Amabel Williams-Ellis

THE SECOND BATTLE OF CAMBRAI, OR THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI-ST. QUENTIN

The enemy was in full retreat, but we had every reason to suppose that once he had got “home,” back to the Hindenburg Line, he would resist our further attempts to advance with all his strength.

If we attacked the line and our assault was successful, and we could break his defences, the way, as we have said, lay clear to the heart of his great system of lateral railway communications. We could cut his forces completely in two. But besides this, if we could beat him here on his chosen battleground, if we could wound him, even behind the rampart upon which he had for years spent such an infinity of toil, where, in the open unprepared country behind, could he hope to withstand us? The lists were set for a struggle À outrance, the two forces faced each other grimly, for upon the fortunes of the champions in this combat hung the fate of the German nation. It was to be a Tank attack. We were to make the assault on a very wide front, and were to continue our system of hitting in rapid succession in alternate Army areas. The last blow had been delivered by the 4th Army on September 18. The new battle was to be begun by the 1st and 3rd Armies.

To the south, as soon as certain points of vantage, Quennemont Farm, the Knoll and Bellicourt, were in our hands, there was to be a lull, and the 4th Army was to attack in strength on the 29th, two days later—as soon, that is, as the Germans had had time thoroughly to involve their reserves in the first mÊlÉe.

Meanwhile the Tank Brigades had to be rapidly reorganised and redistributed, the Battalions being almost all reshuffled. About one-third of the available machines were to be put in on the northern part of the front, and the other two-thirds were to fight with the 4th Army on the 29th.

For the sake of clarity, it is simpler to treat the two halves of the battle separately, for though they were completely interdependent and formed part of one strategic conception, each offered very distinct tactical problems of its own. In each the ground had very marked topographical features, features that gave to each half a special character.

Part I

I

We have said that the 1st and 3rd Armies were to strike first. Tanks belonging to the 7th and 11th Battalions of the 1st Brigade were to fight with the Canadians and the 4th Corps opposite Bourlon and Gouzeaucourt, and the 2nd Brigade was to contribute the 15th Battalion, which was to co-operate with the 17th Corps opposite Graincourt and FlesquiÈres.

Altogether fifty-three fighting Tanks were to be employed.

As in the 4th Army sector, the peculiar lie of the country was the chief influence which shaped our battle tactics, as in the 4th Army area a canal was the central feature of the attack.

In the First Battle of Cambrai the Tanks had all attacked from south of the northward bend of the Canal du Nord near Havrincourt, and so worked up the enemy’s side of this great obstacle.

Now we were in a better position to force a direct crossing, both strategically and mechanically, and the hazardous venture was to be attempted. Direct ground reconnaissance of the Canal itself was impossible, as the enemy held the hither bank in strength, but every conceivable source of information was exhaustively exploited in the endeavour to find crossing-places for the Tanks, that might offer at least a possibility of success.

Daring flights were made by special observers in low-flying aeroplanes, and a wonderful mosaic was pieced together from successive sets of air-photographs.

This was annotated, re-photographed, enlarged, and circulated to all concerned for further amplification and annotation as additional information was collected; Major Macavity of the Canadian Corps Intelligence, and Captain Oswald Birly of 1st Army Headquarters, being largely responsible for the thoroughness of this, as well as of several previous “over-the-line” surveys.

In addition, the Garde ChampÊtre, the Ponts et ChaussÉes service, and the engineers’ working drawings for the Canal, were all laid under contribution, as well as the evidence of a number of prisoners, refugees and repatriÉs.

From such sources and on such evidence the requisite number of crossings were at length determined on, and the Tanks definitely and severally allotted to them, for good or ill.

But when all had been done, there were one or two points about which there still remained a disquieting element of doubt.

At one of these, where aerial photographs showed a breach through the retaining banks of the dry Canal that just might, or that just might not, allow sufficient width for Tanks to cross, a crossing was imperative for the local success of the attack. Somehow, a passage had to be positively assured—and there seemed but one sure way of keeping our contract with the infantry, who were to storm the Canal at that place.

A bridge was to be formed of three old and obsolete Tanks, upon the broad backs of which their juniors and betters might scramble across and get to close quarters with the enemy. Four elderly machines, warranted unsound, were accordingly sought out, specially stiffened up with internal timber struts, and allotted the self-sacrificing task of slithering down into the Canal bed, and there swinging and shunting until they lay side by side ready for the fighters to crawl over them.

Under the heading “A Bridge of Tanks,” the actual crossing was very vividly described in the Press.

As a matter of fact, the actuality fell somewhat short of this description. The veteran machines found themselves quite unequal to the long trek, and even the least decrepit of the four finally doddered to a standstill whilst yet miles away from the Canal.

So there was no “Bridge of Tanks” after all, though, as things turned out, its absence embarrassed no one, with the possible though unlikely exception of the “close-up” correspondent.

Most fortunately the doubtful crossing proved practicable, and all machines, save one that struck a land-mine, passed safely over.

II

The attack was, as usual, at dawn, and, as the first-wave Tanks and infantry went over the top, they met with fierce resistance. On the right we encountered particularly strong opposition near Beaucamp Ridge.

The 11th Battalion History remarks upon the extraordinarily gallant fighting of the enemy on this sector.

Indeed, the Germans here constantly counter-attacked throughout the day, so important did they deem the position. In spite of them, however, we successfully established our right flank.

Just to the north of them the Guards and the 3rd Division forced a crossing of the Canal in face of their heavy machine and field gun fire, captured Ribecourt and FlesquiÈres, the Guards taking Arival Wood and pushing north of Premy Chapel, where the 2nd Division took up the advance.

The 15th Battalion History tells the story of four Tanks which were co-operating with the Guards Division. It is typical of this part of the battle. On the northern outskirts of FlesquiÈres they awaited the arrival of the 1st Grenadiers, filling in the interval by helping the Gordons in their occupation of the village.

When the Guards arrived the situation was still somewhat obscure, and Major Skeggs, commanding the Tanks, made a daring forward reconnaissance from FlesquiÈres towards Premy Chapel.

The Tanks were brought round north of the village immediately, engaging a number of machine and field guns, which were firing from Arival Wood. In order to cover the advance of the infantry, the Tanks had to come up over a bare stretch of country, exposed to direct fire from a number of field pieces.

Two Tanks, “Orchid” and “Othello,” were soon knocked out, and 2nd Lieutenant Riddle’s “Orestes” and Sergeant Whatley’s “Oribi” only were left.

But it was in the centre that the Tanks fought their chief battle. Under cover of darkness, the Canadians and the 63rd Division had moved down the west bank of the Canal near Moeuvres and Sains-lez-Marquion. In the half light of dawn they stormed the Canal itself. The resistance here was far from well organised.

All day the 15th Battalion fought.

Meanwhile our line had been pushed on east of Anneux to Fontaine-Notre-Dame. Bourlon Village had been carried by the 7th Tank Battalion and the Canadians. We had passed through Bourlon Wood, which was now wholly in our possession.

On the extreme left a Division of the 22nd Corps had also crossed the Canal, cleared Sauchy-LestrÉe and had moved on northward.

The air co-operation had been particularly effective throughout the day. The work of the 8th Squadron had, however, been a good deal hampered, as they had concentrated on the 4th Army front for the recent fighting there, and therefore had a long flight and difficult signal communications when ordered to work with the 3rd and 1st Armies. However, their arrangements with their Tank partners were, as usual, admirable. With the 7th Battalion, who, with the Canadians, had been set the task of crossing the Canal du Nord opposite Inchy, and then taking Bourlon Village, co-operation was particularly good; not only were vital messages dropped at Battalion Headquarters, but a gun which was firing on three of our Tanks from Bourlon Wood was effectively bombed, and twice the airman chased its crew away with his machine-gun.

On September 28 Tanks of the 7th and 11th Battalions fought again at Baillencourt. Seven Tanks of the 11th Battalion with the 5th Corps captured Villers Guislain and Gonnelieu.

By the evening of the 28th we had taken all our objectives, and had advanced beyond our old high-water line of the First Battle of Cambrai. Fontaine-Notre-Dame, Bourlon Village, Epinoy and Haynecourt were all ours, and we had captured over 10,000 prisoners and 200 guns. The Tanks had suffered heavy casualties, but they had not suffered them in vain.

Part II

I

We have said that in the original battle scheme, certain points of vantage, Quennemont, the Knoll, and Bellicourt, were assumed to be in our hands a day or so before the main attack on the 4th Army front was launched.

These fortified heights were of importance owing to the singular geography of this sector of the line.

All along this piece of the front, more or less parallel to the lines of the armies, runs—deep and broad—the St. Quentin Canal.

For three and a half miles, however, between Bellicourt and Vendhuille it runs underground through a tunnel.

We have seen how, in the northern part of the line, the enemy had relied upon the Canal du Nord to form the principal obstacle to an attack.

In August we had captured a document which proved that he realised that if we attacked at all in the south, and whether we attacked with Tanks or not, it would be in that three-and-a-half-mile gap that our heaviest blow would fall.

The photograph gives an excellent notion why we had to avoid certain sectors of the Canal at all costs, and Sir Douglas Haig, in his Despatch, gives an admirable idea of some of the complex features which the topography here possessed.

On the three and a half miles of front, where alone Tanks and artillery could cross the line of the Canal, the outpost system which everywhere protected the Hindenburg Line, was doubly reinforced, and gained a natural strength from its position on the heights, beneath which the Canal had burrowed.

Only a very “full dress” attack on so highly organised a system as the Hindenburg Line was likely to be successful, and in order to launch such an attack it was essential that we should already hold the Knoll and Guillemont and Quennemont Farms.

We have seen how in the last day or two of the battle of Epehy we assaulted the line again and again, duly captured the sector opposite Bellicourt, but how, two days before the main attack was to be launched, the Knoll and Quennemont were still in the hands of the enemy.

This state of affairs caused grave anxiety, as the whole set-piece attack was based on the idea of using this line as a “jumping-off” position.

It had been intended that the two American Divisions, which were to fight on this sector, should only be put in when this line had been secured.

It was now decided that they must themselves make a final effort to capture the outpost line before the main assault, which was due for dawn on September 29.

Therefore, at dawn on the 27th, the 27th American Division, assisted by twelve Tanks of the 4th Battalion, again attacked under cover of a creeping barrage.

Either, therefore, the whole main attack must be delayed, or the American divisions and some of the British troops north of them must start some 1000 yards behind their barrage, and from a very indefinite jumping-off line.

The latter course was decided upon.

But there was yet one more difficulty, a serious obstacle of which we were serenely unaware. A British anti-Tank minefield, consisting of rows of buried heavy trench-mortar bombs, each holding 50 lb. of ammonal, had been put down just prior to our loss of the area in March 1918, and of this minefield no information had reached the Tanks.

It will thus be seen that the dice were very heavily loaded against success on this part of the front before day dawned on the eventful 29th of September, 1918.

The whole attack was to be on a twelve-mile front. The infantry were to take advantage of a number of foot-bridges, which our bombardment had prevented the enemy from getting out to destroy, and in some places our men were prepared to wade or swim through the water.

It was expected, however, that the chief resistance would be offered on the famous three and a half miles.

Altogether about 175 Tanks, including the new American Battalion, were to be launched, and four Corps were to be involved.

To the 9th Corps on the right, the 5th, 6th and 7th Tank Battalions of the 3rd Brigade were allotted.

In the centre, with the Australian and American Corps, the 1st, 4th and 301st American Battalions of the 4th Brigade were to fight.95

The 8th, 13th and 16th Battalions of the 5th Tank Brigade were to be held in 4th Army Reserve.

Almost up to zero hour on the 29th we still hoped to get news that we held the Knoll and Quennemont. But no reassuring message came through.

It was thus in a very singular world that the 301th American Tank Battalion was destined to make its debut.

II

When the dawn broke the usual mist lay thick and added its quota of confusion to the uncertainties of the morning.

All along the line, the battle swayed confusedly, developing into what was perhaps the most complete “mix-up” of any battle of the War.

To the north, the fighting was extremely heavy.

Owing to the employment of an effective barrage having been impossible, the American 27th Division suffered severely from the fire of massed hostile machine-guns from the moment the attack began.

Just as the Tanks of the 301st were moving up in support, ready to deal with the machine-guns which were, as an eye-witness describes it, by now “mowing down the other Americans in swathes,” no less than ten machines struck upon the forgotten minefield.

The American Tanks experienced the bitterest of war’s accidents, useless destruction at the hands of their own colleagues.

The explosions were terrific, the whole bottom of many machines being torn out and a large proportion of the crews being killed.

A little further to the south our attack was progressing well.

Tanks of the 4th and 5th Battalions and their infantry had pushed forward. The intricate trench system and the confusion of wire and dug-outs, however, were responsible for a certain loss of cohesion, so that by the time the village of Bellicourt had been reached the attacking troops were some distance behind the barrage, and a good deal of the weight had gone out of the assault.

But though several large parties of the enemy still held out, we had, on this sector, actually penetrated the Hindenburg Line before noon.

But now the mist began to lift. The enemy still held Quennemont Farm and the land to the north of it in great strength, and from that high ground they were now beginning to be able to see well enough to pour a devastating fire into the backs of the troops who were advancing in the Bellicourt Sector. The situation was critical and called for immediate action.

Major Hotblack, the Head of the Tank Corps Intelligence, who was watching the progress of the battle near this point, luckily realised the situation before the enemy and rushed to try to improvise a diversion. He fortunately found two Tanks97 which were waiting, ready to take part in a later stage of the attack. With the permission of the Battalion Commander, the two machines were hastily set going, and Major Hotblack jumped into the leading Tank. The machines were driven rapidly towards Quennemont Ridge. There was no body of infantry immediately available, and with the weather in its present mood, there was no time to wait; so the two Tanks without artillery or infantry support attacked what afterwards proved to be an unbroken sector of the enemy’s front.

But if confusion reigned in the British line, there is no doubt that the Germans, though fighting exceedingly well, were far from clear about the actual position. In the confusion, they appear to have mistaken the two isolated machines for a considerable force. The two Tanks successfully made their way on to the heretofore impregnable Ridge, and actually succeeded in driving the enemy off it, killing large numbers of the defenders and capturing a quantity of machine-guns. Then at last the German field gunners awoke to the situation, and being otherwise unharassed, opened a devastating fire upon the two presumptuous machines. They succeeded in hitting and setting fire to both of them, the crews being obliged to evacuate, having suffered considerable casualties.

Major Hotblack, though partially blinded, was able to carry on, but the only other officer was severely wounded, and a derisory little force—one officer and five or six men, was thus left to hold the Ridge. Quite undaunted, they immediately set to work to prepare for the German counter-attack which, now that the Tanks were out of action and ablaze, seemed imminent. There was an abundance of enemy machine-guns lying about, and some of these were got ready for action, for the Tanks’ own guns had been destroyed when the machines were knocked out.

While these guns were being turned round ready for their late owners, the tiny garrison was joined, first by an Australian and then by an American officer, each with an orderly, who had each separately come out to try and find out the position of affairs. The situation was rapidly explained to them, and was soon made clearer still by the expected counter-attack from the Germans. Twice during the previous week’s fighting, the enemy had regained this Ridge when it was held in force. This time less than a dozen men successfully held it against them, and although almost every one of the defenders was wounded, they held out until relief came, several hours later.

For his part in this action Major Hotblack was awarded a bar to his Military Cross. This was his last action in the war, as the wounds he received on this occasion incapacitated him till the Armistice had been signed.

It is rather interesting to note that this officer was wounded five times during the course of the war—on four occasions in the head; but so admirable is our hospital system that he is now practically none the worse for his experiences.

On the extreme right of the battle the attack of the 9th Corps was a complete success, the 46th Division particularly distinguishing itself in the capture of Bellenglise.

The Tanks were, of course, unable to cross with their infantry. They moved on Bellicourt, crossed over the tunnel at the nearest point, and swung south, working down the further bank of the Canal and arriving just in time to take part in the attack on Monchy.

Our success here was so complete that one division alone captured 4000 prisoners and seventy guns.

Many of these batteries were taken from the rear by Tanks and infantry while they were still in action, the enemy not realising in the least that they had been outflanked.

III

At the end of the day it was pretty clear what must be the ultimate result of the battle. But our front was extremely ragged and the breaches we had driven in the Hindenburg Line but narrow.

So for some days our attacks continued on all fronts; from north of Cambrai, where the 7th Battalion Tanks and the Canadians met with a desperate resistance, right down to our junction with the French 1st Army south of St. Quentin.

With the exception of a party of six machines belonging to the 1st Brigade, who helped in an attack just north of Cambrai, all the Tank actions of this period were fought in the 4th Army area, where we were busied in driving in the wedge whose thin end we had inserted with so much effort on September 29.

On the 30th, twenty Tanks belonging to the 5th, 6th, 13th and 7th Battalions fought in different groups, none with striking success, in one or two cases owing to the fact that the fresh infantry who had been brought up were unaccustomed to Tanks, and that liaison was therefore defective.

The village of Bony, which had just been entered by the Armoured Cars on the 29th, still held out stubbornly.

On October 1, Tanks of the 9th Battalion were engaged with the 32nd Division in an attack on a part of the line near Joncourt. In this action the Tanks made very successful use of smoke screens.

On the 2nd no Tanks fought, but on October 3 about forty machines went into action.

As on the previous days, we met with stubborn resistance, and as on the previous days, foot by foot, inch by inch, we pushed our line forward, always patiently enlarging the width of the holes we had pierced.

A new attack on a large scale was now contemplated, and for this assault the Tank Corps had to furnish between eighty and ninety machines, some on the 3rd, some on the 4th Army front. Preparations were immediately begun, and no Tanks fought on the 4th.

Our line, however, had just reached the outskirts of two large villages, Montbrehain and Beaurevoir, and we were anxious not to begin the day of our new attack with street fighting—of all forms of warfare the most incalculable.

Therefore, the Australians and the 16th Tank Battalion attacked Montbrehain, and after fighting a strenuous but brilliant little action, captured it.

The last phase of the Cambrai-St. Quentin battle was at hand; nay more, the last phase of the warfare we had known for nearly four years.

The next day we were to match our strength against that torn and breached, but still formidable ruin, that had once been the Hindenburg Line.