“At 4.30 they saw General Debeney (the French Army Commander) and the French Corps Commander, when railheads and a general scheme of movement were decided upon.
“That night the 9th Battalion was warned, and the battle took place at dawn on the following Tuesday.”
Practice makes perfect, and we gradually discovered that the kind of full-dress attacks for which we had always, as a matter of course, allowed a month of preparation, could, in fact, be staged in half that time.
We see in the huge Battle of Amiens, of which only ten days’ notice was given to the troops who took part, how great a reform we managed to accomplish.
II
The attack was to be at dawn on July 23, and was to be—like Hamel—a more or less limited and experimental battle.
Its immediate object was to seize St. Ribert Wood in order to outflank Mailly Raineval from the south, to abolish certain highly objectionable German batteries which lay near St. Ribert, and to advance the French field guns eastward in such a way that they would bear upon the high ridges which dominate the right bank of the river Avre.
The country here was undulating and the soil well drained, and, except for a number of large and very dense woods, there were very few Tank obstacles.
There were to be three objectives. The first was a line which ran through the Bois des Sauvillers, Adelpare Farm, and Les-Trois-Boqueleaux. Twelve Tanks and four Battalions of French infantry were detailed for its capture.
The second objective included the clearing of the plateau to the north of the Bois des Sauvillers, and the capture of a corner of the Bois de Harpan. Twenty-four Tanks were allotted to this objective and four infantry Battalions.