THE WESTERN FRONT

THE FIRST BATTLE OF CAMBRAI:  NOVEMBER 1917

TANK WARFARE

    As we have seen, tanks were employed for the first time at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Just 49 were put into action in an encounter at Flers-Courcelette in mid-September, but at that stage, being very unreliable mechanically, only nine made it across No-Man’s Land. After this, as we have seen, both Britain and France used tanks in relatively small numbers, but the first mass attack (378 Mark IV in combat role) came at this major clash of arms, the First Battle of Cambrai. With the fighting for Passchendaele coming to a slow and very bloody end, General Haig approved a plan to capture this important rail centre, employing the Third Army and the Tank Corps. Beyond Cambrai lay “rolling chalk land”, ideal country for both tank and cavalry. Haig saw it as an opportunity not to be missed.

     The combined infantry and tank attack, together with strong air support, began on the 20th November and, over a six mile frontage, thrust through the Hindenburg line in three places (see map below). In the north, having swept through Havrincourt, Flesquières (a German stronghold), and Graincourt, the village of Moeuvres was captured, together with Bourlon Woods. By the end of the second day, the outskirts of Bourlon Ridge had been reached, a height overlooking Cambrai itself. In the centre, after the British had succeeded in capturing Ribecourt and the important town of Marcoing, cavalry units were sent to exploit the break through, but they were repulsed at Novelles. Meanwhile, in the south, La Vacquerie was seized, and there was a swift advance to Masnières. Here, however, the canal bridge had collapsed under the weight of a tank. This held up the British advance and, ominously, gave time for the Germans to bring up reinforcements.

Acknowledgements

Opening pic: cranstonmilitaryprints.com Map of Cambrai: aminoapps.com Map of Battle: aminoapps.com ChurchTower: free.clipart.com Battle of Cambrai: (left): Cranston Fine Arts (centre): deviantart.com by English artist Chris Rawlins (right): pinterest.com Badge: en.wikipedia Mark I: armedconflicts.com Renault FT: panzerserra.blogspot.com Swinton: findagrave.com

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    By then (the 25th November), 180 tanks had been put out of action by mechanical failure, enemy artillery, or the rugged nature of the terrain, and casualties amounted to 4,000, but the success of the operation was in no doubt. Newspaper headlines spoke of “a splendid success” and “Haig through the Hindenburg Line”, and the news was celebrated by the ringing of church bells throughout Britain – the first time since 1914! One report accredited the tank attack with the capture of 8,000 prisoners and 100 guns! But like many Allied attacks on the Western Front, it came close to its objective, but it failed to take advantage of early gains. Having dug in to defend the hold on Bourlon Reach, the reserve troops – assigned to take the offensive further – were not strong enough or near enough to take up the task. This was particularly so in the case of the cavalry, held up at Masnières by the collapse of the canal bridge. As a result, the Germans had sufficient time to bring in reinforcements and then, at the end of the month, go on the offensive, launching a massive counter-attack in the south which included the use of gas and stormtrooper tactics. The British were forced back, and on the 3rd December, Haig ordered “a retirement … with the least possible delay”. Three days later the fighting came to an end. The British did hold on to territory taken around the villages of Harincourt, Ribecourt and Flesquières, but they had lost as much ground as they had gained. Casualties were put at British 44,000 and German 45,000.

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     The Battle of Cambrai did not live up to its promise, but improvements in the use of the creeping barrage; the ample use of ground-attack aircraft; and, above all, the employment of tanks en masse, had broken through the Hindenburg Line, a formidable array of steel-reinforced concrete dugouts, pillboxes and gun emplacements. This was no mean achievement. This “failure” deserved closer inspection. Some saw in this early example of an “all arms assault”, the promise of a return to some measure of mobility. In the opening bombardment, for example, instead of a long period of “artillery registration” (i.e. long range firing before the attack), together with a necessary period of wire cutting, the artillery fire did not begin until after the infantry/tank/aircraft attack had begun (known as “predicted fire”). This provided an element of surprise, and enabled the tanks to crush the fields of barbed wire that, up to then, had been so effective and costly in slowing down an infantry attack. In addition, marked improvements were accomplished in the accuracy of aerial reconnaissance (as the Germans had made prior to the Battle of Riga in the September), and advances were even made on the effect of weather conditions upon the flight of shells. And whilst a large number of tanks had been lost in the attack – they were still prone to break-down and many were damaged or destroyed by enemy field guns – their presence enabled the infantry to advance under their cover, advancing in columns rather than widespread lines which were exposed to the sweep of machine gun fire. And tanks could be a formidable weapon when, running alongside the enemy’s front line, they could reduce small arms fire and the use of grenades. The tank was the weapon of the future. It was here to stay and, given time, bringxa return to mobility on the strength of its own merit.

TANKxWARFARE

    It was the British soldier and historian, Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Swinton, who – officially at least – was the first to put forward the idea of the tank. At the beginning of the war he worked as a War Office journalist on the Western Front, and saw the fighting first hand. He was deeply concerned at the enormous loss of infantry, mown down by machine gun fire. While on leave, he saw a Holt tractor towing a gun, and came up with the idea of “a petrol tractor on the caterpillar principle, armoured with hardened steel plates, that would be able to counteract the machine gun, break through entanglements, and climb earthworks”. After some field experiments, the idea was rejected by the Chief of the General Staff, Sir John French, and his scientific advisors. Many in the War Office still had faith in the role of the cavalry. However, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, having been sent details of the idea, set up a Landships Committee to study the matter further. The first prototype, nicknamed Little Willie, was produced in September 1915. From this was developed the Mark I, ready for service in 1916 and employed at the Battle of the Somme. It did not always live up to its potential (far from it), but, on the flat, it had a top speed of 4 mph; could reverse and turn sharply; had a working radius of 20 miles; and had the ability to climb a 5ft high earth parapet and cross an 8ft gap. The basic model had two small side-cannons and four machine-guns, operated by an eight-man crew. A Mark I is illustrated below. An improved version, Mark IV, was used at Cambrai, and it proved more successful. Indeed, by the summer of 1918 some 2,600 tanks had been manufactured, and were playing an important part on the battlefield.

The French were fully aware of the need for some kind of cross-country armoured vehicle on the Western Front. As early as the 24th August 1914, Colonel Jean Baptiste Estienne, a specialist in military engineering, pointed out that “victory would belong to the belligerent who is the first to put a cannon on a vehicle capable of moving on all kinds of terrain”. Development was begun in late 1915, and included the production of the Schneider CA1 and the Saint-Chammond, but none proved sufficiently reliable and, as in the case of the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917, many were destroyed or abandoned on the battlefield. Eventually, however, the two-man Renault FT light tank was produced, designed by Estienne, and this proved highly successful . The first tank to be fitted with a fully rotating turret that contained the main armament, this became the basis of future tank design from then on. By the end of 1917, over 80 had been produced and at the time of the armistice, no less than 2,613 were available. Many were sold abroad. (Illustrated here is one slightly modified by the Italians.)

     By contrast, the Germans – more in the defending rather than the attacking mode on the Western Front – did not produce tanks in large numbers, but often salvaged French and British tanks for use on the battlefield. They did develop the A7V tank – a very heavy vehicle with a crew of eighteen! – but they only produced twenty. The Russians, somewhat limited in industrial skills, produced their Tsar Tank (or Lebedenko Tank), in 1915. Fitted with large front wheels to ride over obstacles, it proved impractical and was abandoned. The Italians developed the heavy Fiat 2000 in 1917, but, in general, their battlegrounds were not suitable for tank warfare. Fifty were ordered, but only two were built, and they never saw active service. The Americans, via General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, ordered the production of 600 heavy and 1,200 light tanks in September 1917, but, due to production problems, only test vehicles had been completed before the end of the war.

     ErnestxDunlop Swinton (1868-1951) was born in Bangalore, India, and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1888. He served in India and the Second Boer War, and, when war broke out, as we have seen, he became an official British war correspondent on the Western Front with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1916, after his idea of a tank had been taken up and put into practice, he was given responsibility for training the first tank units, and drawing up the necessary tactical and operational manuals. He retired in 1919 with the honorary rank of Major General, and was appointed Professor of Military History at Oxford University from 1925 to 1939, and Colonel Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps from 1934 to 1938. It was in 1932 that he published Eyewitness, an account of his experiences during the war.

     Worthy of mention at this point is Colonel Maurice Henley, Secretary of the War Committee in London. He supported Swinton’s idea and was instrumental in passing it on to Winston Churchill. And the men who were given the task of producing this “landship” were Lieutenant Walter Wilson, a mechanical engineer serving with the Royal Naval Air Service, and William Tritton, an agricultural engineer and managing director of William Foster & Co., based in Lincoln.

     Incidentally, for security reasons, this new weapon was made out to be a water tank, destined to be sent out to the Middle East. When its true purpose was known, there seemed to be no reason why the name should be changed! ……

     …… The tank’s original name, Little Willie, is said to be a disparaging reference to the German Kaiser and the Crown Prince, both named Wilhelm! ……

     …… Just before the outbreak of the war, two promising tank-like vehicles were invented. In 1911, an Austrian engineer named Gunther Burstyn proposed a vehicle that housed a gun in a rotating turret – the Motorgeschütz. Then the following year Lancelot de Mole, an Australian civil engineer, put forward a scale model of a working, fully tracked vehicle. Both were rejected by their respective governments!

     Asxwe shall see, there was a Second Battle of Cambrai in October 1918, fought during what came to be known as the Hundred Days Offensive. Again, tanks, more than 300, were used to break through the Hindenburg Line. This time the town of Cambrai was captured, and less than a month later, the Germans sued for peace. In the meantime, however, as we shall see, it was to be the Allies who were in retreat, and seriously so. In March the Germans launched the Ludendorff Offensive, a series of powerful attacks which planned to drive a wedge between the British and French forces, and then knock each army out of the war before American forces arrived in strength. It was a bold, desperate attempt to win the war and, at one time, it appeared close to achieving its aim.