The Heavy Line Shows the Position of the Hostile Armies, When the Austrians Threatened A New Drive in 1918. The Shaded Line Shows the Italian Positions Before the Austro-German Offensive, in the Fall of 1917.
WIN AND LOSE AT CAMBRAI
For the first time since the war began England celebrated on November the victory of Field Marshal Haig and General Byng at Cambrai, in the old-fashioned way, by the ringing of bells in London and other cities. Heavy fighting continued for several days at the apex of the wedge driven into the German line, especially at Bourlon Wood and the village of Fontaine, where attacks and counter-attacks followed in rapid succession.
Up to November 30 the British held their gains near Cambrai and that city lay under their guns. Then the Germans in a determined attack surprised the British in their turn, and forced them, back from their new positions for a distance of about two miles, nearly to the Bapaume-Cambrai road.
Next day, by fierce fighting, the British recaptured Gouzeau-court. The battle then raged over a fifteen-mile front, desperate efforts being made by the Germans to regain all the ground taken by the British west and south of Cambrai. The British had had no chance to dig themselves in and consolidate their positions in the ground won, and on December 1 and 2 the struggle was in the open, a fierce hand-to-hand conflict unlike anything previously seen in the war. The British lost guns, for the first time in more than thirty months. They also lost many men, taken prisoner by the enemy, but soon succeeded in checking the counter-offensive.
In their attempt to deliver a great simultaneous encircling attack, to surround the victorious British in their new Cambrai salient, the Germans sent forward great forces of infantry, supported by a terrific bombardment. The British met the shock brilliantly, finally held their own, and the German drive was declared to have missed its end, at enormous sacrifice of life.
On the night of December 5 the British strengthened their line by abandoning certain untenable positions near Cambrai, falling back deliberately and successfully, unknown to the enemy, upon a well-chosen line which ruled out the dangerous salient made by Bourlon Wood. Here they prepared to maintain their hold upon the captured length of the Hindenburg line against any pressure.
The German casualties in the battle of Cambrai were estimated at 100, men, greatly exceeding those of the British in consequence of the nature of the massed attacks made by infantry in the counteroffensive.
As the year 1917 closed there was a succession of German attacks and counter-attacks by the British in the Cambrai sector, the British lines holding firmly at all points and continuing to hold during the winter.