Tank tales

20 November – 7 December 1917

Battle of Cambrai (1917)

INTRODUCTION

the people in his message after the launching of the Tanks in the Battle of Cambrai, when he referred to the pride felt because the Tanks were a British invention. The first impression of the public was right — we had produced something which was to prove of immense value on the battlefield, something which was indeed to mean almost a revolution in warfare, and was destined before the glorious end of the struggle to convert the War of Trenches into a War of Movement.

INTRODUCTION

For this over-emphasis on the grotesque and impersonal side of the Tank has caused a certain amount of neglect of the part played by the officers and men of the Tank Corps. General von der Marwitz made the admission that “by the use of innumerable Tanks the British have gained a victory near Cambrai.” Ludendorff says in his communique, “Masses of enemy Tanks forced us to retire.”^ Our own G.H.Q. report states, “Tanks co-operated in the attack.” The public read these reports and drew up a picture of a waddling, toad-like machine, spitting fire as it crawls over the ground, but hardly realised that there were British officers and men inside those Tanks, working the guns and running the engines; officers and men face to face with death, for when the Tanks appeared all the guns of the enemy con- centrated their fire against them and at any moment a shell might have ground its way through the steel plate and, killed the crew inside. British officers and men, too, were at the workshops to repair the Tanks if they were damaged; British officers and men at the headquarters and training camps to control the various units, and ensure that every member of the Tank Corps knew how to use his weapons to the best advantage.

CRAFT

The preparation for the Cambrai attack of Novem- ber 20, 1917, was the classic example of the latter kind. The sector round Beaucamp and Villers- 40

FAILURE

It was almost exactly a year later; to be precise, it was November 20th, 1917, the first day of the Battle of Cambrai.