Cambrai: dawn of the tank age
In 1917 the British Army launched its latest though as-yet unproven battlefield technology in a bid to break the static face-off on the Western Front. But was it the overwhelming success generals had hoped for?
Was the British offensive a major turning point or a fatal disaster?
At 6am on 20 November 1917 the men of 84 Infanterieregiment were slumbering in their dugouts, secure in the knowledge that they occupied the most formidable German positions on the entire Western Front. It was a sector so quiet that troops called it the ‘silent front’ or the ‘Flanders sanatorium’, where divisions were sent to recover from the slaughter in the Ypres Salient.
In such a peaceful place it should have been impossible for the enemy to conceal any preparations for an attack. Yet at 6.20am the calm was shattered by a stupendous artillery bombardment that erupted without warning on the German lines. Leutnant Adolf Saucke raced to the entrance of his dugout. “In the dawn, the trench was like a sea of fire from the ceaseless detonation of falling shells,” he later described. When the barrage moved forward, they rushed out to man the trenches but could see nothing: “In front of us, No-man’s Land was cloaked in grey morning mist. Behind us lay a greyish-yellow wall of fog, from which emerged dazzling flashes of flame from the constantly bursting shells.”
Ahead in No-man’s Land lay a network of advanced outposts designed to detect and disrupt an attack. Peering into the mist from one of these positions, Leutnant Adolf Mestwarb heard an astonished cry: “Sir, something square is coming!” As it lumbered forward, Mestwarb recognised the angular form of a British tank but with an enormous object perched on its roof. “We immediately opened fire, but unfortunately without making the slightest impression on the brute. It moved further forward, firing as it went, then veered to the left to make room for those behind, which were now appearing one after another from behind the wood in front of us.”
As they were driven back by fire from the tanks and from low-flying aircraft, Leutnant Mestwarb had no idea that the same story was being repeated along six miles of the German front. A total of 378 fighting tanks, supported by six divisions of infantry, were surging forwards, preceded by a hurricane of artillery fire. Each tank bore an enormous bundle of brushwood known as a ‘fascine’ to drop into the German trenches as a kind of steppingstone, allowing itself and others to cross. Astonishing as it seems, all these tanks and infantry had been secretly moved into position, along with 1,000 field guns and the entire Cavalry Corps, ready to exploit a breakthrough, without the Germans having any idea of the scale of the offensive that was about to burst upon them.
“IT WAS THE START OF THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI, PERHAPS THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, AND ONE THAT WOULD ULTIMATELY CHANGE THE CONDUCT OF WARFARE FOREVER”
Most astonishing of all, the attack was being launched not against some weak point in the German defences but against a massive and seemingly impregnable trench system known to the British as the Hindenburg Line and to the Germans as the Siegfriedstellung. The name was symbolic, because Siegfried was the greatest hero of Norse mythology – a young man who did not know the meaning of fear.
It was the start of the Battle of Cambrai, perhaps the most extraordinary operation of World War I and one that would ultimately change the conduct of warfare forever.
LUST OF BATTLE
Despite weeks of planning and preparation, the attack was a journey into the unknown for the crewmen sealed inside their 28-ton machines, as they lumbered across No-man’s Land at four miles per hour (6 kilometres per hour).
They had no idea if their tanks could penetrate the dense belts of barbed wire and crush a path that the infantry would be able to follow, no idea if their fascines would bridge the gulf of the German trenches and no idea if the barrage, fired from unregistered field guns, would destroy its targets – particularly the enemy artillery known to be waiting ahead, which posed the only real threat to the tanks.
One of the machines bearing down on the men of 84 Infanterie-regiment was D27 Double Dee III, commanded by Second Lieutenant Horace Birks.
“Emerging out of the gloom a dark mass came steadily towards us: the German wire. It appeared absolutely impenetrable… It neither stopped the tank nor broke up and wound round and round with the tracks as we at first feared, but it squashed flat and remained flat, leaving a broad carpet of wire as wide as the tank, over which the following infantry were able to pick their way without great difficulty... It was a relief to get through the wire and come out on to the main German position. All this time there had been no firing and very little shell fire, and the tanks on the right and left could be seen keeping station with us,” he recalled later.
So far so good, but they then had their first view of the enormous German trenches, which
“AS FAST AS THE GUNNERS COULD RELOAD, THEY POURED IN A HAIL OF BULLETS, TOSH HIMSELF FIRING AND YELLING LIKE A MANIAC. AT LAST THE PANIC SUBSIDED, THE REMAINDER OF THE ENEMY APPARENTLY REALISING THE FUTILITY OF AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE”
had been dug up to 3.5 metres wide to act as anti-tank obstacles. Advancing to the right of Birks’s tank was E45 Elles II, commanded by Second Lieutenant Fred Dawson. “First, poised over the deep and wide excavation: then, releasing the fascine – would it drop all right? We saw it lumber beautifully into the bottom. But could we get over? One can imagine our doubts... Anyhow, down we dropped and up, up, up – no one thought of the ‘balance point’ – until at last we crashed upon the other side, splitting open my section commander’s head, and petrol cans, oil cans and ammunition boxes scattered all over the place.”
Once safely across, the tank crews encountered varying levels of resistance depending on the fighting qualities of the units facing them. A battalion commander in 84 Infanterie-regiment, Hauptmann Harro Soltau, told his staff, “A Prussian officer does
not retreat,” and sent a final message to regimental headquarters: “We will hold on till the last man.” Other attackers came up against older Landwehr troops and found the biggest challenge was pressing forward as hundreds of men surrendered. But all resistance was swept aside, whether the Germans gave themselves up, or fled, or fought to the death like Soltau and his men.
In his tank D45 Destroyer II, Lieutenant James Macintosh (who referred to himself as ‘Tosh’) described how men of the 84th scattered from a trench ahead of them: “Then for the crew… began the rabbit-shooting of their fondest dreams. Streams and streams of the enemy, their retreat cut off by Tosh and their front menaced by the approaching wave, broke wildly from cover. As fast as the gunners could reload, they poured in a hail of bullets, Tosh himself firing and yelling like a maniac. At last the panic subsided, the remainder of the enemy apparently realising the futility of an attempt to escape: but it left Tosh and his crew hoarse with joy and almost beside themselves with excitement. To those who have never experienced it, the lust of battle must always appear unnatural and terrible, but ever after Tosh would look back to those few minutes of slaughter as among the most joyful moments of his life.”
A YEAR OF FAILURE
Such emotions may appear strange, even disturbing in someone like Macintosh – the son of a South African MP, a loving family man and later a prominent lawyer who was described as being “of modest and gentle nature”.
In part, the passion no doubt stemmed from the release of pent-up frustration after years of static trench warfare, in which the odds had been heavily weighted against the attackers and in favour of the Germans.
There was also an overwhelming sense of relief – even disbelief – that the attack was going so precisely to plan. For the Battle of Cambrai was nothing short of a last-ditch gamble to show that tanks really were viable as a weapon of war. It was, in effect, an attack in which tanks would either make history or become history.
To understand this, it is necessary to look back over the preceding 14 months since the first tentative tank action on 15 September 1916. The 25 or so primitive Mark I machines had a formidable effect on German morale and an equal but opposite effect on British morale both at home and abroad. But a series of further piecemeal operations during the Battle of the Somme and then in the Battles of Arras and Bullecourt in March and April 1917,
revealed not so much the potential capabilities of tanks as their appalling vulnerability.
Although their armour plating was largely effective against small arms fire, it was no proof against a direct hit from a field gun. Tanks also faced the constant risk of mechanical breakdown and above all of becoming bogged down – referred to as ‘ditched’ or ‘bellied’ – in ground that had been churned up by prolonged artillery bombardment. This became all but inevitable from the end of July 1917, when tanks were sent to spearhead the British offensive in the Ypres Salient that became known as the Battle of Passchendaele. It was obvious to anyone that a tank, even the improved Mark IV model, would be hopelessly out of its depth in such low-lying terrain, especially once the preparatory bombardment had churned the ground into a swamp. Colonel Christopher Baker-carr, commander of First Tank Brigade, accurately summed up their plight: “If a careful search had been made from the English Channel to Switzerland, no more unsuitable spot could have been discovered.”
Despite this, the Tank Corps plunged dutifully but disastrously into ‘the bogs of Passchendaele’, until the entire salient seemed to be littered with the wrecked hulks of tanks, often sunk up to their sponsons in mud. It is hardly surprising that by the end of the battle the experimental weapon was widely regarded as a failure – or as rumour had it, tanks were to be abandoned as an instrument of war and the recently formed corps disbanded.
ADVANCE, HIT, RETIRE
Fortunately the unit’s commanders were men of vision and were already aware that tanks were doomed to failure unless they were allowed to fight on their own terms. Until now they had always been sent to attack over ground churned up by artillery bombardment – in the case of the Battle of Passchendaele, amounting to more than 4 million shells fired. This was deemed necessary to batter down the enemy’s defences, in particular the belts of barbed wire that posed an impassable barrier to the infantry.
The Tank Corps top brass were well aware that they could only succeed if they attacked over firm, unbroken terrain that had not been pulverised by artillery fire, with the tanks
“THE TANK CORPS PLUNGED DUTIFULLY BUT DISASTROUSLY INTO ‘THE BOGS OF PASSCHENDAELE’, UNTIL THE ENTIRE SALIENT SEEMED TO BE LITTERED WITH THE WRECKED HULKS OF TANKS”
themselves crushing paths through the wire to be followed by the infantry and cavalry. Under this new doctrine of warfare, the role of the artillery was also transformed, as described in the official history of the battle: “If complete surprise were to be secured, the artillery must be assembled in secret and deliver a sudden storm of fire at zero hour without any previous ranging or registration.” Advances in surveying, calibration and ranging made this possible in theory, but it had never been attempted on a large scale.
Putting these ideas to the test would require a bold experiment, and the chosen setting was a section of the line fronting the key German stronghold of Cambrai. The sector was bounded to the left and right by two canals, which would trap the defenders in a killing zone if the frontline could be breached. On the face of it this seemed unlikely, since the Germans had constructed a formidable defensive system in the rear of the fighting and then pulled back to occupy it in the spring of 1917. However, the positions were known to be relatively lightly manned, since the Germans reasoned that no attack could take place without a lengthy bombardment, giving them ample time to bring up reserves. The area was therefore vulnerable to a surprise assault, and the well-drained downland was perfect country for tanks.
According to the leading strategist Lieutenant Colonel John Fuller, the attack was originally conceived as no more than “a surprise raid, the duration of which would be about 24 hours. The whole operation may be summed up in three words: ‘Advance, Hit, Retire.’” But this idea became conflated with a wider Third Army plan to storm the Hindenburg Line, with cavalry pouring through the breaches to threaten Cambrai itself.
The British commander Sir Douglas Haig gave his blessing to the project,
“THE AREA WAS THEREFORE VULNERABLE TO A SURPRISE ASSAULT, AND THE WELL-DRAINED DOWNLAND WAS PERFECT COUNTRY FOR TANKS”
recognising that it would help to maintain pressure on the Germans after the Third Battle of Ypres had drawn to a close. However, he added one caveat: the entire sector was dominated by the Bourlon Ridge with its sinister crest of woodland, and this high ground had to be taken on the first day, otherwise the British gains would be unsustainable and the advance must be halted.
So the tanks were to be given the chance to prove themselves, but in the context of an offensive whose scope and objectives were loosely defined. As it turned out, their very success contained the seeds of failure.
IN SIGHT OF VICTORY
Unlike previous attacks in which the various arms had little contact beforehand, Cambrai was envisaged as the first truly combined operation with individual infantry units and tank crews training and even socialising together to ensure complete understanding and cooperation. As we have seen, the success of this planning was apparent in the first phase of the attack, which some participants likened to an exercise or parade ground manoeuvre.
So on 20 November 1917 the irresistible force of tanks and infantry swept almost all before it, punching an enormous hole through the German defences along a six-mile (9.6 kilometre) front. In a war when advances were often measured in hundreds of yards and tens of thousands of casualties, the enemy were driven back three to four miles (5-6.5 kilometre) at a cost of around 4,000 British dead, wounded and missing. The attackers inflicted severe losses, and took more than 4,000 prisoners and destroyed or captured 100 field guns. Incredible though it seems, in one day they had captured an area roughly equal to the entire gains in the Third Battle of Ypres.
However, victory was not total. Around Flesquières in the north of the battle zone, German field guns hidden in the dead ground exacted a fearful toll on the advancing tanks, firing over open sights to destroy at least 28 machines as they breasted the ridge. This enabled the infantry to mount a desperate defence of the village, holding the elite troops of 51st (Highland) Division at bay until the Germans withdrew during the night to avoid being surrounded. The consequences of this delay were serious, for the cavalry were unable to advance across the ridge on their crucial mission to seize the Bourlon Ridge. Similarly, the strategically important crossings over the St Quentin Canal at Masnières on the right of the advance were blocked or destroyed, limiting the opportunity for an encircling cavalry thrust to the east.
With Bourlon still in enemy hands, the offensive had failed to meet Haig’s main criterion for success, but the spires of Cambrai were in sight and it seemed inconceivable to simply abandon such spectacular gains. The offensive continued, but its character had completely changed. The glorious élan of the first day was gone, to be replaced by the kind of gruelling slog that we normally associate with the Great War. The Tank Corps had already paid a heavy price for its heroism, with 179 of its 378 fighting tanks put out of action on 20 November from a combination of breakdowns,
ditching and direct hits. The survivors continued to play their part, but there were no fresh reserves to call on and no more opportunity for the carefully coordinated surprise attacks that proved so devastating at the outset.
After days of bitter fighting on Bourlon Ridge and in the surrounding villages, the Third Army commander General Sir Julian Byng finally ordered a halt to the offensive on 27 November. The crest of the hill had been captured, but the enemy still controlled the shoulders of the ridge, and there were insufficient resources to dislodge them. The British settled down to consolidate their gains, but it was a dispiriting end to a campaign that had started so brilliantly. In the words of the official historian, “None could view with satisfaction the events of the past seven days: so many attacks had failed, so many casualties had been suffered and so much hardship endured by the troops, in attempting to force a definite issue and to break a resistance of which the strength appeared to have been consistently underestimated.”
A TERRIBLE SHOCK
Having fought to a standstill, the Tank Corps now began withdrawing to its winter quarters on the Somme. On November 30 Major William Watson was preparing his tanks for departure when he noticed “strange things” were happening. “We could hear distinctly bursts of machine gun fire, although the line should have been six miles away at least. German field gun shells – we could not be mistaken – were falling on the crest of a hill not three-quarters of a mile from the camp... We had not fully realised what was happening, when a number of wounded infantrymen came straggling past. They told me that the enemy was attacking everywhere, that he had broken through near Gouzeaucourt, capturing many guns, and was, to the best of their belief, still advancing.”
The Germans had rallied their forces, secretly brought up reserves and launched a massive counterattack, which caught the British as unawares as the original advance had caught them ten days before. Their assault took the form of a great pincer movement designed to drive the British out of the ground they had taken. It was eventually halted through determined resistance on both axes of the advance, though not before the Germans had made substantial gains to the south, equivalent to the area captured by the British and resulting in a similar number of prisoners. Both sides could therefore declare the honours more or less even when the German advance itself ground to a halt.
The British position in Bourlon Wood now formed an untenable salient, and on the night of 4-5 December they pulled back to a new ‘line of resistance’, mainly following the old Hindenburg support system along Flesquières Ridge. With that, everyone settled down for the winter.
Both sides could draw some reassurance from the outcome of the battle. The Germans had demonstrated the effectiveness of their newly refined infantry and artillery tactics, involving the use of dedicated stormtroops, which were to prove nearly decisive when put into full-scale operation in March 1918.
On the other hand, although flawed in its overall conception, the Battle of Cambrai has gone down in history as the first, crucial demonstration of the power of tanks when used effectively en masse and in combination with other arms. From now on, no defensive position could be considered impregnable, especially once the more manoeuvrable Mark V tanks became available in early 1918.
The Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of the army group at Cambrai, recognised that conditions had fundamentally changed. “The enemy will be able to repeat such hit-and-run attacks wherever the terrain permits the use of tanks. So we can no longer talk about ‘quiet fronts.’” Ironically, they had been driven back by a combination of guile, careful planning and mechanical ingenuity – characteristics we normally associate with the German rather than the British army.
Leutnant Bernhard Hegermann of 84 Infanterie-regiment, who was captured in the battle had a final word: “Here our high command suffered a terrible shock, just like the one experienced by the Romans when Hannibal and his elephants appeared in Italy after going through Spain and Gaul and across the Alps. What the elephants of Carthage were to the legions of Rome, so to a devastating degree were the English tank squadrons to the German troops – a tour de force of British military engineering.”
“FROM NOW ON NO DEFENSIVE POSITION COULD BE CONSIDERED IMPREGNABLE, ESPECIALLY ONCE THE MORE MANOEUVRABLE MARK V TANKS BECAME AVAILABLE IN EARLY 1918”