World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- France; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Then take the case of the incident of General Elles at the First
Battle of Cambrai. As my correspondent of the Tank Corps, who was in
the battle, says: "In modern warfare the place of the General
Commanding is almost invariably in the rear of his troops, in a
position where communications are good, and where he can employ his
reserves at the right moment. At this battle all the available Tanks
(about four hundred) were being used. There were no reserves. So the
General Commanding led the attack, flying the Tank Corps flag. He came
safely through the attack, which undoubtedly owed some measure of its
success to the inspiration which this act gave to the troops."
A quiet account!--given by a man who was certainly not very far away
from his General in the affair. Let me supplement it a little by the
story of Mr. Philip Gibbs, who seems to have seen as much as any
correspondent might, of this wonderful "show" of the Tanks.
"For strange, unusual drama, far beyond the most fantastic
imagination, this attack on the Hindenburg line before Cambrai has
never been approached on the Western Front; and the first act began
when the Tanks moved forward, before the dawn, towards the long wide
belts of wire which they had to destroy before the rest could follow.
These squadrons of Tanks were led into action by the General
Commanding their corps, who carried his flag on their own Tank--a most
gallant gentleman, full of enthusiasm for his monsters and their brave
crews, and determined that this day would be theirs. They moved
forward in small groups, several hundreds of them, rolled down the
Germans' wire and trampled down its lines, and then crossed the deep
gulf of the Hindenburg main line, pitching nose downward as they drew
their long bodies over the parapets, and rearing themselves again with
forward reach of body, and heaving themselves on to the German parados
beyond.... The German troops, out of the gloom of the dawn, saw these
grey inhuman creatures bearing down upon them, crushing down their
wire, crossing their impregnable lines, firing fiercely from their
flanks and sweeping the trenches with machine-gun bullets." A captured
German officer thought "he had gone mad," as he watched the Tanks,
while his men ran about in terror, trying to avoid the bursts of fire,
and crying out in surrender. "What could we do?"
Meanwhile, our own men, English, Irish, and Scottish troops, went
behind the Tanks, "laughing and cheering when they saw them get at the
German wire and eat it up, and then head for the Hindenburg line, and
cross it as though it were but a narrow ditch."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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