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.