IV
At 4.30 on the morning of the 20th a heavy burst of firing from the enemy made us fear for the integrity of our secret, but to our great relief it died away, and for an hour before zero (6 a.m.) quiet reigned along almost the whole front of attack.
From documents captured during the battle we found that up to the 18th the Germans had issued such reports as “The enemy’s work is confined to the improvement of his trenches and wire.” But the prisoners whom the Germans had taken on the night of the 18th had yielded more interesting information. On the strength only of their preliminary examination the Germans moved reserve machine-guns up to Flesquières.
At the last moment a higher enemy authority seems to have again examined the prisoners, and, too late, an urgent warning was sent down to all units in the line to maintain a sharp lookout and to issue armour-piercing bullets immediately.
This message we found half transcribed in a front-line signal dug-out.
Six o’clock had struck.
Under cover of the mist the whole line of 350 Tanks moved forward, led by General Elles’ Flag Tank, the “Hilda.” As they moved a thousand concealed guns hailed down their fire upon the German line. Even through the din of the barrage and the clamour of their own engines the Tank crews could hear, as they advanced, the tearing and snapping of the German wire as they trampled it under them. The bewildered enemy was overwhelmed. He had only one last hope. Perhaps the wide trenches themselves would hold back this inexorable company!
But when each of the second line of Tanks stopped, ducked its head, laid its “stepping stone” in the trench and crawled easily over it, the enemy completely lost his balance.
All along the line men fled in panic. Only at a few tactical points did our onrush meet with any real opposition. The surprise, the novel tactics, the crushing onrush of the Tanks proved too much in those first confounding minutes for one of the best fighting armies the world had ever seen.
The “Hilda” reached the outposts line in the van of the battle; the resistance here was only slight, but General Elles succeeded in picking up a few targets which he pointed out to the gunners. It is reported that he did most of his observing with his head thrust up through the hatch in the roof of the Tank, using his feet in the gunner’s ribs to indicate targets.
Once the Tanks were astride the enormous Hindenburg ditch, the enemy only offered resistance in a few places. The “Hilda,” still carrying the flag which had been several times hit but not brought down, went on to her first objective line, which included the main Hindenburg front, and support lines.
But the General’s holiday was over. The great problem had been triumphantly solved.
The next most pressing need would be for reorganisation.
If any of the Tanks were required to operate again the next day, that reorganisation must be begun at once. So reluctantly leaving the “Hilda” to carry on to further objectives, the General came back on foot, somewhat impeded by various parties of “unmopped up” Germans who insisted on surrendering to him. By the afternoon, General Elles was back at his Headquarters, functioning by telephone and shorthand-typist in the manner usual to Generals.
Here and there, after the first rush, a desperate handful of the enemy would be rallied by their officers to defend some point of vantage.
At Lateau Wood on the right of the attack heavy fighting took place, including a duel between a Tank and a 5.9 in. howitzer. Turning on the Tank the howitzer fired, shattering and tearing off most of the right-hand sponson of the approaching machine, but fortunately not injuring its vitals; before the German gunners could reload, the Tank was upon them, and in a few seconds the great gun was crushed in a jumbled mass amongst the brushwood surrounding it.
A little to the west of this wood the Tanks of “F” (the 6th) Battalion, which had topped the ridge, were speeding down on Masnières. One approached the bridge, the key to the Rumilly-Seranvillers ridge, upon the capture of which so much depended. The bridge had, as the Tank Commander knew, been damaged either by shell-fire or by the German sappers. It was, however, most important that he should cross, and he very pluckily, therefore, went for it. As the Tank neared the centre of the bridge, there was a rending of steel girders—the bridge had broken, and as it collapsed the Tank disappeared into the waters of the canal. Other Tanks arriving, and not being able to cross, assisted the infantry to do so by opening a heavy covering fire.
The Tank that had fallen into the canal had been let down quite gradually into the water as the bridge slowly subsided.
There was but one loss. The wig of one of the crew got knocked off as his head emerged from the manhole, and it floated away down the canal and was never seen again. Lost to view, its memory was kept green for many months by its injured owner’s claims for compensation.
The dilemma which most cruelly racked the official mind was the question whether a wig came under the heading of “Field Equipment,” “Loss of a Limb,” “Medical Comfort,” “Clothing,” “Personal Effects,” or “Special Tank Stores.” Finally, however, its owner did receive monetary compensation for his loss.
But the genius of Comedy had not done with the Tanks.
[45]“The town had been evacuated so suddenly by the enemy that some civilian population still remained.
“Two cows belonging to the German Town Major were solemnly presented by their French civilian keeper to Major Hammond as a token of the joy that the inhabitants felt at their liberation.”
These absurd camp followers remained for long the most cherished possessions of the Battalion, and accompanied them wherever they went.
PREPARING FOR THE CAMBRAL. A TRAIN OF TANKS WITH FASCINES IN POSITION
THE BAPAUME-CAMBRAI ROAD
A TANK CRUSHING DOWN THE ENEMY’S WIRE
At Flesquières the 51st Highland Division, which was using an attack formation of its own, was held up; it appears that the Tanks outdistanced the infantry, or that the tactics adopted did not permit of the infantry keeping close enough up to the Tanks. As the Tanks topped the crest, they came under direct artillery fire at short range and suffered heavy casualties.
No less than sixteen Tanks were knocked out by a single field gun.
This gun was at the west end of the village, and from its position the Tanks were each outlined against the sky as they topped the ridge. Its story is told in Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatch, with a generosity which might well have encouraged what the Tank crews considered a most undesirable spirit in enemy gunners:
“Many of the hits upon our tanks at Flesquières were obtained by a German artillery officer who, remaining alone at his battery, served a field gun single-handed until killed at his gun. The great bravery of this officer aroused the admiration of all ranks.”
There was stiff fighting at Havrincourt, and before nightfall the 62nd Division and its Tanks had captured Graincourt. Several Tanks even pushed on beyond towards Bourlon Wood and the Cambrai road, but by this time the infantry were too exhausted to follow.
By 4 p.m. on November 20 one of the most astonishing battles in all history had been won, and as far as the Tank Corps was concerned, tactically finished.
There were no reserves of Tanks, and the crews that had fought all day were now very spent and weary.
The infantry were still more exhausted and a further advance was impossible. The night was spent by Tank crews and infantry in resting, and by the Staff in planning a renewed attack for the next day.
A letter home from a Tank officer describes a typical scene:
“We had captured the village of Havrincourt that morning, or rather its ruins, and it was in the one remaining room of the once magnificent Château that General John Ponsonby, commanding the 40th Division, established his Headquarters and convened a conference for ten o’clock in the evening.
“The road thither had already been sufficiently restored to permit of cars getting through, granted skilful driving and good luck.
“Felled trees, wire, breastworks, and other barriers had been cleared aside, trenches and craters on both sides of No Man’s Land had been roughly filled in, whilst the notorious ‘Grand Ravine’ had been made passable for carriage folk by the judicious placing of a few fascines.
“There were a round dozen of us at the conference, a muddy, rather blear-eyed party, some in tin hats and trench coats, revolver girt—some in honorific red and gold—all with slung gas-masks.
“General Ponsonby and his G.S.O.I. sat on an old packing-case with a map spread out before them on another, lit by the dancing flicker of two guttering candles stuck into German beer bottles. General Elles and Colonel Baker-Carr were there with a chorus of Commanding Officers, Company Commanders and Reconnaissance Officers from the 1st Tank Brigade.
“An armed sentry stood at the breach in the wall that served for doorway—signallers and orderlies entered and left the little circle of yellow light, stirring up the dust from the fallen débris on the broken floor.
“One felt uneasily conscious of forming part of a Graphic picture entitled ‘Advanced Headquarters,’ or ‘Planning the Battle.’
“Anyway, the battle was eventually planned and to the satisfaction of all parties present. The G.S.O.I. finished writing his operation orders for the morning’s attack, the conference dissolved, and we stumbled out once more into the night, each of us with some job to get done before the dawn.
“To me it fell to push on to the advanced Headquarters of the Infantry Brigades concerned to explain the plans for the morrow’s battles and to deliver certain necessary maps to the Tank Commanders who would be co-operating.
“I slung the maps for easier porterage along a pole that I and my orderly shouldered and from which they dangled in swaying white packages to the great interest and mystification of passing troops, to whom the bearers and the pole were invisible in the inky dark.
“It was a weary way up to Graincourt with nothing but gun flashes and infrequent star-shells to light the way, but at last we reached it.
“Two of the Infantry Brigades had, we found, established their Headquarters in a sort of catacomb underneath the ruined church—a wonderful place, part mediæval and part the work of the industrious Hun.
“Down and down you went—the old vaulted brickwork giving place to stout German timbering—until at the very bottom, some hundred feet below the floor of the church, the steep stairway ended in a gallery off which opened a whole street of little chambers.
“The place was insufferably hot and stuffy to one fresh in from the cold of the outer night; there was haze and reek of tobacco smoke and cooking, half drowning the stale dank smell, inseparable from a deep dug-out that has been long occupied—especially by Germans.
“Graincourt had been taken by surprise and had changed hands so quickly that we had taken over these very eligible Headquarters as a going concern ‘ready furnished for immediate occupation.’
“So sudden, indeed, had been the change of tenancy that the two Boche engineers whose job it was to run the electric lighting plant had been captured in their own subterranean engine-room and were even now stolidly carrying on their old duties, seemingly but little concerned by the fact that they were now ‘under entirely new management.’
“As it turned out, it was very well for us that we did capture and retain this precious pair, for when they found that they were going to be kept on to run the lighting as before, they quite shamelessly said:
“‘Well, if that’s the case, there’s just one little point we ought to warn you about, and that is, if any one moves what looks like the main switch—as any one would who didn’t know, when starting up the plant—the demolition charges would be blown. If you would like these removed in case of accidents, we can show you where to dig for them—we know exactly where to find them, as it was our job to lay them.’
“Even whilst I was there, I saw these ruffians superintending the removal of case after case of high-explosive from cunningly concealed chambers behind the timber linings and under floors.
“The cramped stairways, galleries and cubby-holes were crowded with odd specimens of all ranks and arms, some eating or talking, others huddled uneasily asleep, with the constant tide of traffic pouring over their sprawling limbs.
“Electric lights burned brilliantly, and the engine sent a steady shiver through the timbered walls like the vibrations of a steamer.
“Like a ship breasting the waves, too, were the intermittent thud and tremor of bursting shells in the village high overhead, or the replies of our own artillery.
“Telephones buzzed, a typewriter rattled away, and the clatter of plates being washed in a bucket made one wonder wistfully whether it would occur to any one to suggest that you might be hungry.
“One Brigadier, presumably the first come, sat in the utmost pomp and luxury in a sumptuous arm-chair of crimson plush, a ci-devant drawing-room table before him, on which was spread a large-scale detailed map of Bourlon Wood—a very valuable legacy left behind by the over-hasty Boches.
“On the walls were framed oleographs of Hindenburg and the Kaiser, whilst a gilt clock still kept German time as it ticked above the door.
“Two tiers of wire rabbit-net bunks lined one side of the little chamber, and a smart little stove surmounted by a fine old mirror adorned the other.
“They are pretty sound on Home Comforts are the Boches, and they don’t think twice about pinching anything they fancy from the unfortunate natives.
“Like another much advertised system of furnishing, ‘It’s so simple’! ‘Deferred Payment,’ if they will have it so—deferred, but payment at the last—payment good and plenty or I’ll eat my tin hat—including visor and lining.”