The Cambrai Campaign, 1917

Andrew Rawson

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781526714374
• eBook ISBN: 9781526714398
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Cambrai Campaign 1917 is an account of the British Expeditionary Forces battles in November and December of 1917. It starts with the plan to carry out a tank raid on the Hindenburg Line at Cambrai. The raid grew into a full scale attack and Third Army would rely on a different style of attack. The preliminary bombardment would be done away with and the troops would assemble in secret.Predicted fire had reached such a level of accuracy that 1,000 guns could hit targets without registration. Meanwhile, over 375 tanks would lead the infantry through the Hindenburg Line, ripping holes in the wire and suppressing the enemy. The study of the German counterattack ten days later, illustrates the different tactics they used and the British experience on the defensive.Each stage of the battle is given equal treatment, with detailed insights into the most talked about side of the campaign, the British side. It explains how far the Tank Corps had come in changing the face of trench warfare. Over forty new maps chart the day by day progress of each corps on each day.Together the narrative and the maps provide an insight into the British Armys experience during this important campaign. The men who made a difference are mentioned; those who led the advances, those who stopped the counterattacks and those who were awarded the Victoria Cross.Discover the Cambrai campaign and learn how the British Armys brave soldiers fought and died fighting to achieve their objectives.

Chapter 1

Most Suitable for a Surprise Operation

The Genesis of a Surprise Attack

The Retreat to the Hindenburg Line

The town of Cambrai had been thirty miles behind the German lines since the autumn battles of 1914 and trains had carried troops and ammunition through the busy railway centre ever since. That all changed when the German High Command decided to withdraw its armies, to shorten its line, in the autumn of 1916. The new front would pass only eight miles to the west of the town.

Construction companies, labour units and Russian prisoners worked together on new fortifications all through the winter. Short stretches of trenches were joined together until they formed one long length, eighty-five miles from Neuville Vitasse to the River Aisne, east of Soissons. The new line was called the Siegfried-Stellung but the British would refer to it as the Hindenburg Line, after Paul von Hindenburg, the Chief of the German General Staff.

The line had several trench systems and they sometimes covered a three-mile deep area. An outpost line would disrupt attacks while the fighting would take place in the battle zone; a support line would contain any breakthroughs. Belts of barbed wire were erected in irregular patterns and gaps were left to funnel the enemy troops towards the machine-gun posts. The infantry hid in concrete shelters while the headquarters, communication and medical facilities were safe in deep dugouts.

The German Second Army began withdrawing from the Somme region at the end of February 1917. The British cautiously followed, encountering three defensive lines as they crossed the devastated region. Any thoughts that the Germans would continue their slow withdrawal were abandoned when a captured document revealed the ‘Alberich’ plan (named after a malicious dwarf in Richard Wagner’s Nibelungen musical dramas). They planned to move as fast as possible, beginning on 17 March.

The delayed withdrawal had given the German engineers time to carry out a ‘scorched earth’ policy, destroying everything before they left:

There were many fires burning when we occupied the village and as they were still burning, we tried to put them out. The junction of every road had been mined and blown up and everything of value had been destroyed. All the fruit trees had either been pulled down or an incision made around the bark so the sap would not rise. All the wells had been blown in and one had been poisoned with arsenic.

Buildings and dugouts were either blown up or booby-trapped with a multitude of crude and ingenious devices, making the British and Australian soldiers wary of touching anything. It would take the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers weeks to make the rear areas safe.

The Western Front in November 1917.

The rolling countryside south-west of Cambrai was similar to the Somme, with small villages and large woods a feature of the landscape. The River Schelde meandered west of the town, passing through a narrow valley around Banteux; the St Quentin Canal ran parallel to it. The Canal du Nord was under construction when the war broke out and it consisted of a huge, dry channel.

The Hindenburg Line ran in a north-west to south-east direction. The outpost line had short lengths of trench and fortified buildings to keep patrols away from the front trench. The main line was approximately 1,500 yards from the British line and it had two trenches. They were often dug much wider at ground level to prevent the tanks crossing. Typically there were four belts of waist-high barbed wire, each over ten yards deep. Wire was also erected either side of the communication trenches, to stop the attacking troops moving laterally. The support line was a similar system, 1,500 yards to the rear, but it was incomplete and some trenches were no more than shallow ditches protected by a little wire.

There was another line of defence in preparation up to 2½ miles behind the support trenches. The Cantaing Line section covered Bourlon Wood while the section east of the St Quentin Canal was called the Beaurevoir–Masnières line. They were again only half completed.

Planning a Tank Raid

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), had first discussed an attack in the Cambrai area with his French counterpart, General Robert Nivelle, on 24 April 1917. The British battle around Arras was in its third week while the French attack on the Aisne had been underway for a week. Neither had achieved the desired breakthrough, so the generals had to consider future operations.

Nivelle wanted the French to attack the Hindenburg Line around St Quentin while the British attacked at Cambrai. Haig discussed the idea with General Sir Henry Rawlinson of Fourth Army and General Sir Hubert Gough of Fifth Army. Rawlinson was asked to prepare a plan of attack.

The French offensive failed to live up to its expectations and Nivelle had been sacked on 15 May. Three days later Haig met his successor, General Phillipe Pétain. He said he might attack the Hindenburg Line instead of in Flanders, following the capture of Messines Ridge, and wondered if the French could attack at St Quentin. Lieutenant General Sir William Pulteney, III Corps’ commander, eventually suggested advancing between the Canal du Nord and St Quentin canals but the plan came to nothing and the BEF attacked in Flanders on 31 July.

The Cambrai area prior to Third Army’s attack.

Brigadier General Elles and his chief staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Fuller, were pushing to get their Tank Corps involved in future offensives. But Haig still thought the tanks were an ‘adjunct to the infantry attack’ and the Flanders mud did not help the Tank Corps’ case. The tanks had either bogged down in the mud or were knocked out on the few roads, so Elles suggested using the tanks on better ground. Lieutenant Colonel Fuller suggested a large tank raid with the RFC making low-flying attacks, as the infantry attacked the artillery protecting Cambrai. Elles would discuss such a plan with Brigadier General Davidson, GHQ’s Chief of Operations, while Colonel Hardress Lloyd, the commander of III Tank Brigade, was talking to Third Army’s commander, General Sir Julian Byng.

A Surprise Operation

Brigadier General Tudor was the commander of 9th (Scottish) Division’s artillery. He had been considering how gunners could use predictive fire to Most Suitable for a Surprise Operation 17 silence enemy batteries rather than the usual method of observe, fire and check. They could use a combination of observation, survey techniques, calibration tests and meteorological advice to calculate their firing bearing and range. An offensive would not need a preliminary barrage if the tanks cut the wire ahead of the infantry. The logistics headache of stockpiling shells for a preliminary barrage would be reduced and the enemy could be surprised if everything was kept hidden. The gunners would hit the enemy batteries at zero hour while the tanks crushed the wire and suppressed strongpoints. Tudor spoke to Brigadier General De Pree at IV Corps headquarters and then submitted a report to his commanding officer, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Woollcombe. Tudor suggested breaking the Hindenburg Line and then sending cavalry across the Flesquières Ridge towards Cambrai. GHQ was interested but the plan would have to be tailored to suit the resources available.

Elles had already visited IV Corps’ front but he made another two visits after hearing that Woollcombe had forwarded his plan to Third Army on 23 August. The ground was firm and barely scarred by shell craters while there were plenty of hiding places for tanks in the villages and Havrincourt Wood. His main concern was the Hindenburg Line trenches which appeared to be wider than normal; they had been designed as tank traps. Elles also asked if the attack could be wider than Woollcombe suggested and Byng agreed. A quick breakthrough by the tanks meant the cavalry could be deep in enemy territory by the time German reinforcements arrived, some forty-eight hours later.

Byng submitted his plan to GHQ and while Haig approved, his Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Launcelot Kiggell, said the BEF continued to be fully committed to the Flanders campaign. Byng still submitted a detailed plan on 16 September and he discussed it with Brigadier General Davidson, Chief of the Operations Section, the following day. All eyes were on the Passchendaele and Broodseinde ridges for the next two weeks, as Fifth Army and Second Army advanced side by side in three successful operations. Then the rains began and it turned the Ypres Salient into a quagmire, slowing the advance to a snail’s pace.

Haig knew the campaign’s strategic objective, the clearing of the Flanders coast, was now beyond reach after the 12 October attack. All Second Army could hope to do was to clear the Passchendaele ridge and dig in for the winter. He went over Third Army’s plan with Byng the following day, promising four divisions to train with the three Tank Corps’ brigades.

Byng explained the plan to his corps commanders on 26 October as Haig was hearing the War Cabinet wanted to send two infantry divisions to the Italian Theatre, to stop the German breakthrough at Caporetto. Another two would be asked for twelve days later. Haig remained convinced that an attack at Cambrai was the best way to assist the Italians because it would keep the Germans focussed on the Western Front.

Haig closed down the Flanders campaign on 13 November and told Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir William Robertson, he planned to try Third Army’s plan for a surprise attack. His despatch would later state, ‘the object of these operations was to gain a local success at a point where the enemy did not expect it… the Cambrai front had been selected as the most suitable for the surprise operations in contemplation.’

Predicted Shooting

The artillery took several days to register and destroy targets with the help of air and ground observers; the cutting of the wire also took time; a prolonged bombardment warned the enemy; the ammunition put a huge strain on an army’s logistics; and there was the problem of thousands of exploding shells churning up the battlefield, making the ground impassable in inclement weather. So the plan was threefold:

1. The artillery would refine their methods, so they could hit with their first shot.

2. The tanks would cut the wire and suppress enemy strongpoints.

3. The tanks would seize ground for the infantry to occupy.

Accurate trench maps of the Western Front had been available for two years and map firing had been tried during the Battle of Loos, in September 1915. Every heavy battery and siege battery had been surveyed and plotted on trench maps. A map with a large graduated arc, centred on the battery position, was given to each battery commander so he could quickly calculate the correct angle and range to any target. The ‘battery board’ proved to be successful and soon every heavy and field battery had one.

Accuracy was improved by the introduction of ‘bearing pickets’ which involved surveyors accurately locating every battery position using a trigonometrical survey. It allowed the crews to lay their guns in a parallel line, an important factor when firing a creeping barrage.

It had also been realised that each gun fired a slightly different distance even when they were all set up the same. Sound ranging equipment was to measure each gun’s muzzle velocity and it was noted that repeated firing reduced the effectiveness of the recoil system due to wear and tear on the buffers and recuperator. A calibration range was opened in the autumn of 1917 and each gun was assessed. Weather conditions also affected the range; temperature, barometric pressure and wind direction and speed were reported several times a day, so adjustments could be made.

There had also been important improvement in target acquisition. Around two thirds of guns would be employed in counter-battery work and their shots had to land on target at zero hour. Flash spotting involved noting the muzzle flash of guns by different observers and using trigonometry to locate the battery. Sound ranging was used to estimate the distance to batteries from set points, again using trigonometry to fix their positions.

Major General Henry Lecky had been busy choosing Third Army’s battery positions and there was a race against time to move all the guns into place. Major Keeling, of the 3rd Field Survey Company, worked around the clock to establish bearing pickets for them all, using torches and lamps to complete the work during the hours of darkness. This allowed the gunners to prepare battery boards so they knew where their targets were. All IV Corps’ guns were in place by 15 November but the crews in III Corps’ area had to work hard to be ready before zero. The last gun to arrive was a 9.2-inch railway gun which was shunted onto a siding south of Havrincourt Wood.

The Role of the Tank

The new style of attack promised great things but many senior officers had their concerns. Some did not think the unregistered artillery bombardment would have the desired effect while others doubted the tanks could break the Hindenburg Line. Both 51st and 56th Divisions had made several attacks with them and most of them had been successful. The 62nd Division had experienced failure with them at Bullecourt in May 1917 but 36th Division had success with them at Messines in June. Both the 20th and 12th Divisions had also done well with tanks but the 6th Division had experienced problems with them on the Somme a year before.

The Mark I tanks deployed on the Somme in September 1916 had led the infantry but the gunners had to leave gaps in the barrage for the machines. The problem came if they broke down, ditched or were knocked out, leaving the infantry exposed to machine-gun fire. The tanks had followed the infantry to the first objective at Arras and in Flanders, taking over the lead during the later stages of the advance. They were useful for crushing the wire beyond the range of the field guns and they could also help suppress the enemy in their trenches until the infantry arrived.

The Mark IV, with its improved armour, better steering and upgraded engine had been deployed in time for the attack at Messines. They did well but the engineers had provided the knock-out blow by detonating seventeen huge mines under the German front line at zero hour. The tanks had merely helped the infantry deal with the isolated pockets of resistance.

The problem in Flanders had been the soft ground and high water table, especially when the rain and heavy shelling churned it into mud. The low point was 31 July. The Tank Corps set off with 52 tanks, 22 ditched or broke down while 19 had been knocked out along the Menin Road. The ground was too boggy to leave the road and a single anti-tank gun had accounted for most of them. Only eleven tanks returned to the deployment area. The War Office even suggested stopping the expansion of the Tank Corps and transferring the fittest men to the infantry during a replacement shortage.

Another problem was that the Germans had discovered the maximum crossing span of ten feet with a captured tank. So they had dug the Hindenburg Line trenches two feet wider. Large bundles of brushwood, squeezed tight with chains, were mounted on the top of the tanks and trialled at Ransart at the end of September. Two arms would drop the fascines into the trench, forming a bridge for the tank to cross and a block for the infantry to defend.

The Germans had also learnt to deploy their field guns in an anti-tank role. The modified weapons had a lower profile and were armed wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Regiments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Most Suitable for a Surprise Operation
• Chapter 2 We Go Straight In and Sit on the Germans
• Chapter 3 Straining like Dogs of War on the Leash
• Chapter 4 This was No Time for Half Measures
• Chapter 5 Black Monsters Moaning and Panting
• Chapter 6 All the Usual War Problems Had Been Thought Out
• Chapter 7 The Men Could See the Spires of Cambrai
• Chapter 8 This Wipes Out Bullecourt, Sir!
• Chapter 9 The Situation in Bourlon was Obscure
• Chapter 10 A Dirty and Noisy Business was Bourlon
• Chapter 11 Progress is Unknown, as Nobody Returned
• Chapter 12 The Struggle was Hand-to-Hand, Obstinate and Desperate
• Chapter 13 The Novel Experience of Killing Germans in Lumps
• Chapter 14 Would Not Give Up Such a Rare Chance to Kill Huns
• Chapter 15 The Ground was Frozen Solid for about a Foot or More
• Conclusions
• Plate section