[Illustration: Photograph: Line of marching soldiers stretching back to
the horizon. Several men resting in the foreground.]
Canadian Official Photograph.
From Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
CANADIANS IN THE GREAT CAMBRAI DRIVE
One of the busy scenes just preceding the victorious attack by the
Canadians upon Cambrai. In the center can be seen captured Germans
carrying in one of their wounded comrades.
In the French official report occurred the following statement:
"The brilliant operation which we, in concert with British troops, executed yesterday has been a surprise for the enemy. As occurred in the offensive of July 18th the soldiers of General Debeney have captured enemy soldiers engaged in the peaceful pursuit of harvesting the fields behind the German lines."
By August 10th the Germans had fallen back to a line running through Chaulnes and Roye. Montdidier had been captured, and eleven German divisions had been smashed. By August 12th the number of prisoners was 40,000, and by the 18th the Allied front was almost in the same line as it was in the summer of 1916, before the battle of the Somme.
The next step was to capture Bapaume and Peronne. The French, on August 19th, captured the Lassigny Massif, and continued to press on their attack. Noyon fell on the 29th, Roye on the 27th, Chaulnes on the 29th. Further north the British had captured Albert, and on the 29th occupied Bapaume. On September 1st they took Peronne with two thousand prisoners.
The advance still continued, and the German weakness was becoming more and more apparent. On September 6th the whole Allied line swept forward, with an average penetration of eight miles. Chauny was captured and the fortress of Ham. On September 17th the British were close to St. Quentin and the French in their own old intrenchments before La Fere. On September 18th a surprise advance over a twenty-two-mile front crossed the Hindenburg line at two points north of St. Quentin, Villeret and from Pontru to Hollom.
The first and third British armies, a little further to the north, were moving toward Cambrai and Douai, threatening not only them, but to get in the rear of Lens. This force proceeded up the Albert-Bapaume highway, and on August 27th captured a considerable portion of the Hindenburg line. On the 30th they reached Bullecourt and on September 2d crossed the Drocourt-Queant line on a six-mile-front. This was the famous switch line, meant to supplement the Hindenburg line and its capture meant the complete overthrow of the German intrenched positions at this point.
[Illustration: MAP: Arras in the Southwest corner, Douai in the
Northeast.]
THE FAMOUS HINDENBURG LINE THAT CRUMBLED IN 1918.
The Germans retreated hastily to the Canal du Nord, and on September 3d Queant was captured by an advance on a twenty mile front, along with ten thousand prisoners. The Allied forces were moving steadily forward. On September 18th the British reached the defenses of Cambrai and were encircling the city of St. Quentin. On October 3d the advance upon Cambrai forced the Germans to evacuate the Lens coal fields, and on October 9th another advance over a thirty-mile front enabled the Allies to occupy Cambrai and St. Quentin. On the 11th they had reached the suburbs of Douai. By this time the whole of the Picardy salient had been wiped out.
The preceding summary of this great movement gives little idea of the tremendous struggle which had gone on during these two critical months, and hardly does more than suggest the tremendous importance of the British operations. The Hindenburg line was like a great fortification, and for more than a year had been regarded as impregnable. At Bullecourt there were two main lines. One hundred and twenty-five yards in front of the first line was a belt of wire twenty-five feet broad, so thick that it could not be seen through. The line itself contained double machine-gun emplacements of ferro-concrete, one hundred and twenty-five yards apart, with lesser emplacements between them. More belts of wire protected the support line. Here a continuous tunnel had been constructed at a depth of over forty feet. Every thirty-five yards there were exits with flights of forty-five steps. The tunnels were roofed and lined and bottomed with heavy timber, and numerous rooms branched off. They were lighted by electricity. Large nine-inch trench mortars stood at the traverses and strong machine-gun positions covered the line from behind.