Battle of Cambrai

The Battle of Cambrai in October 1918 was the last of the battles of the Hindenburg Line. On the morning of 8 October the British Third Army of General Julian Byng and the Fourth Army of General Henry Rawlinson, and with them the American 30th Division, attacked on a front of more than 27 kilometres from Sequehart to the southern outskirts of Cambrai. They passed through the last, unfinished German trenches and came out into open country, not dug up by trenches. The Germans counter-attacked, even with tanks captured earlier from the British, but in the evening or during the night their command ordered the armies to fall back to the rear Hermann Position. On the night of 8/9 October the Canadians crossed the Scheldt Canal north of the town, and their patrols and those of the British 57th Division met in Cambrai, which the Germans had tried to burn before leaving. The town, for which the British had fought in vain in the autumn of 1917, was French again after more than four years of occupation.

Name and dates

The British Battles Nomenclature Committee distinguished the Battle of Cambrai, 1918 on 8–9 October as the last of the battles of the Hindenburg Line. The same report also set the Pursuit to the Selle for 9–12 October, so 9 October belongs to both. The British official history by James Edmonds notes that since the Germans broke contact with the British at about 2.30 a.m. on 9 October, that day should rather be counted as part of the pursuit. The committee closed the whole series of battles of the Hindenburg Line only on 12 October, with the pursuit to the Selle. The British chronology of the war, however, states that the capture of Cambrai on 9 October ended the battles of the Hindenburg Line, and in that sense the great battle for that position really did end on that day. On this page we keep to the dates 8–9 October.

The battle should not be confused with the Battle of Cambrai of 1917, the first great tank attack. For that reason it is sometimes called the Second Battle of Cambrai. The history of the British Tank Corps published in 1919 calls the fighting from 8 October the Second Battle of Le Cateau, after the town of Le Cateau, towards which the attacks of the Fourth Army were directed and at which the British Expeditionary Force fought in August 1914. Some studies, and following them the English and Polish Wikipedia, extend the battle to 10 October and state that Cambrai was taken only on that day, which contradicts the accounts of the British and Canadian official histories. The main sources for this page are volume V of the British official history (Military Operations France and Belgium 1918), the Canadian official history by Gerald Nicholson and the dispatches of Field Marshal Douglas Haig.

Background

At the turn of September and October the British armies broke the Hindenburg Line on the Canal du Nord and on the St Quentin Canal, and from 3 to 5 October the Fourth Army took the Beaurevoir Line, the last prepared position of that system. The Canadians of General Arthur Currie approached Cambrai from the west and north, but in heavy fighting at the turn of September and October they failed to cross the Scheldt Canal north of the town. Cambrai, an important railway junction and centre of the German rear area, was still in German hands, although the British already stood on three sides of it.

On 6 October Haig went to a conference with Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Foch greeted him with a Paris newspaper in his hand, in which the note of Germany and Austria-Hungary to President Wilson asking for an immediate armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points had been printed. He believed that before any talks began, the Germans had to withdraw behind the Rhine. He approved Haig’s plans but refused him three fresh American divisions with which the British commander-in-chief wanted to reach the railway junction at Valenciennes quickly: General Pershing did not want to give up his troops, because he was just forming a second American army.

The Germans stood behind the Hindenburg Line on the remnants of its fortifications: in the south, facing the Fourth Army, on an unfinished position behind the Beaurevoir Line, and in the north, facing the Third Army, on the northern sector of that line and on the hills south of Cambrai. Opposite the British were the Second Army of General Adolph von Carlowitz from the army group of General Max von Boehn and the Seventeenth Army of General Otto von Below from the army group of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. According to British intelligence the Germans held their front here more densely than anywhere else, but their reserves, about twenty divisions in all, were exhausted by earlier fighting. Airmen reported that the German airfields west of the Saint-Quentin–Le Cateau railway were empty and the large ammunition dumps evacuated. British prisoners who had escaped from captivity told of columns of guns and transport moving east. The Germans were already building a new position, called the Hermann Position, along the river Selle, but it existed only in outline.

Plan

The Third Army was to attack at 4.30 a.m. on 8 October and the Fourth Army at 5.10. Byng’s ultimate objective was the Le Cateau – Solesmes line, and for the first day the villages about five kilometres ahead of the front. The XVII Corps of General Charles Fergusson was to take the Niergnies – Awoingt ridge south-east of Cambrai and so outflank the town from the south. Once that succeeded, the Canadian Corps of General Henry Horne’s First Army was to cross the Scheldt Canal at Ramillies, north of Cambrai. Until then the Canadians were only to shell the Germans and feign an attack. Rawlinson set his corps an objective about three kilometres ahead of the front and a second line which they could reach if resistance was weak. Behind the infantry the Cavalry Corps waited, ready to break out into open country. According to the history of the Tank Corps, between eighty and ninety Mark V heavy tanks and Whippet light tanks were prepared for the attack. Since the northern sector of the Beaurevoir Line was still in German hands, at one in the morning the British 50th Division and the 38th (Welsh) Division of the Third Army attacked it in the dark, so that in the morning all the troops could set off from a single line.

Course

Night and morning of 8 October. On the evening of 7 October it poured for three hours, which helped the troops approach unseen but softened the ground. The night attacks brought only partial success: a battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry from the 50th Division took Villers Farm behind the Beaurevoir Line, but the Welsh, who had reached the edge of Villers-Outréaux, had to withdraw at dawn. Alerted, the Germans shelled and bombed from the air the assembly areas of the British infantry until zero hour.

Fourth Army. At 5.10 the IX Corps, the American II Corps and the XIII Corps set off behind a creeping barrage. The British 6th Division on the right wing quickly took the Mannequin and Doon hills, but its right flank was for a long time under fire from a wood in the French sector, where the neighbouring French First Army attacked late. In the centre the American 30th Division, from the National Guard of Tennessee and the two Carolinas, which had bled heavily over the Bellicourt tunnel on 29 September, this time set off level with the barrage. With the help of tanks of the American 301st Battalion it took Brancourt-le-Grand, full of machine guns, before eleven, and in the afternoon Prémont. It took more than 1,500 prisoners and 30 guns but suffered heavy losses, and of its twenty tanks only ten returned. In the XIII Corps the 7th Brigade of the 25th Division, leading the attack, took more than 600 prisoners at a cost of under 200 killed, wounded and missing, and the 66th Division, in which the South African Brigade fought, took the village of Serain by the evening after a stubborn fight. In many places the Germans fled before it came to hand-to-hand fighting, but the machine-gun crews as usual fired to the end. The cavalry, which was to break out through the gap towards Le Cateau, ran again and again into machine-gun fire. At Brancourt two troops of the 19th Hussars charged with sabres among German guns, but in the afternoon the commander of the Cavalry Corps sent the divisions back to the rear. Rawlinson did not want to go further without artillery, which could not keep up with the infantry, and halted the attack until the next day. The Fourth Army took more than 4,000 prisoners from fourteen German divisions and 56 guns.

Third Army. The V Corps broke through the rest of the Beaurevoir Line. At Villers-Outréaux the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, which was only meant to clear the village, found the wire entanglements and machine-gun nests untouched, and yet, with three tanks which flattened the wire, it broke through the trenches and took the village. By the evening the 38th (Welsh) Division and the 21st Division had also occupied Malincourt and the woods near Walincourt, taking nearly 900 prisoners. In the IV Corps the New Zealanders cut through the wire of the last fragment of the Beaurevoir Line, took Lesdain and then Esnes, and repulsed a counter-attack led by two tanks. The corps took about 1,400 prisoners. The VI Corps fought all day for Seranvillers and Forenville, which it finally took in an evening attack.

The heaviest fighting fell to the XVII Corps. The 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, in which battalions of sailors and marines fought, took its first objectives at dawn and Niergnies soon after eight. At about 8.30 the Germans counter-attacked with infantry and four tanks. These were British Mark IVs captured earlier, which the Germans called Beutepanzer, and in the smoke and half-light both the infantry and the British tank crews took them for their own. When they opened fire at close range they knocked out three British tanks, and the infantry fell back from Niergnies. According to the history of the Tank Corps, the commander of the last serviceable British tank, Lieutenant Martell, together with an artillery officer turned round a captured German field gun and hit one of the German tanks with it. A second was disabled by infantrymen with a captured German anti-tank rifle, and the rest drove off. The Hood Battalion retook Niergnies, and in the afternoon the brigades again occupied the assigned line. The Germans made similar counter-attacks with tanks that day near Esnes and Seranvillers as well. It was one of the last tank-versus-tank engagements of the war. The Germans had few tanks: they built only twenty of their own A7Vs, and of captured British ones they had about thirty-five ready at the end of September, according to German studies. Despite the counter-attack the XVII Corps outflanked Cambrai from the south and took more than 1,200 prisoners. The 63rd Division alone took 1,189 prisoners at a cost of 703 men.

In the afternoon Haig gathered the commanders of all three armies at Third Army headquarters. According to reports, eight thousand Germans had already been sent back to the prisoner cages. In front of the Fourth Army and the right wing of the Third Army resistance was weak, but on the left wing of the Third Army the Germans defended themselves well. Haig ordered the attack to continue the next day. Along the whole front of the attack the British infantry and tank crews advanced five to six kilometres. Airmen, attacking columns on the roads from low altitude, reported that the roads leading to Le Cateau were jammed with troops and transport.

German retreat. German regimental histories describe 8 October gloomily: battalions averaged 150 men each, and the Bavarian official history wrote that the troops were “completely used up and burnt out”. In the evening or during the night, according to different sources, the order was given to retreat to the Hermann Position. According to German studies, Boehn’s army group was dissolved the same day and its chief of staff, General Fritz von Loßberg, the author of the German doctrine of defence in depth, was recalled. Between the Oise and the Sensée Canal the German Eighteenth, Second and Seventeenth Armies began to fall back east during the night, leaving rearguards in villages a few kilometres behind the old front. The garrison of Cambrai, the 18th Reserve Division, after the loss of Niergnies, which dominated the town from the south, left it at about 2.30 a.m.

9 October. Currie did not wait for the Third Army to take Awoingt, and at 1.30 a.m. the 2nd Canadian Division attacked the crossings of the Scheldt Canal. The soldiers wore white calico bands on their arms so as to recognise one another in the dark. The attack surprised the Germans just as they were preparing to retreat. The 27th Battalion took Ramillies, and other battalions crossed the canal on footbridges on cork floats and occupied Escaudœuvres. At Pont d’Aire Canadian engineers removed explosive charges fixed to the main bridge, and their commander, Captain Coulson Mitchell, held off a German party that wanted to blow it up, killing three Germans and taking twelve prisoner. For this Mitchell received the Victoria Cross. On the right wing the 4th and 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles of the 3rd Canadian Division passed through Neuville-Saint-Rémy and entered Cambrai over partly destroyed bridges. At about five in the morning resistance ceased in front of the British 57th Division, whose patrols entered the town from the south and met the Canadians there. By seven the Canadians had gone through half the town, and at noon they stood on the railway beyond its eastern edge.

The town was empty. For several days columns of smoke had risen over Cambrai, and now it was clear that the Germans had decided to burn it before leaving. According to Nicholson, the swift entry of the Canadians thwarted these plans: the engineers found unlit piles of inflammable material and put out fires raging in many districts. According to French sources, however, a large part of the centre burned down, including the town hall. The engineers also disarmed booby traps and charges with time fuses, hidden even in shells in the ammunition dumps, and built bridges for guns and transport. At 11 a.m. the commander of the 3rd Canadian Division, General Frederick Loomis, made a ceremonial entry into Cambrai.

South of the town the Third and Fourth Armies set off at 5.20 and for several hours advanced almost without fighting, until they ran into German rearguards. The cavalry at last broke out into open country. A charge by the Canadian Fort Garry Horse gave the infantry a foothold in Gattigny Wood, and the Canadian Cavalry Brigade with dragoons helped to take Honnechy, Reumont and Troisvilles. In the evening the British were about five kilometres east of Cambrai and about three kilometres from Le Cateau, held Bohain and were attacking Caudry. In Bohain about 4,500 French civilians, whom the Germans had herded there from the surrounding area, were freed. In the following days the British armies reached the river Selle.

Losses

The British official history does not give losses separately for the Battle of Cambrai, only for the whole period from 27 September to 11 November. The numbers of prisoners taken by individual corps nevertheless show the scale of the victory: more than 4,000 in the Fourth Army, about 900 in the V Corps, about 1,400 in the IV Corps, about 500 in the VI Corps and more than 1,200 in the XVII Corps. Haig wrote in his dispatch of “several thousand prisoners and many guns”. The English Wikipedia gives about 12,000 killed, wounded and missing on the British side and about 10,000 German prisoners, but without a reliable source. The tank losses are well known: of the twenty Mark V tanks of the American 301st Battalion ten returned, and of nineteen in the XIII Corps only seven. The Canadian Corps lost few men in the capture of Cambrai itself, but in the whole fighting from 22 August to 11 October, from Arras to Cambrai, according to Nicholson, more than 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. In that time it took more than 18,500 prisoners.

Significance

The Battle of Cambrai ended the fighting for the Hindenburg Line. Haig wrote that after this attack German resistance temporarily collapsed, and their infantry was disorganised and falling back east. Between the British armies and the position on the Selle there were no longer any prepared fortifications, and the Allied troops were advancing through country undamaged by the war, with intact villages and inhabitants. The loss of Cambrai deprived the Germans of an important road and railway junction behind the front, and the retreat in the centre hastened the withdrawal of their armies on the neighbouring sectors of the front.

The battle fell in the first days of the correspondence with Wilson. While Haig was planning the attack, Foch was reading the German request for an armistice in the newspaper, and on 8 October, the day of the attack, President Wilson sent the Germans his first reply. The defeat at Cambrai confirmed that the German Supreme Army Command no longer had a position on which it could defend itself for long. On 17 October the British attacked the new German line on the Selle, and at the beginning of November they reached the Sambre and the edge of the Forest of Mormal.