a very unpleasant three days and nights, and had suffered a good

many casualties, mostly in B and C Companies, who lost three or four

officers killed or missing. The three companies were now concentrated

again, but strung out on a very wide front, with C far away at Aire,

B at Lillers, and ourselves at Béthune. Battalion headquarters, being

very comfortable at Boyeffles, remained there, far from us all. The

reason of our sudden move to these three towns was the celebrated

“Delta” scheme, as, for purposes of concealment, it was called. I would

not inflict upon any reader the details of this exasperating project,

for they were never the same for two days together, and it came to

nothing in the end. The general idea (if the words can be applied

to so amorphous a conception) was to ease the communications of the

troops in the Givenchy sector and relieve the pressure on Béthune, from

which the Germans were distant only a few kilometres to the north and

north-west. In the very beginning we got as far as Y-day: everything

was ready: we had reconnoitred hurriedly that strange, almost untouched

country beyond the La Bassée Canal, where a few stray cattle still

wandered in orchards thick with blossom, where the empty houses still

showed the litter and confusion of their owners’ sudden flight, and

where no one knew where the front line lay: tank routes were worked

out, bridges examined, and conferences held with corps and divisional

pundits who seemed to know nothing about anything; and then the whole

thing was cancelled (perhaps very wisely), and, in all its subsequent

fluctuations, was never so advanced again. For another month we

wrestled with its kaleidoscopic changes. The proportion of tanks to be

employed rose from one battalion to the whole brigade, and frontages

and objectives were shuffled like counters. After a while we felt that

the whole thing had become a sort of confused and academic dream, and

we ceased to take any interest in it.

This period in many respects was very novel and interesting. It was

our first experience of what, in fact, was a phase of open warfare,

with all its alarms and hopes and general uncertainty. The Germans

were busy farther north, about Kemmel and Bailleul, but at any moment

some new blow might be struck at Béthune. A few days after we reached

Fouquières, indeed, an attempt was made to cross the canal on rafts

opposite Hinges, and was repulsed. Béthune by now, of course, was a

dead town, its shops closed, its inhabitants fled, its houses crumbling

daily under shell-fire. At Choques, the big railhead just behind, two

tanks of the 12th Battalion, with three of the new Whippets, had been

posted to hold the roads against a raid by armoured cars. Hinges, north

of Béthune, on the only hill in that level country, in whose pleasant

château the 11th Corps headquarters had rested somnolently for upwards

of two years, was a mere collection of empty ruins on our front line

by the canal. The corps had fled hurriedly to Roquetoire, behind Aire.

Our own post, Fouquières, was left more or less at peace for a while.

Only a few high-velocity shells fell about it at intervals. It swarmed

with people, for scores of refugees from the lost area were still

living with the inhabitants. And presently its turn came also. As the

shelling grew more persistent, its people were evacuated; and these

unfortunates, with their box-mattresses and other cherished goods piled

on waggons or hand-carts, went to swell the great flood of fugitives

that streamed westward.

Everything we wished to learn about this country we had to find out

for ourselves. The maps were bad, and no one knew anything. I remember

trying to obtain some information and some better maps from the 1st

Corps Intelligence Officer. He could give me neither. He admitted

quite frankly that while he had masses of data concerning the country

between our old line and the German frontier, of the Béthune district,

at his very door (the Corps headquarters had been at Hesdigneul, a mile

and a half from Béthune itself for many months), he knew nothing at

all. Another curious sidelight upon army methods, at least during this

confused period, was thrown by some inquiry I made about the “Delta”

scheme at the 1st Division headquarters at Gosnay. We were attached

to the 1st Division for operations, and for a fortnight past had been

drawing rations from it, yet the G.S.O. 1, whom I interviewed, did

not even know that there were any tanks in the neighbourhood...! I

have noticed so often in France that while brigade staffs, who lived

near the line, in considerable danger and in touch with the fighting,

always seemed to have their wits about them, the staffs of divisions

and corps, long accustomed (at a distance) to trench warfare, became

atrophied and absorbed in mere details of routine. It used to be said

that prolonged trench duties would render infantry unfit for the sudden

emergencies of attack or open warfare; but I think in many cases it was

the higher formations who were in danger of succumbing to the spell.

A feature of this time which impressed me very strongly was the

magnificent behaviour of the French population. To many Englishmen the

French are still incomprehensible, vain, greedy, untidy (that fatal

sin!), and altogether rather absurd. We are, of course, ourselves very

like our spiritual kinsfolk the Germans in some ways, and especially

in our inability to understand, or wish to understand, any Latin

race. A common complaint in France was the extortionate prices put

on everything for our benefit. Apart from the fact that this largely

was our own fault, it is true that the French, for centuries a very

poor people, have learnt habits of thrift that sometimes merit an

uglier name; but we should have stopped, before crying out about it,

to ask what our own behaviour would have been toward a French army

settled in England for upwards of four years. Can any one imagine

our shopkeepers carrying gratitude so far, after the first altruistic

burst of thankfulness, as to restrict their profits or even limit

them to reasonable bounds? I cannot picture this myself. And, on the

other hand, can any one imagine our people working as diligently

and suffering as patiently as the French peasantry in the war zone?

Again I, for one, cannot. And these peasants, or shopkeepers, in the

country districts were almost all women. There were young boys with

them, and a few old men; but men between eighteen and fifty years

of age you never saw at all. There were none of those sturdy and

indispensable farm hands who were exempted in droves in the English

counties. And when some great disaster came, such as this German

advance of which I am writing, you saw these homeless and ruined folk

at their very best--patient, courageous, and courteous even in their

despair. While in England prosperous tradesmen were selling goods at

100 per cent profit, saying only in extenuation, “It is the war,” the

same phrase was being uttered in an infinitely finer spirit by the

refugees of France, long broken to such tragedies. You met some woman

leaving her home, pushing before her a hand-barrow loaded with her

poor possessions; and if you commiserated, there came the inevitable

answer, accepting an inevitable occurrence with a resignation that was

far removed from apathy--“C’est la guerre, monsieur....” I remember

a little incident of this time which illustrates, more clearly than

pages of generalities, the spirit that one found in these people. When

Fouquières was shelled and the inhabitants removed, our own quarters

in the _Maire’s_ house became so unpleasant that we departed also,

tanks and all, to Hesdigneul. A day or two later I rode over to the

house to settle some business of a billeting certificate. It had been

raining heavily, and the road where our tanks had been lying, churned

up by their tracks, was deep in mud. As I was coming away, the mud

clogged my rear wheel, between the tyre and the mud-guard, stopping

the bicycle just as I passed a little party of women and children who

were escaping from the _Maire’s_ farm with a few household treasures

on their backs. (The _Maire_ himself, by the way, unlike most of his

admirable class, had abandoned his flock long before.) Of the women in

this party one was very old, and all were tired, heavily laden, and

in tears. But as soon as they saw me poking about under the mud-guard

with a stick they dropped their bundles, seized each a piece of wood,

and ran up to help. Even the old woman was brandishing a twig and

instructing the rest with a torrent of words. Before the little job

was finished, the tears were forgotten and we were all chattering

and laughing; and when I thanked them and rode away, they were still

smiling and crying out as they shouldered their pathetic bundles, as if

there were no such things as war and ruined homes.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE (_continued_).

ANNEQUIN: AND THE TANK CORPS IN RETREAT.

I.

Having left Fouquières for Hesdigneul, where our tanks were parked up

against the wall of the churchyard, A Company headquarters now occupied

part of an immense farm--a great quadrangle of barns, stables, and

living-rooms, with an attractive garden and one of the most magnificent

kitchens I have ever seen. Two old ladies, with their niece (who had

been educated in England), managed the establishment, the men of

the family being as a matter of course in the Army. One of them, in

fact, had been killed. They were cousins of the people who owned our

battalion headquarters at Boyeffles; and the niece was provoked to

one of her rare speeches when some one, in the usual English manner,

referred to her relatives’ house as a “château.” “Ce n’est pas un

château!” she said indignantly. “C’est une maison seulement ...!”

Before we came these kind people had suffered the infliction of an

R.A.F. mess, whose members as usual got drunk every night and broke the

furniture; and it took us some days to persuade them that there were

Englishmen who knew how to behave. After that we were very good friends.

During our stay here, which lasted for about three weeks, a variety

of nebulous schemes ran through their brief careers. One, due to a

sudden panic, involved the defence of Béthune against some expected

onslaught. The tanks were to take up positions on the canal quay,

guarding the precious bridges. Our enthusiasm for this was a little

damped by the discovery one day that our proposed lying-up point, a

parade-ground on the outskirts of the town, had been uprooted by a

deluge of 8-inch shells. Behind these projects, like some tiresome

genie, there hung always the egregious “Delta” operation, in one or

another of its endless shapes. And then, of all things, came a fresh

scare about the distant sector south of Arras, more than twenty miles

away; and I spent three days with Henriquez, Beale, and Jack Brown

on motor-bicycles or in a box-car, hunting for tank routes between

our old Bouvigny area and such remote places as Bailleulmont and Pas,

beyond the Arras-Doullens road. On one of these happy jaunts Henriquez

led us inadvertently in the Ford car to within a few hundred yards of

Hébuterne, where the front line then ran. The road was pitted with

large shell-holes, but I have never seen any one perform such miracles

with a Ford, or any other car, as did our driver when he discovered

our mistake. We rushed into Monchy-au-Bois at about thirty miles an

hour, and having climbed out there to adjust our dislocated limbs,

were welcomed by a sudden deluge of high-velocity shells. There were a

number of French troops in this neighbourhood, and also the remains of

the 2nd Tank Brigade, whose few surviving machines were still scattered

thinly behind the left of the 3rd Army, in accordance with the “Savage

Rabbit” policy. Practically speaking, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th

Brigades were now organised as Lewis-gun units, with a small backing

of Whippets and worn-out Mark IV.’s, for 200 of the latter had been

lost in the retreat. It was because the 1st Brigade, alone unaffected

by the disaster, and mustering nearly 100 tanks, was the only striking

force left to the Tanks Corps, that our reconnaissances covered at this

period an area extending from La Bassée to Auchonvillers, near the

Ancre. We might be needed anywhere at any moment.

The first phase of the German offensive, however, had come virtually

to an end. The battle of movement below Arras was solidifying, as it

were, in front of Amiens. The third phase, about to open upon the

_Chemin des Dames_, would affect the mass of the British forces only

indirectly. But the second phase, begun on the Lys as a distraction

and since exploited with vigour, was not (to our knowledge) definitely

finished. It had extended northward to the Salient, where we had lost

all the ground won at such a terrible cost in the previous autumn;

the Germans were on Kemmel Hill, in the ruins of Bailleul, and along

the outskirts of the great wood of Nieppe; and now developments were

expected immediately south of the La Bassée Canal. At this time--about

the middle of May--when the 7th Tank Battalion had been for five

weeks extended from Aire to Béthune, the 12th Battalion was still in

the neighbourhood of Simencourt, and the 11th, so far as I remember,

in its old quarters at Roclincourt and Mont St Eloi. ‘Weekly Tank

Notes,’ which erroneously places the 7th at Molinghem, makes out the

11th to have been between Busnes and Robecq, but I think only the

Reconnaissance Officers, working on the “Delta” scheme, came up to this

area.

The final stage of the Amiens battle had brought German tanks into

the field for the first time. There were only three of them, but they

did so much damage before they were driven off that a thorough tank

scare ran through the Army, and imaginary machines were detected in

scores at every point of danger. It was now believed that the Germans

intended to use them in an attack along the La Bassée road with the

idea of reaching Béthune by turning the obstinate point of Givenchy

from the south. An increased shelling of our back areas seemed to

indicate that something was in the air; and the 7th Battalion, already

in the neighbourhood, was ordered suddenly to concentrate farther east,

between Cambrin and Vermelles, in readiness to repel any attempt.

The day before these orders reached A Company at Hesdigneul, the

German artillery provided us with a new sensation. The village had not

been shelled since our arrival; but it housed, in its enormous château,

the 1st Corps Headquarters, and this, I think, must have been the

attraction for the appropriately colossal gun which suddenly disturbed

our rustic peace. We were having tea in the farm when the whole place

was shaken by a shattering crash from outside. No one paid much

attention at first, as it sounded like the detonation of one of our own

heavy guns, of which there were two or three on railway mountings in

the neighbourhood; but the excitement in the village soon brought us

out to see what had happened. It was then apparent that we were being

shelled, and by something of uncommon size. A great pall of black smoke

was drifting away from a field close at hand, where an observation

balloon had its quarters, and I found immediately afterwards a steel

splinter, some eight inches long, in our courtyard. Several more

of these alarming explosions followed during that evening, and the

discovery of the complete base of a shell proved the offending weapon

to be of 17-inch calibre--the heaviest long-range gun then in use by

any army.

The following morning there came the orders for our move. We were to

proceed that night to Sailly-Labourse, on the Béthune-Lens road, near

Annequin. I hurried off on the bicycle, over the very worst cobbles I

have ever encountered, to find the 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters at

the Château des Prés, outside the village. This journey was notable for

two incidents: the roads were so atrocious that my engine shook loose,

causing the chain to fall off; and, as a consolation, I discovered

some tins of Sullivan’s cigarettes in a Church Army canteen in

Verquigneul--corn in Egypt, indeed, with a vengeance. The brigade staff

in the Château des Prés had heard nothing about any tanks, but this

was only to be expected. There was a wide dry moat round the château

garden, where the machines could be hidden during the night, and on my

way there and back I mapped out the latter half of the approach route,

which Maelor Jones was reconnoitring from the Hesdigneul end. Before

sunset the tanks were backing out from the churchyard wall, and having

seen them started I pushed off once more for the château, to meet there

some lorry loads of petrol and other stores. Rather than face again

the medieval cobbles of the more direct route, I went round by Béthune

and so through Beuvry on the Lens road. Béthune in those days was

always rather eerie, with its deserted streets and ruinous shuttered

houses and shops: it called to mind the empty town of Semur in that

charming story of Mrs. Oliphant’s, ‘A Beleaguered City’; and there were

times--during a bombardment, for example--when it was worse than eerie.

It was being bombarded spasmodically that evening, and I did not linger

to sentimentalise. At the Château des Prés I found that the brigade had

at length been formally notified of our coming. This château, until

the month before, had been one of the most eligible headquarters, for

its advanced position, in all France. It was never shelled, it had all

its furniture, and even all its window glass. But now this Utopian

age was no more; the grounds were pitted with shell-holes, the trees

were lopped and splintered, and all the windows were broken. The

cellars had been sand-bagged, and every other preparation made for an

enforced reversion to underground life. And that evening I received an

unpleasant reminder of these altered circumstances, for as I walked

down the terrace steps about eight o’clock on my way to meet the tanks,

a shell came whistling over the roof and burst half a dozen yards

in front of me on the gravel path. Very fortunately for me it burst

forward and away from me, scoring a sort of fan of smoking grooves in

the grass border. It was, in fact, an incendiary shell, presumably

intended for the village, for a second burst some distance away, and

the third fell among the houses. As I ran for shelter out of the smoke

of the first explosion, heads appeared at the château windows, and a

voice inquired inevitably, “Where did that one go to?”

This interruption was short-lived; and after a precautionary wait

I walked off through Sailly-Labourse to find the tanks. They were

fairly well up to time, but to get the twelve of them into the château

moat was a tedious process. The moat was lined thickly with trees

and bushes, which gave admirable cover in the daytime, but added to

the difficulties of introducing tanks on a dark night. No lights, of

course, could be used. It was after one o’clock before everything was

settled satisfactorily, and Maelor Jones and I could accompany the

Major to the comparatively luxurious shelter of a cellar in the château

lodge.

After five or six hours’ sleep we were washing and shaving, with the

usual inadequate resources, when the Colonel’s car drew up outside. At

the same time there arrived, in an evil hour for himself, poor fellow,

a Reconnaissance Officer named Saul from the 12th Battalion. Having

been familiar with the Annequin area as a private in the infantry, he

had been sent to put his knowledge at our disposal. While I finished

my perfunctory toilet in the lodge, Saul and Maelor Jones strolled on

together to the garden at the back of the house, where the servants

we had brought with us were preparing some sort of breakfast. As I

followed a couple of minutes later, a shell burst in the garden, which

was full of brigade details and our own people. We all ran like hares

for cover, and I remember seeing a dozen pairs of heels flashing

upwards as their owners, including the Colonel and other dignitaries,

leaped into the moat. I was in time to slide down after them, on top of

a kettle and a primus stove, just as the second shell arrived somewhere

in the neglected flower-beds behind me. This visitation, like that of

the previous evening, was intended for Sailly-Labourse, to which it

passed on as soon as the German gunners had corrected their range; but

the initial miscalculation cost us both Maelor Jones and Saul, who were

wounded by the first shell--the former in the hand, and the latter more

seriously in the leg and arm. Poor Saul had not been in the place five

minutes. Fortunately, as a brigade headquarters, the château contained

a telephone and a doctor; and in a quarter of an hour the two victims

were in an ambulance on their way to the nearest dressing station.

Sailly-Labourse was a little over three miles from the front line. A

mile nearer to the latter, across an open stretch of untended fields,

was Annequin village and fosse, the former a straggling collection of

houses joining on to Cambrin on the La Bassée road. Annequin Fosse,

beneath which the Major and I were to live like troglodytes for the

next three weeks, resembled nothing so much as a chessboard and a

disproportionately large pawn, side by side. The chessboard was a

walled square filled with miners’ cottages in symmetrical rows, the

streets crossing at right angles. Beside it, on a flat base of slag,

was the pawn--one of those pyramidal crassiers I have spoken of,

perhaps 150 feet high. It was the nearest one of its type to our front

trenches; and from the summit where signallers, flash-spotters, and

other details lived in holes dug out of the black slag and reinforced

with iron and sandbags, one obtained an admirable bird’s-eye view, not

only over the German lines directly in front, but also right across

the rear of the new salient north of the canal. This exceptional

observation-point, so far forward, must have been invaluable to us

and a serious hindrance to the enemy. At the base of the pyramid,

practically invulnerable beneath twenty feet of ground, and another

twenty of coal refuse, were the dug-outs which housed the brigade

holding the line. The latter, for a breadth of two or three miles

opposite Annequin, had not changed since it crystallised there at

the end of 1914--the only sector of our whole front possessing

this distinction; and both Annequin and Cambrin had been inhabited

throughout, until the increased shelling before the German offensives

drove the people away. As late as the middle of March, when our

field-guns were firing (and drawing fire) from behind the wall which

enclosed the miners’ cottages, children were playing in the streets a

few yards away.

The 1st Division, then holding this sector, had the 2nd Infantry

Brigade north of the canal at Givenchy-les-La-Bassée (not to be

confused with the Givenchy south of Lens), and the 1st Brigade south

of the canal at Cambrin and Annequin. The 3rd Brigade was in support

about Sailly-Labourse. Having seen Maelor Jones and Saul despatched in

the ambulance from the Château des Prés, the Major and I walked over

to the Fosse to arrange with the 1st Brigade Staff the disposition of

our tanks, two sections of which were to move to their final points of

concealment that night. We found the brigade very sceptical about the

suspected German tanks, and quite confident of repelling any ordinary

attack. The 2nd Brigade had just dealt in an adequate fashion with a

renewed German attempt on Givenchy. It was agreed, however, that one

of our sections should be hidden among the houses of Annequin, and

the other among those of Cambrin. Two sections remained in reserve at

the Château des Prés. On our right B and C Companies, coming by train

from Lillers and Aire to the railhead near Fouquières, were to take up

positions between the Fosse and Vermelles. The Major and I were invited

to live with the Brigade Staff in the dug-out beneath the slag-heap.

That night the two sections moved quietly into their new positions. Of

the three tanks in Cambrin, one was screened elaborately with branches

in the garden of the house used as the Support Battalion headquarters,

while the other two lay up in the yard of the schoolhouse. All were in

a position to move out at a moment’s notice and block the La Bassée

road, which ran straight through the village. In Annequin, the other

three tanks were hidden behind the miners’ cottages. A little later

a third section was brought up in front of Annequin, and camouflaged

against the embankment of a railway which served the mine.

We remained here for three weeks, until the beginning of June. Our

life was very idle, not uncomfortable, and in many ways unusually

interesting. Every morning the Major and I used to walk through

Annequin to Cambrin to visit the tanks, and with that our duties

usually were finished for the day. The brigade mess, in a baby Nissen

hut, protected by layers of slag at the base of the crassier, was

an uncommonly good one, and its members were charming. In similar

huts lived some of the officers, including the Colonel commanding

an artillery brigade; the General and the rest of the Staff, with

ourselves, having our quarters underground, where the various offices

also were situated. The weather turned exceptionally fine, with a

blazing sun; and the shadeless neighbourhood of the great slag-heap,

which radiated heat like the rocks of Aden, became so intolerable at

times that we were driven below to the cramped dug-out, which was

always cool. Lack of reading matter was a serious trial, as the nearest

inhabited towns, such as Nœux-les-Mines and Barlin, were only squalid

mining centres; and as a shopping resort Bruay was little better.

The last time I rode into Bruay the Germans were shelling it, the

shops were closing down, and harassed A.P.M.’s and military police

were endeavouring to expedite the departure of some of the surplus

inhabitants.

Our chief diversions at Annequin were climbing the slag-heap (on top

of which two old 15-pounder guns had now been hoisted), visiting the

tanks and billets of B and C Companies, running over occasionally to

Hesdigneul, where we kept up a rear headquarters at the farm, and

eating and sleeping a great deal. It was so unusually hot for May

that we spent most of our time in shirt sleeves. A less attractive

feature was the rather persistent shelling to which the neighbourhood

was subjected. The expected attack never materialised; but the German

artillery had frequent bursts of zeal. A field battery, in camouflaged

pits in the open, a couple of hundred yards from the Fosse, came in for

a great deal of attention, as did another battery in Annequin village;

while the railway embankment beyond was shelled so heavily on one or

two nights that some tanks of B Company, which were hidden there,

were withdrawn. The G.S.O. 1 of the Division had a narrow escape on

this same railway one morning, a shell knocking him down and killing

his orderly. Cambrin was gassed every night, and an obnoxious German

balloon which looked straight down the La Bassée road was apt to turn

the gunners on to the village if people walked too openly about the

street. At this time the inhabitants used to come back to fetch some of

their belongings. One man had the temerity to drive up in a cart, and I

saw him afterwards careering back towards Beuvry at a gallop, pursued

by angry puffs of smoke and dust. After we had been living in the Fosse

for about ten days, the 1st Brigade was relieved by the 3rd, and on the

following morning, as I was returning with the Major from the usual

round of inspection, high-velocity shells began to fall thickly about

Annequin. We hurried in considerable disorder to the dug-out in the

Fosse, where we found every one in a state of consternation. The new

Brigadier, also on his way back from his first tour of the trenches,

had been caught in the bombardment and wounded, with one of his

staff--the latter seriously.

During all this time the unfortunate town of Béthune, which was only

three miles away and in full view from the Fosse, was being shelled

persistently. I happened to be watching it through my glasses when the

church tower, which had been hit many times, was finally demolished.

A great cloud of white dust billowed up over the houses, and when it

cleared away the familiar landmark was gone. After a while, the Germans

began to use incendiary shells, and the half-ruined town caught fire.

All day the smoke hung over it, and every night, until we left, there

was the glare of burning.

Toward the end of our stay a minor disaster, averted only by a miracle

from becoming very serious, befell B Company, always unfortunate. The

battalion was visited one afternoon by General Elles, who accompanied

our Brigadier and the Colonel round the tank positions. The day was

brilliantly fine, and the three cars which brought the cortège raised

great clouds of dust along the roads. One cannot help attributing what

followed to this rather characteristic neglect of precaution, for

the whole country, being absolutely flat, was under observation from

hostile balloons, which as usual were up. B Company’s headquarters

were established in a solitary and conspicuous house on the main

Béthune-Lens road, near Noyelles, immediately opposite the buildings

of a small pithead called Puits No. 12, where two reserve sections

of tanks were concealed. The visitors’ cars drew up at this house,

and when the inspection was over, drove off again at a great speed,

trailing behind them clouds of dust which must have been visible

for miles. One cannot have all one’s hostages to fortune returned

intact--especially when one has offered other people’s. The august

party left at 4.30; and before five o’clock Puits No. 12, deluged

suddenly with 8-inch howitzer shells, was blazing merrily. Two tanks

were hit at once, set on fire, and burnt out. The other four, by a

combination of extraordinary pluck and still more extraordinary good

fortune, were started up and driven away from the flaming buildings

and the rain of shells without injury to a single officer or man. When

the affair started I was down in that apartment of our dug-out which

the Major and I shared with the Brigade Gas Officer. Intercepting a

frenzied telephone message from B Company, I ran up on deck (as one

may call it) with my glasses, and for the next half-hour watched the

shelling and the conflagration, which was only 1000 yards away. Within

an hour the pithead buildings were mere smoking cinders, the iron

wheel-gantry had collapsed, and I could distinguish amid the glowing

wreckage the blackened shapes of the two burnt-out tanks.

The last incident worth noting of this interlude at Annequin was

connected with the third German offensive, on the Aisne, launched on

27th May. The following evening, during dinner, we were startled by a

sudden terrific racket of machine-gun and rifle fire. Running out to

see what had happened, we found a German aeroplane circling impudently

round the peak of the crassier, like some eagle round Ben Nevis, while

its pilot, paying no attention whatever to our bullets, was casting

overboard sheafs of pamphlets! These productions announced, in perfect

English, the capture of thousands of prisoners and hundreds of guns on

the Chemin des Dames, and were signed by Ludendorff. Having delivered

his load, the German waved his hand, circled away, and drove swiftly

upward across the lines and out of our sight. He was a very plucky

fellow, and deserved our bad shooting.

We were now nearing the end of these rather humiliating adventures.

The first week in June marked for us the beginning of that period of

transition from constant alarms and ever-changing schemes of defence

to the opposite tactics of attack, which were to end only with the

war. Summoned suddenly one evening to battalion headquarters, still

at Boyeffles, I was told to reconnoitre next day a route by road to

Enguinegatte, a village behind Aire, whither it appeared A Company was

to trek at once to commence training with the Canadian Corps. I spent

that night in our old quarters at Hesdigneul, where the 17-inch gun,

still spasmodically active, did its best to speed a parting guest by

dropping one of its huge shells so near that the glass of my window was

shattered and fell upon me as I lay in bed. When I left next morning,

after an imperfect rest, the two old ladies and their niece were also

packing up. The 17-inch gun, and several gas-shells in their garden,

had persuaded them of the propriety of a temporary removal.

Enguinegatte, the scene (at a less complicated period of warfare) of

the famous battle of the Spurs, lies almost at the end of the longest

and straightest Roman road to be found even in France. From Arras to

Thérouanne, just beyond our destination, there are nearly forty miles

of this abominable highway, straight as a die, except for two modern

and insignificant detours to negotiate precipitous hills. By the

route the tanks had to travel from Annequin, striking this road near

Bruay, the distance was thirty miles, and this, entirely over roads,

was ruinous to the machines. Somebody estimated that the journey cost

£7000 in damaged tracks and rollers alone, for our one company. (B and

C Companies were returning to Bouvigny to train with other Canadians

there.) However, we arrived at Enguinegatte eventually, although not

until I was heartily tired of the Roman road, up and down which I was

riding, on my bicycle or in the Major’s car, for the best part of

three days and nights. The village itself was charming, unspoiled by

troops, quiet and unsophisticated, and set amid a really beautiful

country of rolling hills, woods, and corn-fields. I had the most

comfortable billet I ever secured in France. The weather throughout

was gorgeous; and if the rehearsals with successive battalions of

Canadians became for us somewhat tedious in the end, we suffered in a

wholly admirable cause, which bore good fruit two months later. We were

far away from any interference, and could do very much as we pleased.

A ten days’ interlude at Le Tréport, camouflaged as a rest cure _cum_

reconnaissance course under Gordon, where Jack Brown, Ritchie of B

Company, and I sat about on the cliffs above Mirs and read trashy

literature, was a sort of gilding to the lily. Le Tréport was rather

amusing at this time, because the camp was full of “Bolos” dislodged

at last from their limpet-like grip at Bovington, and now fighting

tooth and nail to secure fresh posts as instructors at the depot and

elsewhere. The rest of us, of course, were hoping to see them posted to

fighting units, so long as the latter were not our own. This, indeed,

was the whole object of the belated clearance at Bovington; but in most

cases, I regret to say, it was not achieved. Only after the Armistice

did the majority of these people rush valiantly forward, demanding to

be sent to Cologne.

Altogether, in spite of a few slight internal dissensions in our

company at Enguinegatte, I look back upon that June as the most restful

and pleasant month I spent in France. I returned from Le Tréport

to find the tanks gone by road to Erin, a few details packing up at

Enguinegatte, and the rest of the company already back in our old

quarters at Bouvigny.

II.

Before we come to begin the last phase of the war, as it was influenced

by the Tank Corps, something must be said as to the four southern

brigades in the March retreat and after.

The 1st Brigade, as we have seen, worked with the 1st Army, covered

Arras, and was so fortunate as to escape all direct implication in the

disasters of March and April. Next to the south came the 2nd Brigade,

in the neighbourhood of Bapaume. Farther south again was the new 4th

Brigade, working with the 5th Army around Peronne. The 3rd Brigade was

in G.H.Q. Reserve at Wailly and Bray, and was in process of equipment

with Whippet machines, but only one battalion, the 3rd, had received

these novelties. The 5th Brigade consisted as yet only of a nucleus,

one company of the 13th Battalion, without tanks, also at Bray. The

losses in tanks at Cambrai had not yet been made good, as no more Mark

IV.’s were being built, and the new Mark V.’s were not available till

later; and the three equipped brigades mustered between them only about

220 heavy tanks and 50 Whippets fit for action. A number of training

machines were at Wailly, Bray, and Aveluy Wood, near Albert.

The cyclonic advance of the Germans on the 5th Army front resulted

in the 4th Brigade being sacrificed wholesale on the first two or

three days, at the end of which time it had virtually no tanks left.

In the frightful confusion of the rout, tank battalions, companies,

and sections were pushed in anyhow to do as best they could, lost

touch with each other and with the brigade headquarters, and fought

independently a series of actions, which it is all but impossible now

to disentangle from the general obscurity. The 5th Battalion, having

fought at Hervilly Wood, Roisel, and Epehy, among other places, on

the 22nd March, rallied seventeen tanks at Cartigny that night, and

tried to withdraw across the Somme by the bridge at Brie. The bridge

was destroyed prematurely, and fourteen machines, being almost out

of petrol and unable to escape, were blown up by their crews. The

remaining three got across at other points, and were lost in action

next day. The 5th Battalion, now without tanks, was hastily reorganised

into Lewis-gun detachments. The 4th Battalion, after managing to retain

some tanks a little longer, was in the same state before the end of

the month, and the 1st Battalion was reduced to half a dozen worn-out

machines and some converted supply-tenders. By the 28th the brigade had

185 crews (including the 13th Battalion nucleus) fighting in the line

with Lewis guns. Everything else had been lost--tanks, stores, and even

the kit of the officers and men; and the casualties in personnel had

been heavy.

On the 3rd Army front the 2nd Tank Brigade was in action on the

afternoon of the 21st, when tanks from the 8th Battalion took part in

a counter-attack which recaptured Diognies, but failed to hold it.

Twenty-four hours later, farther to the left, twenty-five tanks of the

2nd Battalion counter-attacked without infantry to check the German

advance on Beugny and the Bapaume-Cambrai road. The tanks came under

concentrated artillery fire as soon as they crossed the road, and

several were knocked out at once. The remainder put a field battery

out of action, surprised the German infantry massing for an assault,

and drove them back in confusion beyond Vaulx-Vraucourt and Morchies,

which our troops reoccupied. Only five tanks rallied, however, and

128 officers and men were lost. The rest of the battalion personnel

was formed as Lewis-gun detachments, and fell back upon Bray on the

24th. In the meantime, the 8th Battalion, losing nearly all its tanks

in attempts to cover the infantry withdrawal about Bus and Barastre,

was also converted into a machine-gun unit. The remaining battalion,

the 10th, fought a series of rearguard actions through Sapignies and

Achiet-le-Grand to Bucquoy, sacrificing most of its tanks.

The 3rd Tank Brigade, in G.H.Q. Reserve at Bray and Wailly, was soon

involved in the general mêlée. Out of the two battalions at Bray,

the 3rd and the 9th, one composite battalion was formed and equipped

with forty-eight Whippets, the remainder of the personnel becoming

yet another Lewis-gun unit. The 6th Battalion at Wailly seems to have

had an easier time than most of the others, and to have preserved a

large proportion of its tanks, which may be explained by the fact

that it remained behind the left wing of the 3rd Army, which was

never seriously shaken, and retreated only so far as was necessary to

conform with the centre and right. On the morning of 21st March the 6th

Battalion’s camp was shelled heavily, and the whole of its orderly-room

staff was killed. The battalion withdrew to La Cauchie on the 25th, and

was transferred to the 2nd Brigade a week later. The 3rd Battalion’s

Whippets, in the meantime, had made their first appearance in action

on the 26th about Serre and Hébuterne, routing considerable numbers of

the enemy without suffering any loss themselves; and they were fighting

again at Bouzincourt on the 31st. They were found particularly useful

for that kind of patrol work which the peculiarities of the situation

had thrust upon such tanks as were left--closing temporary gaps in the

line, holding up attacks, and gaining information,--doing, in fact,

those duties which in the old days were performed by cavalry.

The result of ten days’ continued fighting and retreat was that the

Tank Corps practically was without tanks, always excepting, of course,

the 1st Brigade. Of the personnel of the other brigades 75 per cent

had been in the line as Lewis-gun detachments. About 200 tanks had

been lost. The big camp at Bray had been destroyed before evacuation,

and a number of Whippets lying there under repair had to be blown up.

Brigades and battalions, like all other units in the Army, were in a

state of complete disorganisation, and the casualties, especially those

incurred in the Lewis-gun units, were an added source of anxiety to

Tank Corps Headquarters, owing to the few reinforcements available. The

first steps taken toward reorganisation were hampered by the German

attack on the Lys, as the 4th Brigade, which had just been withdrawn

to the Bermicourt area to refit, was sent north to the 2nd Army front

with Lewis guns, and remained fighting about Meteren and Wytschaete

until the end of April. Then came the startling news that owing to

the difficulty of finding sufficient infantry drafts in England,

the Tank Corps was to be cut down from six brigades to four, which

would mean the disbanding of the incomplete 5th Brigade in France

and of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Battalions at home. Happily,

this disastrous proposal was never carried out in its entirety. Two

battalions at Bovington were reduced for a time to cadres, and a third

was equipped with armoured cars; but the successes in July and August

once more converted the harassed weathercocks in authority. All was

changed again. The six-brigade establishment was not only revived but

augmented; and while the cadres were made up to strength and rushed out

to France, another six battalions were authorised to be formed.

The immediate task of reorganisation after the retreat was further

complicated by the uncertainty as to whether the retreat itself was

finished. The force of the initial German blow, which had driven us

thirty miles backward in a week, expended itself in the first days of

April, but only from temporary exhaustion and difficulties of supply.

With Amiens almost in his grasp, the enemy was certain to make another

effort as soon as he had found his second wind. It was necessary, in

consequence, to maintain as large a force of tanks as possible with

our battered armies; and a hurried reshuffling of units left skeletons

of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Brigades, re-equipped with old machines sent

up from Erin, within call of the threatened point. The expected

blow fell on 23rd April, along the whole line south of the Somme,

but was not very vigorously delivered, and was successful only at

Villers-Bretonneux. Here the Germans employed for the first time their

own tanks, and the latter’s performance, limited and half-hearted as it

was, proved what might have been done with more faith and perseverance.

The appearance of the three clumsy machines was enough for most of the

garrison of Villers-Bretonneux. Nearly the whole of the large village

was carried, 2000 prisoners were taken, and tanks and infantry pushed

on toward Cachy and the Bois de l’Abbé. In the latter place was lying a

section of the 1st Tank Battalion. Moving out at 8.30 in the morning,

to help some infantry in the trenches about Cachy, two female tanks of

this section sighted a German tank about an hour later, and at once

engaged it. Exposed to the enemy’s 6-pounder guns, to which they could

make no effective reply, they were both knocked out; but the third

tank of the section, a male, now appeared, and there ensued the first

genuine contest between these machines. The German seems to have been

outmanœuvred, although his one-man control should have given him an

advantage over the awkward secondary gears of the Mark IV. The latter

attacked him on his blind side, so to speak, where his single gun would

not bear, hit him three times with 6-pounder shells, and drove him into

a sandpit, where the clumsy tank became ditched. The two other German

machines were now coming up, but after a very perfunctory pretence of

engaging our solitary male, turned about and escaped. The victor, while

in pursuit, was hit and disabled by a chance shell from a field-gun.

Villers-Bretonneux was brilliantly recaptured by the Australians the

same night.

The same morning a composite company of Whippets started out at 10.30

to clear up the situation east of Cachy. “Whilst proceeding round

the north-east of this village, they suddenly came upon two or three

battalions of Germans massing in a hollow preparatory to making an

attack. Without a moment’s hesitation the seven Whippets formed line

and charged down the slope right on to the closely-formed infantry.

Indescribable confusion ensued as the Whippets tore through the German

ranks. The enemy scattered in all directions. Some threw themselves

on their knees before the machines, shrieking for mercy, only to be

run over and crushed to death. In a few minutes no less than 400

Germans were killed or wounded. The Whippets having now completed their

task--viz., “Clearing up the situation,” returned, one machine being

put out of action by artillery fire on the journey home. In all only

five casualties amongst the crews were suffered during this action. The

two most remarkable features of this little engagement are: firstly,

the helplessness of some 1200 to 1500 infantry against 7 tanks manned

by 7 officers and 14 other ranks; and, secondly, that the tanks left

their starting-point, which was three and a half miles from the scene

of action, at 10.30 A.M., covered ten miles of ground, fought a battle,

and were back home again at 2.30 P.M.[31]

It was reported at the time that when the Whippets returned their sides

and tracks were dripping with the blood of the Germans who had been run

over--a pleasant touch, but not authenticated.

There were two other tank actions on this front on the 25th and 28th,

the latter with the French Moroccan Division at Hangard Wood. This

last was a failure, largely because the barrage came down _beyond_ the

German line instead of in front of it. A final minor engagement on May

2nd marked the end of this semi-defensive phase of the campaign. The

Amiens front settled down more or less to what used to be described as

“peace-time” warfare: the Germans turned their men and guns southward

to the Aisne; and the Tank Corps was engaged in no further operations,

with one exception, until July, when the whole spirit of our tactics

was happily changed, and a series of small offensives preceded the

great attack on 8th August.

CHAPTER XVII.

HAMEL, MOREUIL, AND THE THIRD BATTLE OF THE SOMME.

I.

On the night of the 22nd-23rd June, a night raid of peculiar interest

was carried out against the village of Bucquoy, north of the Ancre.

Five platoons of infantry and five female tanks of the 10th Battalion

were employed. The notable features were the use of tanks at night,

and the remarkable skill and success with which they were hidden for

a fortnight within a few hundred yards of the German outposts. One

section of four tanks was camouflaged right in the open, the machines

side by side and covered by their nets, in a slight depression not

half a mile from the village. Another four tanks were driven into old

gun-pits by the side of the Bucquoy-Hennescamp road, even nearer to

the enemy. Here the two sections remained for nearly fourteen days,

waiting for a favourable opportunity with the full moon. Various causes

postponed the enterprise, but at length the conditions were considered

propitious, and the five tanks required moved yet farther forward after

dark into a sunken road skirting the eastern gardens of Bucquoy, of

whose main street one side was held by our outposts and the other by

those of the enemy. But now the moon failed, and again the raid was

cancelled. Those responsible for it do not seem even to have thought

of the danger of leaving tanks indefinitely on the edge of No Man’s

Land. For two more days and nights the five machines actually remained

in this preposterous position without being discovered. Movement by

day was almost impossible, and extreme care had to be exercised at

night. Finally, on the night of the 22nd, the raid was carried out. The

infantry, after all this hesitation and consulting of omens, were held

up almost at once by trench-mortar and machine-gun fire, and although

reinforced, got no farther; but the five tanks pushed on right through

the village, passed their objectives, killed a number of the enemy and

started a serious panic, and returned undamaged. The darkness gave

them little trouble, and, on the other hand, afforded them valuable

protection from the trench mortars. Their experience, and the careful

preliminary work carried out by the Reconnaissance officers, were of

great service to the 7th Battalion when we attacked over the same

ground two months later.

A more important action was fought on 4th July on the old

Villers-Bretonneux battle-ground. It was the first definite offensive

on our part since the German blow in March, and it also introduced the

Mark V. tank. This machine, identical in shape and armament with the

Mark IV. (except that the Hotchkiss light gun replaced the Lewis),

possessed great mechanical improvements, primarily in the adoption of

epicyclic gears, which enabled one man to drive and steer the tank, and

abolished the dilatory business of gearsmen and secondary levers. Three

men, in fact, were released for other work, while the tank’s power of

manœuvre was greatly improved. Fitted with a 180 h.-p. Ricardo engine,

in place of the Daimler, the Mark V. had increased speed, five to six

miles an hour, and could be turned as easily as the Whippet. Other

modifications included a second cab for observation on the roof, where

the manhole was situated in the earlier types. The only serious fault

was bad ventilation, which, with the more powerful engine, raised the

heat inside to a pitch that at times became unbearable.

The object of the attack on 4th July was the recapture “as a necessary

preliminary to any operation to disengage Amiens,”[32] of the spur

which runs northward from the Villers-Bretonneux plateau toward the

junction of the Somme and the Ancre at Corbie. The objectives included

Hamel village and wood and Vaire Wood, and were strictly limited.

The infantry to be employed was the 4th Australian Division, and a

subsidiary object of the operation was to restore the confidence of the

Colonials in tanks--a confidence which had been quite unnecessarily

shaken by the failure at Bullecourt in the early spring of 1917, when,

as a matter of fact, it was the tanks that had a grievance. That there

should be no failure through lack of means on this occasion, the

whole of the 8th Tank Battalion and two companies of the 13th (sixty

machines in all) were allotted to the Australians. As soon as the

attack was decided upon, training with the infantry was put in hand at

Vaux-en-Amienois, the 5th Tank Brigade Headquarters, and a good mutual

understanding was cultivated. The Australians, clinging still to old

prejudices, insisted on the tanks following the first wave of attack

instead of preceding it; but this adherence to a bad system did not in

effect matter at all, as the Mark V.’s took the lead almost at once on

the day of action, and remained ahead of the infantry throughout.

Zero was at 3.10, just after dawn. The final rather intricate

approach-marches of the five tank companies, from Hamelet and Fouilloy

to the starting-points behind the infantry, were covered by the noise

of low-flying aeroplanes. At eight minutes before zero the tanks moved

forward again, crossed the remaining 1000 yards in twelve minutes, and

at zero, plus four minutes, the barrage lifted and they advanced with

the infantry. The attack was a complete success. In an hour and a half

the whole affair was over: Hamel village and the woods were carried,

an advance of 2500 yards on a front of 7000 had been made, and 1500

prisoners, with 2 field-guns and 171 machine-guns, were in our hands.

Our casualties were under 700, most of them walking wounded, and 5

tanks hit and disabled; 57 tanks reached their final objectives, and

55 had rallied by 11 A.M. All the disabled machines were salved during

the two following nights, some of them being towed 9000 yards, so

that the enemy was without any knowledge of the new type beyond what

he had discovered in action; and this must have been the reverse of

encouraging. The increased manœuvring powers of the Mark V. astonished

the Germans as much as they delighted the Australians. A feature of the

action was the number of machine-gun emplacements overrun and flattened

out by tanks at the request of the infantry--an entirely satisfactory

process of elimination. The German machine-gunners fought in many cases

with extreme bravery, continuing to fire until the very moment before

their guns--and perhaps themselves--were crushed into the earth by the

tanks; but the unexpected rapidity of movement shown by the latter, as

compared with the deliberate actions of the Mark IV., continually took

them by surprise. The results of the attack, in short, were that the

Australians were satisfied with the tanks, that the tank crews were

satisfied with the Australians, which was quite as important, and that

a sure foundation had been laid for the greater partnership of the 8th

of August.

A fortnight later the 9th Tank Battalion, temporarily attached to the

5th Brigade for the purpose, took part at very short notice in an

operation south of Amiens with the French 9th Corps. The third great

German blow, between Soissons and Rheims, had in its turn exhausted

its momentum; but to all the world it seemed still in the full tide

of victory when, on 18th July, with a rapidity founded on exact

calculation, Foch’s counter-attack, led by hundreds of Rénault tanks,

fell on the flank of the new Salient from the Aisne to Château-Thierry,

and the last phase of the war had begun. The second battle of the

Marne, or the battle of Soissons, whichever it is called, was the

first of that series of Allied offensives which for the next four

months were to succeed one another without a pause up and down the

whole immense front from the Woevre to the sea. Five days after it

began, Debeney’s 1st French Army carried out a small attack north of

Montdidier, with the double object of occupying the German reserves in

that region and of capturing the heights which overlook the river Avre

at Aubvillers and Mailly-Raineval. It was for this operation that the

9th Tank Battalion was lent. It proved a complete success, although

the casualties in tanks and personnel were rather heavy, and it was of

interest chiefly on two accounts: firstly, the excellent way in which

the French infantry combined with the tanks, although only two or three

days of sketchy training, handicapped by difficulties of language, were

possible beforehand; and secondly, for the speed with which the tanks’

share in the battle was arranged and carried out. The project was

discussed for the first time on 16th July at the 4th Army Headquarters.

An hour and a half later, General Elles and General Courage (commanding

the 5th Brigade) interviewed the French Army commander, General

Debeney, and arranged with his Staff the general outlines of the

move and the action. The next day the 9th Tank Battalion, far away

near Bus-les-Artois, received orders to trek on the 18th to Rosel,

a distance of nearly ten miles across country. Entraining at Rosel,

it detrained at Contay on the 19th, and that evening trekked another

two and a half miles. During the three following nights a farther

distance of twelve miles was covered in stages, the final lap, on

the night of the 22nd-23rd, bringing the battalion into action with

thirty-five machines out of forty-two, most of the absentees being old

Mark IV. supply-tanks. During this period troops of the 3rd French

Division, which was to supply the infantry for the attack, underwent

a brief course of training with tanks at Vaux-en-Amienois, while the

Reconnaissance Officers of the 9th Battalion hurriedly surveyed the

battlefield.

After the action, in which 15 tanks were disabled by artillery fire and

54 officers and men were killed or wounded, General Debeney visited

the battalion and expressed in very warm terms his appreciation of its

services. The 3rd French Division conferred upon it a rare distinction

in the form of its own divisional badge, which every officer and man of

the 9th Battalion now wears on the left sleeve.[33]

II.

Even before the French counterstroke of 18th July, the first plans for

an attack by the restored 4th British Army south of the Somme were

under discussion. Limited originally to the recapture of the old Amiens

defence line, the scheme expanded until it assumed the dimensions of

a full-dress battle--involving at least a dozen infantry divisions,

a cavalry corps, and four brigades of tanks on our part, and, on our

right, the 1st French Army and part of the 3rd. Our objective, roughly,

was the important railway which ran southward from Peronne through

Chaulnes and Roye, which meant an advance in places of from twelve to

fifteen miles.

Notwithstanding the reinforcements which had been poured into France

in the past two months, so ambitious a programme, to be completed

within three or four days, could mean only one thing--another tank

operation on a large scale, or, in other words, a second Cambrai.

Tanks were the only arm which could hope to produce such a result in

so short a time. And yet, if we hunt through the official account of

the battle and its antecedents, we find the determining factor hardly

mentioned. We read of “the brilliant and predominating part taken by

the Canadian and Australian Corps in this battle....” And again, of

“the fine performance of the cavalry, ... the dash and vigour of their

action....” Far away, at the very end of a despatch which takes us to

the Armistice, we find this significant sentence, which seems to have

slipped in by mistake: “_The whole scheme of the attack of the 8th

August was dependent upon tanks...._”[34]

The italics are my own, and I will not labour again, in face of this

belated confession, over the old arguments and manifest facts which I

have reiterated so often already. I will add only one remark, that the

very fact of the omission by name of the Tank Corps in accounts of all

the attacks which it led and determined from 8th August to the end of

the war, is a tacit (and, I am sure, quite unintentional) admission of

its influence. It had become, although no one would confess it openly,

so essential a factor that its recognition was reserved for those

concluding paragraphs in a despatch which praise conventionally every

branch of the service, from the Artillery and Engineers to R.T.O.’s and

Sanitary Squads.

Zero day, fixed in the first place for 10th August, was put forward

two days at the end of July. The Canadian Corps, borrowed from the 1st

Army, and in the best possible condition after the first genuine rest

it had known since its original contingents landed in France, was on

the right of our line, from a point opposite Moreuil to above Hangard.

With it was the 4th Tank Brigade, consisting of the 1st, 4th, 5th, and

14th Battalions, the latter newly arrived from England. On the left

of the Canadians, extending past Villers-Bretonneux to the Somme, was

the Australian Corps, with its old friend the 5th Tank Brigade, now

made up of the 2nd, 8th, 13th, and 15th Battalions, the last being

also a new arrival. On the left of the Australians, again, was the 3rd

Corps, to which was attached the 10th Tank Battalion by itself. The

9th Battalion was still refitting after its action with the French,

and would not be available for several days. This made a total of nine

tank battalions, with a tenth in reserve, all except two being equipped

with Mark V. machines. The two exceptions, the 1st and 15th, had for

their sins a still later novelty known as the Mark V. One Star. This

was a thoroughly bad invention, being merely a Mark V. lengthened by

about six feet, and designed to carry infantry or machine-gunners as

well as its crew, these passengers being deposited at suitable points

in the enemy’s country. It offered an enormous target, and if its

supernumeraries survived the journey, and were not shot in getting out,

they were usually incapable, through sickness or coma brought on by

their prolonged confinement inside, of doing any useful work.

In addition to this total, there remained the 3rd and 6th Battalions of

the 3rd Tank Brigade. Both these units were now equipped with Whippets,

and were attached to the Cavalry Corps, which was charged with the

usual magnificent schemes of exploitation, as though machine-guns

and magazine rifles had never been heard of. There was also the 17th

Battalion of Armoured Cars, attached to the 5th Tank Brigade, but

intended to work with the Whippets and cavalry.

It will be seen that for the purposes of this operation the 2nd Brigade

had ceased temporarily to exist, its units being distributed among the

others. The 1st Brigade was still absent from the main theatre of war.

Its three battalions were at Merlimont, practising gunnery, hoping to

draw Mark V.’s, and preparing for the next offensive between Arras and

the Ancre, in which they were to have their fill of fighting.

The number of tanks to be employed on the 8th August was 435, including

96 Whippets, but excluding the armoured cars. Again, as at Cambrai,

there was virtually no reserve of tanks. On the second and subsequent

days composite detachments had to be organised in the field. The

country immediately in front was good, and still covered in part

with growing corn, but east of the line from Roye to Frise, on the

Somme, if they ever got so far, was the old shelled area. This,

however, was easily negotiable by heavy tanks in dry weather. The

preliminary arrangements were modelled on those of Cambrai--profound

secrecy, reconnaissance carried out with every possible precaution,

and no artillery preparation or activity beyond the normal until the

barrage fell at zero. The Australians had been training with tanks

at Vaux-en-Amienois, and the Canadians, after their work with the

1st Brigade at Bouvigny and Enguinegatte, at Cavillon with the 9th

Battalion.

[Illustration: _Third Battle of the Somme._]

III.

Considerable anxiety was caused by the capture, on the night of

4th August, of an Australian outpost near the Roye road, as not

only would this reveal to the enemy the extension of the Australian

front over ground hitherto occupied by the French, but there also

was a possibility of damaging information being extracted from the

prisoners. The latter, however, refused to disclose anything beyond

their names and units, their demeanour being held up as an example

of soldierly behaviour in the German reports on their examinations.

On the afternoon of the 7th, Y-day, another alarm occurred. Eighteen

supply-tanks, allotted to the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, were

hidden in a small plantation north of Villers-Bretonneux. A chance

shell burst in the middle of these machines, which were fully loaded

with food, petrol, and ammunition; a fire was started, which drew upon

the plantation a heavy bombardment; and 15 of the tanks, with all their

stores, were destroyed. This calamity led naturally to a suspicion

that the tanks had been discovered, but happily it proved unfounded.

The Germans believed that only an ordinary dump had been exploded. The

coming attack remained entirely unsuspected: the enemy, indeed was

so misled by various artifices behind the 1st and 2nd Army fronts,

including an early and conspicuous concentration of tanks near St Pol,

that he made every preparation against a counter-offensive in Flanders

and on the Lys.

During the night of the 7-8th, a heavy ground mist rose over the Somme

battlefield, and became so dense by daybreak that tanks and infantry

completed their assemblage and moved into action by compass. It aided

the surprise, however, and was attributed in part by the discomfited

Germans to a non-existent device which they described as an “artificial

fog.” The only artificial element was the usual smoke barrage included

in the artillery programme, which no doubt helped to increase the early

obscurity and confusion. When, at 4.20 A.M. on the 8th, there appeared

suddenly out of this veil more than 330 heavy tanks, followed closely

by lines of skirmishers and then by the main waves of assault, the

German front for twelve miles, from the Somme to Moreuil, was rent like

a cobweb. A four-minute deluge of shells was the only warning, for, as

the barrage lifted, the tanks and infantry were close at its heels.

The advance went with a greater swing even than that of Cambrai, for

the two Colonial Corps were neither tired nor weak in numbers, and the

Mark V.’s were swifter and more handy than the leaders in the earlier

battle. Von Hutier’s 18th Army, composed in part of rather indifferent

troops, made no fight at all during the morning. So rapid was the

advance that within two or three hours the majority of the German

field batteries were overrun and captured; the Albert-Montdidier road,

beyond Marcelcave and Demuin, was crossed before noon; officers and

men were made prisoners in their messes and billets; and one entire

divisional staff was taken. While the heavy tanks were crushing such

sporadic resistance as was offered during this first phase by isolated

posts and villages (Marcelcave, it may be noted, was captured by a

tank single-handed, whose commander obtained a receipt for it from

the Australian infantry), the armoured cars had rushed ahead down the

two straight Roman roads which diverge from Amiens upon Noyon and St

Quentin. Mark V.’s hauled the cars over No Man’s Land and cleared

away some trees and other obstacles on the roads immediately beyond,

after which the machines had a clear run before them. As they were a

unit of the Tank Corps and manned by tank personnel, their exceptional

opportunities and exploits deserve notice. General Sir John Monash,

commanding the Australian Corps, gives the following account of the

cars’ experiences on the St Quentin road:--

“It has already been foreshadowed that the experiences on that

day of the contingent of fifteen armoured motor-cars under

Lieut.-Colonel Carter would form sensational reading, and the

story of 8th August would not be complete without at least a

brief reference to their exploits.

“It was nearly midnight when Carter, with a staff officer, got

back to Corps headquarters to render their report. They were

scarcely recognisable, covered as they were from head to foot

with grime and grease. They had had a busy time. The substance

of what they had to tell was taken down at the time almost

verbatim, and reads as follows:--

“‘Got armoured cars through to Warfusée-Abancourt. When we

reached the other side of No Man’s Land we found that the road

was good, but a number of trees (large and small) had been shot

down, and lay right across it in places. Obstacles removed by

chopping up the smaller trees and hauling off the big ones by

means of a tank. Pioneers helped us to clear the road all the

way down. We did not come up to our advancing troops until they

were almost near the Red Line.

“‘When we got to Blue Line we detached three sections to run

down to Framerville. When they got there they found all the

Boche horse-transport and many lorries drawn up in the main

road ready to move off. Head of column tried to bolt in one

direction and other vehicles in another. Complete confusion.

Our men killed the lot (using 3000 rounds), and left them

there; four staff officers on horseback shot also. The cars

then ran down to the east side of Harbonnières, on the S.E.

road to Vauvillers, and met there a number of steam waggons;

fired into their boilers, causing an impassable block....

“‘Two other cars went to Proyart and found a lot of troops

billeted there, having lunch in the houses. Our cars shot

through the windows into the houses, killing quite a lot of

the enemy. Another section went towards Chuignolles and found

it full of German soldiers. Our cars shot them. Found rest

billets and old trenches, also with troops in them. Engaged

them. Had quite a battle there. Extent of damage not known, but

considerable. Cars then came back to main road. We were then

well in advance of Blue Line.’

“The consternation and disorganisation caused by the sudden

onslaught of these cars, at places fully ten miles behind

the enemy’s front line of that morning, may be left to the

imagination. It was a feat of daring and resolute performance

which deserves to be remembered.”[35]

The Whippets were greatly handicapped by being attached to the Cavalry

Corps. The latter, moving rapidly forward in the early morning toward

the line, complained that the tanks could not keep up. As soon as

it came to fighting, however, the situation was reversed: it was

the cavalry that could not keep up with the Whippets, or indeed do

anything at all. “By noon on the 8th August, great confusion was

developing behind the enemy’s lines, and by this time the Whippets

should have been operating five to ten miles in advance of the

infantry, accentuating this demoralisation. As it was, being tied

down to support the cavalry, they were a long way behind the infantry

advance, the reason being that, as cavalry cannot make themselves

invisible on the battlefield by throwing themselves flat on the ground

as infantry can, they had to retire either to a flank or to the rear

to avoid being exterminated by machine-gun fire.”[36] One sentence in

this quotation sums up the whole case against cavalry. If the Whippets

were idle because “being tied down to support the cavalry they were

a long way behind the infantry advance,” what, in Heaven’s name, was

the use of the mounted arm? The latter in theory, and if it was to

justify its existence at all, should have been a long way in front,

instead of a long way behind. Cavalry behind an infantry attack are

merely an annoying encumbrance, blocking up roads, losing their way,

and behaving, at the same time, as if they alone are winning the

battle. Colonel Buchan, tactful at the expense of accuracy, permits

himself to say that “the whole British cavalry performed miracles,

advancing twenty-three miles from their points of concentration.” This

is merely silly, for the points of concentration were far away to the

west of Amiens. Sir John Monash, on the spot, and speaking from bitter

experience of the uselessness and presumption of these archaic cohorts,

tries to find excuses for them and writes with great moderation, but

his conclusions tally with those of every other unprejudiced observer.

He says:--

“The Cavalry Corps would appear in the battle area also,

with all preparations made for a rapid exploitation of any

success achieved. The utility of the cavalry in modern war,

at any rate in a European theatre, has been the subject of

endless controversy. It is one into which I do not propose to

enter. There is no doubt that, given suitable ground and an

absence of wire entanglements, cavalry can move rapidly, and

undertake important turning or enveloping movements. Yet it

has been argued that the rarity of such suitable conditions

negatives any justification for superimposing so unwieldy a

burden as a large body of cavalry, on the bare chance that it

_might_ be useful, upon already over-populated areas, billets,

watering-places, and roads.

“I may, however, anticipate the event by saying that the First

Cavalry Brigade was duly allotted to me, and did its best to

prove its utility; but I am bound to say that the results

achieved, in what proved to be very unsuitable country beyond

the range of the infantry advance, did not justify the effort

expended, either by this gallant brigade or by the other arms

and services upon whom the very presence of the cavalry proved

an added burden.”[37]