At the end of those battles happened that surprising, audacious
adventure in the Cambrai salient organized by the Third Army under
General Byng, when on November 20, 1917, squadrons of tanks broke
through the Hindenburg line, and infantry streamed through the breach,
captured hundreds of guns, ten thousand prisoners, many villages and
ridges, and gave a monstrous shock to the German High Command.
The audacity of the adventure lay in the poverty of manpower with which
it was attempted and supported. The divisions engaged had all been
through the grinding mill of Flanders and were tired men. The artillery
was made up largely of those batteries which had been axle--deep in
Flanders mud. It was clearly understood by General Byng and Gen. Louis
Vaughan, his chief of staff, that Sir Douglas Haig could not afford
to give them strong reserves to exploit any success they might gain
by surprise or to defend the captured ground against certain
counter-attacks. It was to be a surprise assault by tanks and infantry,
with the hope that the cavalry corps might find its gap at last and
sweep round Cambrai before the enemy could recover and reorganize. With
other correspondents I saw Gen. Louis Vaughan, who expounded the scheme
before it was launched. That charming man, with his professional manner,
sweetness of speech, gentleness of voice and gesture, like an Oxford
don analyzing the war correspondence of Xenophon, made no secret of the
economy with which the operation would have to be made.
“We must cut our coat according to our cloth,” he said.
The whole idea was to seize only as much ground as the initial success
could gain, and not to press if resistance became strong. It was a
gamble, with a chance of luck. The cavalry might do nothing, or score
a big triumph. All depended on the surprise of the tanks. If they were
discovered before the assault the whole adventure would fail at the
start.
They had been brought up secretly by night, four hundred of them, with
supply-tanks for ammunition and petrol lying hidden in woods by day. So
the artillery and infantry and cavalry had been concentrated also. The
enemy believed himself secure in his Hindenburg line, which had been
constructed behind broad hedges of barbed wire with such wide ditches
that no tank could cross.
How, then, would tanks cross? Ah, that was a little trick which would
surprise the Germans mightily. Each tank would advance through the early
morning mists with a bridge on its nose. The bridge was really a big
“fascine,” or bundle of fagots about a yard and a half in diameter, and
controlled by a lever and chain from the interior of the tank. Having
plowed through the barbed wire and reached the edge of the Hindenburg
trench, the tank would drop the fascine into the center of the ditch,
stretch out its long body, reach the bundle of fagots, find support on
it, and use it as a stepping-stone to the other side. Very simple in
idea and effect!
So it happened, and the mists favored us, as I saw on the morning of the
attack at a little place called Beaumont, near Villers Pluich. The enemy
was completely surprised, caught at breakfast in his dugouts, rounded up
in batches. The tanks went away through the breach they had made, with
the infantry swarming round them, and captured Havrincourt, Hermies,
Ribecourt, Gouzeaucourt, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and a wide stretch of
country forming a cup or amphitheater below a series of low ridges south
of Bourlon Wood, where the ground rose again.
It was a spectacular battle, such as we had never seen before, and
during the following days, when our troops worked up to Bourlon Wood and
through the intervening villages of Anneux, Graincourt, Containg, and
Fontaine Notre Dame, I saw tanks going into action and cruising about
like landships, with cavalry patrols riding over open ground, airplanes
flying low over German territory, and masses of infantry beyond all
trench-lines, and streams of liberated civilians trudging through the
lines from Marcoing. The enemy was demoralized the first day and made
only slight resistance. The chief losses of the tanks were due to a
German major of artillery who served his own guns and knocked out a
baker's dozen of these monsters as they crawled over the Flesquieres
Ridge. I saw them lying there with the blood and bones of their pilots
and crews within their steel walls. It was a Highland soldier who
checked the German major.
“You're a brave man,” he said, “but you've got to dee,” and ran
him through the stomach with his bayonet. It was this check at the
Flesquieres Ridge, followed by the breaking of a bridge at Masnieres
under the weight of a tank and the holding of a trench-line called the
Rumilly switch by a battalion of Germans who raced to it from Cambrai
before our men could capture it, which thwarted the plans of
the cavalry. Our cavalry generals were in consultation at their
headquarters, too far back to take immediate advantage of the situation.
They waited for the capture of the Rumilly switch, and held up masses
of cavalry whom I saw riding through the village of Ribecourt, with
excitement and exaltation, because they thought that at last their
chance had come. Finally orders were given to cancel all previous plans
to advance. Only one squadron, belonging to the Canadian Fort Garry
Horse in General Seely's division, failed to receive the order (their
colonel rode after them, but his horse slipped and fell before he caught
them up), and it was their day of heroic folly. They rode fast and made
their way through a gap in the wire cut by the troopers, and came under
rifle and machine-gun fire, which wounded the captain and several men.
The command was carried on by a young lieutenant, who rode with his
men until they reached the camouflaged road southeast of the village of
Rumilly, where they went through in sections under the fire of the enemy
hidden in the banks. Here they came up against a battery of field-guns,
one of which fired point-blank at them. They charged the battery,
putting the guns out of action and killing some of the gunners. Those
who were not destroyed surrendered, and the prisoners were left to
be sent back by the supports. The squadron then dealt with the German
infantry in the neighborhood. Some of them fled, while some were killed
or surrendered. All these operations were done at a gallop under fire
from flanking blockhouses. The squadron then slowed down to a walk
and took up a position in a sunken road one kilometer east of Rumilly.
Darkness crept down upon them, and gradually they were surrounded by
German infantry with machine-guns, so that they were in great danger of
capture or destruction. Only five of their horses remained unhit, and
the lieutenant in command decided that they must endeavor to cut their
way through and get back. The horses were stampeded in the direction
of the enemy in order to draw the machine-gun fire, and while these
riderless horses galloped wildly out of one end of the sunken road, the
officer and his surviving troopers escaped from the other end. On the
way back they encountered four bodies of the enemy, whom they attacked
and routed. On one occasion their escape was due to the cunning of
another young lieutenant, who spoke German and held conversations with
the enemy in the darkness, deceiving them as to the identity of his
force until they were able to take the German troops by surprise and
hack a way through. This lieutenant was hit in the face by a bullet,
and when he arrived back in Masnieres with his men in advance of the
rear-guard he was only able to make his report before falling in a state
of collapse.
Other small bodies of cavalry--among them the 8th Dragoons and 5th
Hussars--had wild, heroic adventures in the Cambrai salient, where they
rode under blasts of machine-gun fire and rounded up prisoners in the
ruined villages of Noyelles and Fontaine Notre Dame. Some of them went
into the Folie Wood nearby and met seven German officers strolling about
the glades, as though no war was on. They took them prisoners, but had
to release some of them later, as they could not be bothered with them.
Later they came across six ammunition--wagons and destroyed them. In the
heart of the wood was one of the German divisional headquarters, and
one of our cavalry officers dismounted and approached the cottage
stealthily, and looked through the windows. Inside was a party of German
officers seated at a table, with beer mugs in front of them, apparently
unconscious of any danger near them. Our officer fired his revolver
through the windows and then, like a schoolboy who has thrown a stone,
ran away as hard as he could and joined his troop. Youthful folly of
gallant hearts!
After the enemy's surprise his resistance stiffened and he held the
village of Fontaine Notre Dame, and Bourlon Wood, on the hill above,
with strong rear-guards. Very quickly, too, he brought new batteries
into action, and things became unpleasant in fields and villages where
our men, as I saw them on those days, hunted around for souvenirs in
German dugouts and found field-glasses, automatic pistols, and other
good booty.
It seemed to me that the plan as outlined by Gen. Louis Vaughan, not
to exploit success farther than justified by the initial surprise, was
abandoned for a time. A brigade of Guards was put in to attack Fontaine
Notre Dame, and suffered heavily from machine-gun fire before taking it.
The 62d (Yorkshire) Division lost many good men in Bourlon Village
and Bourlon Wood, into which the enemy poured gas-shells and high
explosives.
Then on November 30th the Germans, under the direction of General von
Marwitz, came back upon us with a tiger's pounce, in a surprise attack
which we ought to have anticipated. I happened to be on the way to
Gouzeaucourt early that morning, and, going through the village of Fins,
next to it, I saw men straggling back in some disorder, and gun-teams
wedged in a dense traffic moving in what seemed to me the wrong
direction.
“I don't know what to do,” said a young gunner officer. “My battery has
been captured and I can't get into touch with the brigade.”
“What has happened?” I asked.
He looked at me in surprise.
“Don't you know? The enemy has broken through.”
“Broken through where?”
The gunner officer pointed down the road.
“At the present moment he's in Gouzeaucourt.”
I went northward, and saw that places like Hermies and Havrincourt,
which had been peaceful spots for a few days, were under heavy fire.
Bourlon Wood beyond was a fiery furnace. Hell had broken out again and
things looked bad. There was a general packing up of dumps and field
hospitals and heavy batteries. In Gouzeaucourt and other places our
divisional and brigade headquarters were caught napping. Officers
were in their pajamas or in their baths when they heard the snap of
machine-gun bullets. I saw the Guards go forward to Gouzeaucourt for a
counter-attack. They came along munching apples and whistling, as though
on peace maneuvers. Next day, after they had gained back Gouzeaucourt, I
saw many of them wounded, lying under tarpaulins, all dirty and bloody.
The Germans had adopted our own way of attack. They had assembled masses
of troops secretly, moving them forward by night under the cover of
woods, so that our air scouts saw no movement by day. Our line was
weakly held along the front--the 55th Division, thinned out by losses,
was holding a line of thirteen thousand yards, three times as much as
any troops can hold, in safety--and the German storm-troops, after a
short, terrific bombardment, broke through to a distance of five miles.
Our tired men, who had gained the first victory, fought heroic
rear-guard actions back from Masnieres and Marcoing, and back from
Bourlon Wood on the northern side of the salient. They made the enemy
pay a high price in blood for the success of his counter-attack, but we
lost many thousands of brave fellows, and the joy bells which had rung
in London on November 20th became sad and ironical music in the hearts
of our disappointed people.
So ended 1917, our black year; and in the spring of 1918, after all the
losses of that year, our armies on the western front were threatened by
the greatest menace that had ever drawn near to them, and the British
Empire was in jeopardy.