Oakham School Archives

Battle of Cambrai (20^th November 1917 – 7^th December 1917)

The French city of Cambrai had been captured by the Germans. It was a strategic place behind the Hindenburg Line that the Germans had heavily fortified. Their positions were defended by under strength units, recovering from fighting elsewhere on the Western front. Haig’s plan was to encircle and capture Cambrai, in attacking the Hindenburg line along a 10-mile front, 8 miles west of Cambrai.

During the battle of Cambrai, tanks were used en masse for a military offensive for the first time. In August 1917, Brigadier General Hugh Elles was put in command of the Tank Corps. He suggested an attack on the Cambrai sector using tanks. Indeed, the rolling downland and chalf soil in Picardy was favourable for tank movement, unlike the Flanders swamps. Tanks had been used before by the British army but their advanced had been hampered by the muddy ground of the battlefield.

The attack was led by General Julian Byng, the general officer commanding the British 3^rd Army. Nine infantry divisions, five cavalry divisions and three tanks brigade, composed of 476 tanks (of which about 376 were fighting tanks and the rest were supply and service vehicles), were assembled at Cambrai. The British force moved into position at night to avoid detection by German aerial reconnaissance craft. At 6.20am on 20^th November 1917, a swarm of tanks was released without any preparatory bombardment. The 376 Mark IV fighting tanks were committed to the assault and their goal was to crush the barbed wire defences and protect the infantry’s progress. General Elles led the attack himself from his tank, Hilda. The artillery was to fire a barrage, during the advance. The guns’ targets had been plotted on maps beforehand and the guns had previously been fired behind the lines to confirm their accuracy. The tanks and infantry made great and quick progress on the first day. The tanks had reached the Flesquières ridge before the German gunners began to methodically target and destroy the slow machines. The British captured 7,500 German prisoners, while their casualties count was quite low. The British cavalry was too slow and could not manage to exploit the advantage. By nightfall, the British had gained between 2 and 3 miles and in the next nine days, they still gained more ground. Such an achievement had not been seen since the early stages of the war and church bells were rung in Britain in celebration.

On 27^th November 1917, the position of Bourbon Wood was briefly captured by the British. Fresh German reinforcements flooded the area and on 28^th November 1917, the German resistance stiffened and the British now occupied a ‘salient’ of exposed positions deep into enemy territory. On 29^th November 1917, the British advance was halted after 6 miles. On 30^th November 1917, the German 2^nd Army, commanded by General Georg von der Marwitz, launched a counter-stroke with 20 divisions against the flanks of the salient created by the British advance. On 30^th November 1917, the German launched a counter-attack using innovative infantry tactics. They send ‘stormtroopers’ who infiltrated into British lines, bypassing strong points. The Germans recaptured much of the ground lost and by 5^th December 1917, the British had been driven back almost to their original positions.

At Cambrai, the British had developed technological and tactical innovations, in particular the infantry, aircraft, artillery, cavalry and tanks working together in new ways. The original tank and artillery combined attack at Cambrai had altered the modern battlefield. The Allies improved upon the technology and tactics used at Cambrai in the offensive of 1918.

Casualties: on each side, 45,000 men were killed, wounded or missing; almost half of the British tanks were lost.