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Cambrai was the last - and most influential - battle fought by the British on the Western Front in 1917.
After the great victory in the famous tank battle at Cambrai in 1917 the church bells, having been silent for three years, rang out joyously all over Britain But within ten days triumph turned to disaster. How did this hapPen & why?William Moore, a distinguished First World War historian, attempts to explain what went wrong. All the advantages gained were thrown away; thousands of British troops were captured and hundreds of guns were lost. Seventy years after these events Mr Moore has studied the evidence (much of it previously unpublished) contained in the inevitable enquiry that followed the disaster and he seeks to answer a number of questions. Was Field-Marshal Haig really as dour as he has been portrayed or was he a reckless gambler and was General Byng, whose troops and guns were captured, really a brilliant planner or a haughty aristocrat dedicated to proving that cavalry still had a place on the battlefield? And why were they both obsessed with capturing Bourlon Ridge on which stood the sinister Bourlon Wood? A Highland Division, a Welsh Brigade, a Yorkshire Division (twice), the Guards, Ulstermen, Lancashire-men, Londoners and Midlanders- all were drawn into the maelstrom in an attempt to consolidate the Cambrai victory They failed. It was left to the Canadians to carry the Bourlon position in one of the finest feats of arms of the Great War. The British are always reputed to take a perverce interest in their own military blunders. This strange episode is one that most people have been happy to forget. All those involved in hight places sought to make excuses; some indulged in a profound exercise of duplicity implying that the soldiers themselves were to blame. Mr Moor's book throws new light on a dark episode in British Military History.
When tanks, the newly invented British weapon, were used for the first time in a mass attack on November 20 1917, they not only achieved one of the most remarkable successes of the First World War but set the pattern for the future of mechanized warfare. For the first time in three years of bloody trench warfare, epitomized by the slaughter at Passchendaele which was then reaching its climax, tanks brought about a breakthrough of the massive German defense system of the Hindenburg Line, followed up by British infantry and cavalry divisions. They were supported for the first time by low flying fighter aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps. The initial victory at Cambrai brought cheering crowds into the streets of London and the ringing of church bells in celebration. It seemed possible that the success might bring about the final defeat of Germany. But the British High Command failed to exploit the success. Generals who still dreamt of massive cavalry charges had not had much faith in this strange new weapon that had been brought to them funded initially by the Royal Navy at the behest of Winston Churchill who was then First Lord of the Admiralty and did see its value. The High Command did not really believe the breakthrough was possible and tragically miscalculated the necessary steps to follow it up. Within days the Germans counter-attacked and regained much of the ground that the British had won. What could have been the final victory was delayed for another year.
The author explores how new techniques of sound-ranging and artillery strategy played a greater part during the Battle of Cambrai than the tanks which have dominated previous histories of the battle.
What went wrong for British forces in 1917? Relive the key battles through first-hand accounts and little-known incidents of World War I. This book offers a fresh, critical history of the 1917 campaign in Flanders. Alan Warren traces the three major battles fought by the British Expeditionary Force in the final months of 1917, from the mines of Messines to the mud of Passchendaele and the tanks at Cambrai. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Warren provides a vivid account of two tragically mismanaged battles, showing that Cambrai further underlined what went wrong for British forces at Passchendaele and thus more fully explains the course of events on the Western front. His compelling narrative history features first-hand accounts, little-known dramatic incidents, and portraits and assessments of the main generals. All readers interested in World War I and the tragic mistakes that led, in the words of Winston Churchill, to “a forlorn expenditure of valour and life without equal in futility” will find this an invaluable military history.
The Third Battle of Ypres was officially terminated by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig with the opening of the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917. Nevertheless, a comparatively unknown set-piece attack - the only large-scale night operation carried out on the Flanders front during the campaign - was launched twelve days later on 2 December. This volume is a necessary corrective to previously published campaign narratives of what has become popularly known as 'Passchendaele'. It examines the course of events from the mid-November decision to sanction further offensive activity in the vicinity of Passchendaele village to the barren operational outcome that forced British GHQ to halt the attack within ten hours of Zero. A litany of unfortunate decisions and circumstances contributed to the profitless result. At the tactical level, a novel hybrid set-piece attack scheme was undermined by a fatal combination of snow-covered terrain and bright moonlight. At the operational level, the highly unsatisfactory local situation in the immediate aftermath of Third Ypres' post-strategic phase (26 October-10 November) appeared to offer no other alternative to attacking from the confines of an extremely vulnerable salient. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the affair occurred at the political and strategic level, where Haig's earnest advocacy for resumption of the Flanders offensive in spring 1918 was maintained despite obvious signs that the initiative had now passed to the enemy and the crisis of the war was fast approaching. A Moonlight Massacre provides an important contribution and re-interpretation of the discussion surrounding Passchendaele, based firmly on an extensive array of sources, many unpublished, and supported by illustrations and maps.
A study of major military innovations in the 1920s and 1930s.
At 0310 hours on 7 June 1917, the pre-dawn gloom on the Western Front was shattered by the 'pillars of fire' - the rapid detonation of 19 huge mines, secreted in tunnels under the German lines and containing 450 tonnes of explosives. Admitted by the Germans to be a 'masterstroke', the devastating blasts caused 10,000 soldiers to later be posted simply as 'missing'. Launching a pre-planned attack into the carnage, supported by tanks and a devastating artillery barrage, the British took the strategic objective of Messines Ridge within hours. A rare example of innovation and success in the First World War (1914-1918), this book is a fresh and timely examination of a fascinating campaign.
Interest in the First World War, or Great War, continues unabated. New angles are sought, fresh interpretations penned. Equally, much previously published material resides long forgotten in the pages of now-rarely-consulted journals and periodicals. Landrecies to Cambrai reprints an extensive series of articles that ran, on an irregular basis, in the Army Quarterly from January 1924 until April 1939. Each article presents a detailed account of a specific German military operation on the Western Front - usually with detail down to battalion level. The author utilized an extensive array of original German sources, including regimental histories and operational-level narratives, ensuring a remarkable amount of color and detail are present in the text. Operations covered include: The night attack at Landrecies, 25 August 1914; Neuve Chapelle, 10-12 March 1915; Aubers Ridge, 9 May 1915; The fight for Hill 70, 25-26 September 1915; The German attack at Vimy Ridge, May 1916; The German defence during the Battle of the Somme July 1916; The German defence of Bernafay and Trônes Woods, 2-14 July 1916; Mametz Wood and Contalmaison, 9-10 July 1916; Delville Wood, 14-19 July 1916; The Somme, 15 September 1916; The capture of Thiepval, 26 September 1916; In front of Beaumont-Hamel, 13 November 1916; Battle of Arras, 9 April 1917; The Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9 April 1917; The fight for Inverness Copse, 22-24 August 1917; The fight for Zonnebeke, 26 September 1917; Cambrai - the action of the German 107th Division. All original maps are also included. Landrecies to Cambrai offers a unique perspective and much hitherto-overlooked material relating to a wide variety of German operations on the Western Front 1914-17.