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　　CHAPTER VII

　　At the end of those battles happened that surprising, audacious adventure in the Cambrai salient organized by the Third Army under General Byng, when on November 20, 1917, squadrons of tanks broke through the Hindenburg line, and infantry streamed through the breach, captured hundreds of guns, ten thousand prisoners, many villages and ridges, and gave a monstrous shock to the German High Command.

　　The audacity of the adventure lay in the poverty of manpower with which it was attempted and supported. The divisions engaged had all been through the grinding mill of Flanders and were tired men. The artillery was made up largely of those batteries which had been axle—deep in Flanders mud. It was clearly understood by General Byng and Gen. Louis Vaughan, his chief of staff, that Sir Douglas Haig could not afford to give them strong reserves to exploit any success they might gain by surprise or to defend the captured ground against certain counter-attacks. It was to be a surprise assault by tanks and infantry, with the hope that the cavalry corps might find its gap at last and sweep round Cambrai before the enemy could recover and reorganize. With other correspondents I saw Gen. Louis Vaughan, who expounded the scheme before it was launched. That charming man, with his professional manner, sweetness of speech, gentleness of voice and gesture, like an Oxford don analyzing the war correspondence of Xenophon, made no secret of the economy with which the operation would have to be made.

　　“We must cut our coat according to our cloth,” he said.

　　The whole idea was to seize only as much ground as the initial success could gain, and not to press if resistance became strong. It was a gamble, with a chance of luck. The cavalry might do nothing, or score a big triumph. All depended on the surprise of the tanks. If they were discovered before the assault the whole adventure would fail at the start.

　　They had been brought up secretly by night, four hundred of them, with supply-tanks for ammunition and petrol lying hidden in woods by day. So the artillery and infantry and cavalry had been concentrated also. The enemy believed himself secure in his Hindenburg line, which had been constructed behind broad hedges of barbed wire with such wide ditches that no tank could cross.

　　How, then, would tanks cross? Ah, that was a little trick which would surprise the Germans mightily. Each tank would advance through the early morning mists with a bridge on its nose. The bridge was really a big “fascine,” or bundle of fagots about a yard and a half in diameter, and controlled by a lever and chain from the interior of the tank. Having plowed through the barbed wire and reached the edge of the Hindenburg trench, the tank would drop the fascine into the center of the ditch, stretch out its long body, reach the bundle of fagots, find support on it, and use it as a stepping-stone to the other side. Very simple in idea and effect!

　　So it happened, and the mists favored us, as I saw on the morning of the attack at a little place called Beaumont, near Villers Pluich. The enemy was completely surprised, caught at breakfast in his dugouts, rounded up in batches. The tanks went away through the breach they had made, with the infantry swarming round them, and captured Havrincourt, Hermies, Ribecourt, Gouzeaucourt, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and a wide stretch of country forming a cup or amphitheater below a series of low ridges south of Bourlon Wood, where the ground rose again.

　　It was a spectacular battle, such as we had never seen before, and during the following days, when our troops worked up to Bourlon Wood and through the intervening villages of Anneux, Graincourt, Containg, and Fontaine Notre Dame, I saw tanks going into action and cruising about like landships, with cavalry patrols riding over open ground, airplanes flying low over German territory, and masses of infantry beyond all trench-lines, and streams of liberated civilians trudging through the lines from Marcoing. The enemy was demoralized the first day and made only slight resistance. The chief losses of the tanks were due to a German major of artillery who served his own guns and knocked out a baker's dozen of these monsters as they crawled over the Flesquieres Ridge. I saw them lying there with the blood and bones of their pilots and crews within their steel walls. It was a Highland soldier who checked the German major.

　　“You're a brave man,” he said, “but you've got to dee,” and ran him through the stomach with his bayonet. It was this check at the Flesquieres Ridge, followed by the breaking of a bridge at Masnieres under the weight of a tank and the holding of a trench-line called the Rumilly switch by a battalion of Germans who raced to it from Cambrai before our men could capture it, which thwarted the plans of the cavalry. Our cavalry generals were in consultation at their headquarters, too far back to take immediate advantage of the situation. They waited for the capture of the Rumilly switch, and held up masses of cavalry whom I saw riding through the village of Ribecourt, with excitement and exaltation, because they thought that at last their chance had come. Finally orders were given to cancel all previous plans to advance. Only one squadron, belonging to the Canadian Fort Garry Horse in General Seely's division, failed to receive the order (their colonel rode after them, but his horse slipped and fell before he caught them up), and it was their day of heroic folly. They rode fast and made their way through a gap in the wire cut by the troopers, and came under rifle and machine-gun fire, which wounded the captain and several men.

　　The command was carried on by a young lieutenant, who rode with his men until they reached the camouflaged road southeast of the village of Rumilly, where they went through in sections under the fire of the enemy hidden in the banks. Here they came up against a battery of field-guns, one of which fired point-blank at them. They charged the battery, putting the guns out of action and killing some of the gunners. Those who were not destroyed surrendered, and the prisoners were left to be sent back by the supports. The squadron then dealt with the German infantry in the neighborhood. Some of them fled, while some were killed or surrendered. All these operations were done at a gallop under fire from flanking blockhouses. The squadron then slowed down to a walk and took up a position in a sunken road one kilometer east of Rumilly. Darkness crept down upon them, and gradually they were surrounded by German infantry with machine-guns, so that they were in great danger of capture or destruction. Only five of their horses remained unhit, and the lieutenant in command decided that they must endeavor to cut their way through and get back. The horses were stampeded in the direction of the enemy in order to draw the machine-gun fire, and while these riderless horses galloped wildly out of one end of the sunken road, the officer and his surviving troopers escaped from the other end. On the way back they encountered four bodies of the enemy, whom they attacked and routed. On one occasion their escape was due to the cunning of another young lieutenant, who spoke German and held conversations with the enemy in the darkness, deceiving them as to the identity of his force until they were able to take the German troops by surprise and hack a way through. This lieutenant was hit in the face by a bullet, and when he arrived back in Masnieres with his men in advance of the rear-guard he was only able to make his report before falling in a state of collapse.

　　Other small bodies of cavalry—among them the 8th Dragoons and 5th Hussars—had wild, heroic adventures in the Cambrai salient, where they rode under blasts of machine-gun fire and rounded up prisoners in the ruined villages of Noyelles and Fontaine Notre Dame. Some of them went into the Folie Wood nearby and met seven German officers strolling about the glades, as though no war was on. They took them prisoners, but had to release some of them later, as they could not be bothered with them. Later they came across six ammunition—wagons and destroyed them. In the heart of the wood was one of the German divisional headquarters, and one of our cavalry officers dismounted and approached the cottage stealthily, and looked through the windows. Inside was a party of German officers seated at a table, with beer mugs in front of them, apparently unconscious of any danger near them. Our officer fired his revolver through the windows and then, like a schoolboy who has thrown a stone, ran away as hard as he could and joined his troop. Youthful folly of gallant hearts!

　　After the enemy's surprise his resistance stiffened and he held the village of Fontaine Notre Dame, and Bourlon Wood, on the hill above, with strong rear-guards. Very quickly, too, he brought new batteries into action, and things became unpleasant in fields and villages where our men, as I saw them on those days, hunted around for souvenirs in German dugouts and found field-glasses, automatic pistols, and other good booty.

　　It seemed to me that the plan as outlined by Gen. Louis Vaughan, not to exploit success farther than justified by the initial surprise, was abandoned for a time. A brigade of Guards was put in to attack Fontaine Notre Dame, and suffered heavily from machine-gun fire before taking it. The 62d (Yorkshire) Division lost many good men in Bourlon Village and Bourlon Wood, into which the enemy poured gas-shells and high explosives.

　　Then on November 30th the Germans, under the direction of General von Marwitz, came back upon us with a tiger's pounce, in a surprise attack which we ought to have anticipated. I happened to be on the way to Gouzeaucourt early that morning, and, going through the village of Fins, next to it, I saw men straggling back in some disorder, and gun-teams wedged in a dense traffic moving in what seemed to me the wrong direction.

　　“I don't know what to do,” said a young gunner officer. “My battery has been captured and I can't get into touch with the brigade.”

　　“What has happened?” I asked.

　　He looked at me in surprise.

　　“Don't you know? The enemy has broken through.”

　　“Broken through where?”

　　The gunner officer pointed down the road.

　　“At the present moment he's in Gouzeaucourt.”

　　I went northward, and saw that places like Hermies and Havrincourt, which had been peaceful spots for a few days, were under heavy fire. Bourlon Wood beyond was a fiery furnace. Hell had broken out again and things looked bad. There was a general packing up of dumps and field hospitals and heavy batteries. In Gouzeaucourt and other places our divisional and brigade headquarters were caught napping. Officers were in their pajamas or in their baths when they heard the snap of machine-gun bullets. I saw the Guards go forward to Gouzeaucourt for a counter-attack. They came along munching apples and whistling, as though on peace maneuvers. Next day, after they had gained back Gouzeaucourt, I saw many of them wounded, lying under tarpaulins, all dirty and bloody.

　　The Germans had adopted our own way of attack. They had assembled masses of troops secretly, moving them forward by night under the cover of woods, so that our air scouts saw no movement by day. Our line was weakly held along the front—the 55th Division, thinned out by losses, was holding a line of thirteen thousand yards, three times as much as any troops can hold, in safety—and the German storm-troops, after a short, terrific bombardment, broke through to a distance of five miles.

　　Our tired men, who had gained the first victory, fought heroic rear-guard actions back from Masnieres and Marcoing, and back from Bourlon Wood on the northern side of the salient. They made the enemy pay a high price in blood for the success of his counter-attack, but we lost many thousands of brave fellows, and the joy bells which had rung in London on November 20th became sad and ironical music in the hearts of our disappointed people.

　　So ended 1917, our black year; and in the spring of 1918, after all the losses of that year, our armies on the western front were threatened by the greatest menace that had ever drawn near to them, and the British Empire was in jeopardy. Now It Can Be Told