Bapaume in the spring of 1917, Canadian cavalry here went into action with horses. After waiting a long time opposite the village of Masnières for the signal which sent them into action, the "Hell-for-Leather" Fort Garrys galloped to the attack, crossed the St. Quentin canal and penetrated the enemy's country. What followed equaled anything in cavalry exploits. Dusk found them two miles inside the enemy's territory, commanded by a lieutenant. With swords they fought their way through to a sunken road, and there dismounted. Two messengers sent back to report their position, had their horses shot under them, but struggled back to the British lines. Darkness was falling, but stampeding their horses to divert the enemy's machine-gun fire, what was left of the squadron prepared to return. As they had galloped forward, using the saber, so now they fought their way back on foot with the bayonet. The retirement was a succession of hand-to-hand struggles. Four times the little party met enemy parties and dispersed them. Midnight had passed when they reached Masnières again and fought their way back through enemy infantry. Forty-three came through unwounded and brought with them their own wounded and more than a dozen prisoners.1 14 The sixth day saw Cambrai and Quéant wobbling as a result of the crack in the Hindenburg line. The German garrison at Quéant was in dire distress and the town almost surrounded. Cambrai was now cut off from Quéant by the British hold on Bourlon village, while the Quéant defenders had only a precarious line of communications with the north. Whoever held Bourlon Wood held a constant menace over the land for miles on either side. The wood itself had been literally blasted away and the village was a crumbling jumble of ruins, Crown Prince Rupprecht had fed thousands of his best men into the maw of Bourlon Wood and Prussians seldom fought with such desperation, frantically striving to wrest it from the British. The wood became a mere bundle of sticks, its great trees splintered by high explosives, smashed down by tanks and uprooted by shells. What used to be a wood had become a scrawny hump, 3,000 14 Canadian Press dispatch. by 2,500 yards in size, shoved forward into the vitals of the German line. The last days of November and the first of December saw what proved to be the beginning of a much-heralded German recoil. Entente anxiety as to its outcome became intense. Bulletins sent out from Berlin showed Germany's faith in a pronounced, if not decisive, success. So unusual were the boastful statements that they aroused suspicion. One view was that these inspired warnings were expected to strike such terror among the Entente Powers as to hasten a desire among them for whatever peace Germany might offer. The German nation was represented as "rapidly approaching a state of hysteria" in anticipation of a really great German drive, which it was expected "would force France and Britain to make peace. The German press, which had been so thoroughly in restraint since the war began, had apparently been allowed ample freedom in dealing with this subject. Several papers went so far as to say that France and Britain would soon receive a blow "from practically the entire force of Germany and Austria combined," and that this would crush the western line, take Paris, and secure for Germany the Channel coast. Thus one blow was ex pected to break the power of France and another was to menace England with invasion. Recalling the Kaiser's love of the spectacular, there grew up a widespread belief that he was aiming at something like quick results in time for holiday rejoicing in Germany. Germany beyond question considered the time was ripe for a gigantic effort on all fronts, in order to accomplish a decisive victory before an American army could become available. Admissions that the Germans were preparing the greatest of blows with enthusiastic predictions of its success, continued for days to fill the German newspapers. Hindenburg was about to "subject the Allies on the Western Front to the same treatment that had been meted out to Italy." England and France were to face the necessity of resisting "almost all the forces at the disposal of the Central Powers." The great blow was to finish the war and compel the Allies to "submit to the will of the German victors." One paper, the Neueste Nachrichten of Munich, declared definitely that the Allies would be "forced to accept our peace." What actually occurred at that time was a successful counteroffensive from Cambrai. It was not until nearly four months later, or on March 21, 1918, that Germany undertook the really great offensive forecasted in these announcements. Many interesting questions were raised as to why a halt of the British occurred at Cambrai after one of the most brilliant initial successes of the war. It seemed not too much to say that Haig had found his position insecure in much the same way as Field-Marshal French had found his after the battle of Loos in the autumn of 1915, when on September 25, a great British advance reached and passed the crest of Hill No. 70, which was the key of Lens, and the German evacuation of the town had begun, so that one of the great successes of the war seemed in plain sight, but Scottish troops had taken Hill No. 70 and were not supported, and the Germans in a counter-offensive regained the hill. British success in Artois thus became limited to a mile advance on a narrow front, purchased at the price of more than sixty thousand casualties. At Loos and Lens, as at Neuve Chapelle, failure to support an initial success de prived the British of a permanent victory. So now it was at Cambrai. The British had pushed forward in some places more than six miles. They had occupied Bourlon Wood, which was the key to Cambrai, as Hill No. 70 was the key to Loos. There had been days when it seemed probable that the Germans would be compelled to evacuate Cambrai and with it a long stretch of the Hindenburg line between the Scheldt and the Deule. But the Germans, after several days, were able to launch a counter-thrust which removed the peril, restored the security of the Hindenburg line, and reduced the British success to a few square miles of shell-torn territory, won at a cost of many casualties and the largest surrender of guns known as a loss to the British Army. Byng's success had quite surpassed British expectations, but at the summit of their victory, the British passed far beyond the objectives they had hoped to win until Byng was beyond his resources, his attention being concentrated upon Bourlon Woods to the neglect of his flank along the Scheldt, and then with his reserve exhausted, he stood practically helpless in the face of a great German counter-attack. In the various British operations at Arras, Messines and in Flanders, and even in those on the Somme, there had been no German counter-thrust which achieved any material success, because the British advances stopt in time. Preparations for holding what they had won were adequate, the whole operation being conducted in accordance with prearranged plans. That the Cambrai offensive was checked. by the Germans as it was, had to be accepted as evidence that the extent of the original victory was unexpected, that the attempt to stretch the success beyond reasonable limits was a blunder and that the cost represented one of the great defeats of the British, altho the British still remained masters of much conquered ground. The counter-attack was perhaps the most formidable the British had yet met in this section. It was made with the greatest concentration of men and guns the Germans had yet effected. Bavarian shock troops attacked in dense masses, to the accompaniments of an intensified artillery-fire, which showed tremendous concentration. There had been hard fighting on November 27 in and about Bourlon Wood and village, westward of Moeuvres and eastward around the half-burned village of Fontaine-NotreDame. The Germans had continued to bring up reinforcements and mass them near Cambrai, altho they could no longer detrain them there, as the station was under the fire of British guns. The old town itself had been evacuated by civilians. After a spell of mild weather, which had favored the British at the beginning, the weather turned bitterly cold. Men and horses suffered from exposure to a savage and cutting wind on a wide stretch of open country and had no shelter. Down to December 1 the attempt of Crown Prince Rupprecht to nullify Byng's advance by an encircling movement had resulted apparently in failure. Altho at certain points the Germans pierced British lines and captured positions, men and guns, they paid dearly for their enterprise, the dead near La Vacquerie during the course of twelve hours "having been greater in number than during any similar period of fighting since the war began." Relatively, the British line remained as it was before the German drive, and tactically was still strong. The Germans now endeavored to pierce the front at Masnières, and delivered ten attacks. At the village of Les-Rues-Vertes was a sharp salient, formed by the British occupation of Mesnières, an extremely hard one to hold, and to improve his line, Byng ordered the evacuation of the village, which was carried out unmolested by the Germans, who next morning evidently had not learned of the evacuation, as they continued to bombard the place. Berlin, however, announced that the village had been "cleared of British." Near the southern base of the line, the Germans attempted to better their positions around Gonnelieu, La Vacquerie and Bovréalon, but their efforts, as at Masnières, brought little more than additional heavy casualties. The Bourlon Wood was a position of great importance, Cambrai being only a little more than two miles distant. From a hill crest, not only was Cambrai distinctly visible in detail, but with mediocre glasses every train or transport entering or leaving the city was in plain sight. It was evident that the value of Cambrai as a German base was |