Naturally, an army of translators and copying clerks was set to work upon this precious find, and my Intelligence Service was kept busy for many days in making for me digests of those items likely to prove of special interest. It had, of course, to be remembered that the Defence Scheme had been brought into operation for the campaign of 1917, and it remained to be seen to what extent it might by now have become obsolete.
It was hardly to be expected that the enemy would adhere to it in its entirety, especially if he were aware, as I was bound to assume that he was, that all this information had fallen into our hands. But the Scheme contained a full exposition of many important topographical facts which it was in any case beyond his power to alter, and which it was of priceless value for me to know.
Although I had to devote hour upon hour to a concentrated study of these papers, it proved to be in greater part labour in vain so far as the Australian Corps was concerned, because it ultimately came about that although I did carry out the attack upon the Hindenburg outpost line in my present sector, the attack upon the Hindenburg main line, which I was, later, called upon to make, took place in the next adjoining sector to the north, i.e., the Bellicourt tunnel sector, to which these captured documents only incidentally referred. Nevertheless, the Ninth Corps, under Braithwaite, ultimately got the full benefit of these discoveries.
The production of these documents on September 10th formed the starting point of the discussions which were now initiated in the Fourth Army upon the question of the series of operations necessary to overthrow the Hindenburg defences. General Rawlinson, on September 13th, asked his three Corps Commanders (Butler, now restored to health and back at duty, Braithwaite and myself) to meet him at my newly-installed hutted camp at Assevillers. There, quite informally, over a cup of afternoon tea, the great series of operations took birth which so directly helped to finish the war.
It was decided that the operation must necessarily be divided into two main phases—separated in point of time by an interval of several days for further preparation. All of us recognized the impossibility of overrunning, in a single day, so deep and formidable a system of defences, in such tortured country, and in weather which was already becoming unsettled.
The first phase was to be an attempt to capture the Hindenburg outpost line, along the whole Army front. The French and the Third British Armies were to be asked to make a synchronized attack on the same objective. The three Corps of the Fourth Army were to attack upon the frontages and in the sectors on which they then stood. The date was left undecided, but all were to be ready at three days' notice.
One important consideration was the meagre supply of Tanks available. The operations of August had been costly, not to say extravagant, in Tanks, and General Elles' repair workshops, manned largely by very competent Chinese coolie mechanics, had been working night and day ever since to repair the minor damages, and new Tanks were steadily arriving from England to replace those damaged beyond repair. But no large contingent of Tanks was to be expected until towards the end of the month. The upshot was that I was to be content with only eight Tanks for use in the contemplated operation.
Late the same afternoon I communicated to Generals Maclagan and Glasgow an outline of the probable rôle of their respective Divisions in the very near future.
In the meantime, the front-line troops had not been idle. My orders were that the First and Fourth Divisions were to carry the line forward as far as possible towards the Hindenburg outpost line, without committing the Corps to an organized attack. They were to operate by vigorous patrol action against enemy points of resistance, for the enemy had evidently no intention of quietly giving up the ground which lay between us and the Hindenburg outpost line. On the contrary, he had posted strong rearguards on every point of tactical value, and did his best to keep us as long as possible at arm's length, and beyond striking distance of his first great line of defence.
These orders were entirely to the taste of the two Divisions now in the line. The First Division had served its apprenticeship to that very kind of fighting in the Merris area in the previous spring, and the Fourth Division did not mean to be a second best. Each Division stood on a one-Brigade front, being ordered to keep its other two Brigades well out of harm's way and resting, for any great effort that might be required.