The consternation and disorganization caused by the sudden onslaught of these cars, at places fully ten miles behind the enemy's front line of that morning, may be left to the imagination. It was a feat of daring and resolute performance, which deserves to be remembered.
The Burning Villages—east of Péronne.
Dummy Tank Manufacture.
Throughout the whole day, surrenders by the enemy, particularly of troops in rear or reserve positions, were on a wholesale scale. The total number of live prisoners actually counted up to nightfall in the Divisional and Corps Prisoner-of-War Cages exceeded 8,000 and the Canadians had gathered in at least as many more.
The Australian Corps also captured 173 guns capable of being hauled away, not counting those which had been blown to pieces. These captures included two "railway" guns, one of 9-inch and the other of 11.2-inch bore. The latter was an imposing affair. The gun itself rested on two great bogie carriages, each on eight axles; it was provided with a whole train of railway trucks fitted some to carry its giant ammunition, others as workshops, and others as living quarters for the gun detachment. The outfit was completed by a locomotive to haul the gun forward to its daily task of shelling Amiens, and hauling it back to its garage when its ugly work was done.
The captures of machine guns and of trench mortars of all types and sizes were on so extensive a scale that no attempt was ever made to make even an approximate count of them. They were ultimately collected into numerous dumps, and German prisoners were employed for many weeks in cleaning and oiling them for transport to Australia as trophies of war.
But the booty comprised a large and varied assortment of many other kinds of warlike stores. The huge dumps of engineering material at Rosières and La Flaque served all the needs of the Corps for the remainder of the war. There were horses, wagons, lorries and tractors by the hundred, including field searchlights, mobile pharmacies, motor ambulances, travelling kitchens, mess carts, limbers, and ammunition wagons, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition scattered all over the captured territory in dumps both large and small.