After so many failed hopes, so many months of preparation, the moment of truth had finally arrived. Whatever happened next would determine whether tanks were truly viable as a weapon of war, and whether their crewmen would live or die.
Waiting by his tank as the barrage began, Second Lieutenant Wilfred Bion heard ‘a moaning in the air’1 as the first torrent of shells passed overhead, and then ‘all the enemy trenches were outlined in low-bursting shrapnel. It looked like clouds of white with golden rain in the bursts. It was very beautiful – and very deadly.’2
The 4th Bn Seaforth Highlanders were in reserve at Metz-en-Couture, and from nearly three miles (or nearly four kilometres) behind the line, Lance-Corporal Willie Pennie was stunned by the scale of the bombardment:
The roar of … guns of all calibres seemed to rend the very skies. It was simply one continuous roar, punctuated every now and then by a still louder crash which seemed to deafen the sense of hearing. It was dark for over an hour after the commencement of the bombardment, so that from horizon to horizon the sky was illuminated by the lurid glare of the gun flashes, and bursting enemy shells, intermingled with red signal lights and greenish white star shells, combined to create a spectacle which has never before been presented to mortal vision, a spectacle at which one gazed amazed, fascinated, spellbound.3
The sight was even more awe-inspiring for the tank commanders in the first wave like Second Lieutenant Horace Birks, watching from a few hundred yards away as the unregistered guns blasted the enemy trenches with astonishing accuracy, before they moved forward to the attack:
With a terrific crash the guns all opened at once; there was an infinitesimal pause filled by the whine of passing shells, and then came the most beautiful sight I have ever seen; the whole of the enemy’s lines were lit up in a tossing bubbling torrent of multi-coloured flame, and – most beautiful of all – nothing came back in reply. We lurched off in the growing light, I for one expecting the most frightful crash to come any minute. It seemed too good to be true, this steady rumbling forward over marvellous going, no holes, no shelling, and infantry following steadily behind.4
Slightly further back, Second Lieutenant Macintosh and his fellow officers in No. 12 Company could no longer contain themselves:
With a cataclysmic crash the Boche line erupted in spouting volcanoes of smoke and earth, illumined in the flickering light of the incessant bursts. A second or two, and right, left and centre, up went flares of all colours – red, green, yellow, singly and in clusters – as the terrified front-line troops called upon their artillery to save them from annihilation. Meanwhile the officers, released at last from the intolerable strain of silence, cried out in delighted profanity at the hellish din of the barrage. No one could hear his neighbour’s voice – the field guns were seeing to that – all were perfectly happy to shout their comments to the air.
As the excitement gradually died down, they strained their eyes to see how their friends had been faring. Dawn was breaking, but the dust of the barrage and a thin ground-mist hid all sight of the enemy lines. Returning to their buses, the crews awaited, amid the crashing thunder, the signal to take their part in the fray.5
The wire-crushers and first-wave tanks moved off as soon as the barrage fell, the full-throated roar of their engines now mingling with the thunder of the guns.6 Major William Watson of No. 11 Company saw his men going into action:
In front of the wire tanks in a ragged line were surging forward inexorably over the short down grass. Above and around them hung the blue-grey smoke of their exhausts. Each tank was followed by a bunch of Highlanders, some running forward from cover to cover, but most of them tramping steadily behind their tanks. They disappeared into the valley. To the right the tanks were moving over the crest of the shoulder of the hill. To the left there were no tanks in sight. They were already in among the enemy.
Beyond the enemy trenches the slopes [of Flesquières ridge], from which the German gunners might have observed the advancing tanks, were already enveloped in thick white smoke. The smoke-shells burst with a sheet of vivid red flame, pouring out blinding, suffocating clouds. It was as if flaring bonfires were burning behind a bank of white fog. Over all, innumerable aeroplanes were flying steadily to and fro.
The enemy made little reply. A solitary field gun was endeavouring pathetically to put down a barrage. A shell would burst every few minutes on the same bay of the same trench. There were no other enemy shells that we could see. A machine-gun or two were still trained on our trenches, and an occasional vicious burst would bring the venturesome spectator scrambling down into the trench.7
This machine-gun fire was described by 51st Division headquarters as ‘heavy, but wild and harmless’, 8 though that was not always the case. Apart from that there was virtually no response from the enemy.
In the hilltop village of Flesquières, Hauptmann Otto Fürsen, the commander of 3rd Battalion, 84th Regiment, had just got back to his headquarters after visiting the forward positions to check all was well. Later he recalled: ‘Then I drank some coffee and began to write home. That letter, with the time of 7 a.m. [i.e. 6 a.m. UK time], is lying before me. On the third page you can clearly see from the sudden shaky handwriting when the stupendous bombardment began, with shells of all calibres … The explosions could not be counted, but I would estimate around five or six a second.’9 Or as the German official history put it: ‘The ground shuddered and quaked under the weight of the onslaught.’10 The prophecy had come true, and they were shaking mightily the earth.
A little later, Major Watson observed the second wave of tanks heading into action. ‘On our left another column of tanks had already disappeared into the valley on their way to Flesquieres. It was Ward’s company …’11 Frank Heap and the crew of Deborah were on their way to war.
* * *
As the first wave of tanks and infantry made their way across No Man’s Land, the most common impression was one of orderliness, as if this was an exercise or parade-ground manoeuvre, rather than an attack against one of the strongest enemy positions on the entire Western Front. Despite that, no-one knew for sure what would happen when they got to the other side.
The first great unknown was the barbed wire, which was an intimidating prospect for tank commanders like Second Lieutenant Horace Birks as they approached the enemy trenches:
Emerging out of the gloom a dark mass came steadily towards us, the German wire. It appeared absolutely impenetrable. It was certainly the thickest and deepest I have ever seen, it stretched in front of us in three belts, each about 50 yards deep, and it came up to the bottom of our sponsons. It neither stopped the tank nor broke up and wound round and round with the tracks as we at first feared, but squashed flat and remained flat, leaving a broad carpet of wire as wide as the tank, over which the following infantry were able to pick their way without great difficulty. We were working with the [6th] Black Watch and they were well up and following quickly behind us. It was a relief to get through the wire and come out on to the main German position. All this time there had been no firing and very little shell fire, and the tanks on the right and left could be seen keeping station with us.12
For obvious reasons the infantry had been just as anxious about this aspect of the plan, but an officer of 8th Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders paid tribute to the work of the tanks: ‘It must be acknowledged that the paths so crushed were passed over with the greatest ease. In most places the wire was absolutely down, and flat; even at the worst, one could pass over in comfort with a little judicious exercise of the “heather step.”’13
Ironically, the Germans’ thoroughness had proved their undoing, since the solidly constructed wall of wire was easily crushed by a tank weighing almost thirty tons with its fascine. Colonel Baker-Carr explained: ‘The worst sort of wire is … the loose concertina stuff. We go over it and it springs up behind. The best sort of wire from our point of view is well put up wire, good strong stakes, wire fairly taut, and the tank will flatten it out.’14
Once safely through the wire, the next question was whether the tanks would be able to cross the enormously wide front-line trenches, and everything now depended on what had been dubbed ‘the wily fascine’.15 Despite all the preparations, this did not go quite so smoothly for Second Lieutenant Birks: ‘A red flag stuck in the parapet of the trench ahead of us showed where the leading tank had dropped its fascine, we ran up to it and approached slowly to make quite certain of dropping on it, and crossed over. It was an enormous trench, and there was one horrid moment when the tail dropped onto the fascine when it seemed to be touch and go if we could get over. Actually we did so without difficulty and moved forward to the next line.’16 But he was luckier than others, including a couple of tanks which were victims of their own enthusiasm, according to Major Watson: ‘Two of these unfortunates in their eagerness to kill had collided and slipped together inextricably into a trench.’17
After this another D Battalion tank became ditched, the hulks providing a useful landmark for Captain Robert Tennant Bruce of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who was in charge of 51st Division’s stretcher-bearers, as he headed towards the ‘immensely wide and deep’ front-line trench. ‘Stuck on the parapet of it, inextricably jammed though not much knocked about, were three abandoned tanks … One glance at the trench made us realise the wisdom and forethought of the bundles on the tanks. Even with their help I marvelled that they could cross at all.’18
Soon yet another machine became stuck fast, and Lieutenant Gerald Edwards had to take desperate measures to avoid the same fate in his wire-crushing tank D34 Diallance: ‘I just missed being ditched too, in a dug out. Had to use a dead Jock under the right track to get a purchase on the ground to swing.’19 The attack was too important to fail, and by helping another tank to get across, the dead man had increased his comrades’ chances of survival, in keeping with the motto of the 51st Division: ‘Là á Bhlàir’s math na Càirdean’, or in English, ‘Friends are good on the day of battle’.
To the right, the tanks of E Battalion were also tackling the ‘truly formidable obstacle’ of the Hindenburg line, leading to ‘a few exciting moments’ for Second Lieutenant Fred Dawson in E45 Elles II. ‘First, poised over the deep and wide excavation; then, releasing the fascine – would it drop all right? – we saw it lumber beautifully into the bottom. But could we get over? One can imagine our doubts, as we had witnessed a few ghastly failures at Wailly. Anyhow, down we dropped and up, up, up – no one thought of the “balance point” – until at last we crashed upon the other side, splitting open my section commander’s head, and petrol cans, oil cans and ammunition boxes scattered all over the place.’20
This accident meant the battle was over before it had begun for his section commander, Captain Ernest Gregory. The wound was a ‘Blighty one’, although the medical board that examined him heard a different version of events, and recorded that he was ‘hit by fragments of shell causing superficial gutter wounds … followed by unconsciousness for a short time’.21 Officers could claim a gratuity if they were wounded in action, and surely none of us would begrudge him this payment, even if the cause was not exactly as stated.
E Battalion faced an even more tragic setback when one of their machines suffered a direct hit almost on the start-line – a specially cruel stroke of fate considering the feebleness of the German counter-barrage. A note in the logbook of E27 Ella states: ‘Tank blown up, direct hit on cab, not more than 5 minutes after the show commenced.’ The commander, Second Lieutenant William Stobo Haining and his driver, Gunner Leslie Halkes Wray, were killed, and the rest of the crew wounded.22 In one of his poems, Gunner Wray had contemplated death in terms reminiscent of Rupert Brooke: ‘If I should fall grieve not that one so weak and poor as I should die … Think only this; … He died for England’s sake.’ His fellow crewmen wrote to his parents expressing their grief, but did not lose sight of the practicalities on which their own lives depended: ‘We are very sorry to have lost such a faithful friend … We cannot speak too highly of his good nature and the way he kept his engine.’23 No tank driver could wish for a finer epitaph.
* * *
One British officer later wrote: ‘How often one has wondered what were the thoughts of the immediate enemy at precisely 6.21 on the morning of the 20th November, 1917!’24 Fortunately some did record their impressions, among them Leutnant Adolf Mestwarb of No. 7 Company, 84th Infantry Regiment, which found itself directly in the path of D Battalion’s tanks:
During the night of 19–20 November the English artillery remained relatively quiet, even towards morning it was remarkably silent – the calm before the storm! I stayed in the outpost line for almost the entire night, sending out patrols to insure against any surprises, but there was nothing unusual to be seen. When dawn broke I decided it was time to fortify myself with a bite of breakfast, and for that purpose I went back to the sentry post into the dugout. But hardly had I got things ready when the storm broke. Soon after 7 a.m. [i.e. 6 a.m. UK time] English drum-fire erupted at once along the whole of our front line. I jumped up, grabbed the flare pistol, filled my pockets with red and green cartridges, and dashed back up above. There I immediately realized the barrage was falling on the front-line trenches behind us, which were presently engulfed in smoke and flames. The sentries in front instinctively pulled back to the outpost, whose defensive positions were manned in the meantime. Meanwhile we kept a sharp lookout.
The sentry beside me suddenly noticed something extraordinary; his words were: ‘Sir, something square is coming.’ I took a close look and realized straight away that it was a tank, which really did have a square appearance because of the gigantic bundle [i.e. fascine] lying on top of it. Now, we were all ready for one or two tanks – we had no idea about a large number of them – and immediately opened fire, but unfortunately without making the slightest impression on the brute. It moved further forward, firing as it went, then veered to the left to make room for those behind, which were now appearing one after another from behind the corner of the wood in front of us. What a splendid target that corner would have made for our artillery! But they did nothing to make themselves known, not a single shot fell. I sent up flares as soon as the first tanks appeared. All the cartridges I had I fired off, but nothing happened. Runners were sent to the battalion – the telephone was destroyed right at the start – but we heard nothing from them, so we were now completely cut off.
Meanwhile the tanks came rapidly further forward, across the trenches away to the left and right, firing all the time. Some stayed in place to cover the trenches, some went further across the second line [known as K2]. What could we do? The fact that we were completely powerless to stand up to these monsters, and the silence of our artillery had a depressing effect. In addition, numerous aircraft flew low over the trenches and vigorously poured down fire. This was no longer a battle, it was a one-sided massacre. Leutnant Mory [the company commander] had completely lost his head right at the start, when he was told about the tanks, but something had to be done. I ordered the neighbouring outpost by runner to pull back to the front line as well, taking everyone who could still go with them. The communication trench was under fire from both sides, and you could only negotiate it bent double, and had to run along in this way under a hail of bullets. That was a dreadful scramble, and we didn’t bring many men with us.25
They reached the front-line trench to find it had already been evacuated, so headed straight for the second line where they found the men of No. 6 Company were already pulling back, led by their commander Leutnant Adolf Saucke. The survivors of No. 7 Company went with them, led by Leutnant Herbert Mory, but Leutnant Mestwarb was exhausted and stopped for a rest, only to find his escape route cut off by tanks: ‘Our fate was sealed. Shortly afterwards masses of English [sic – they were actually Scottish] appeared from all sides and harassed us with hand grenades. Badly wounded by two splinters, I was unable to fight on and was taken prisoner … That was the end of No. 7 Company, with which I had stuck through so many fierce battles with hardly a break from the Vosges on to Champagne, Russia, Verdun and Flanders. It was grim!’26
* * *
Although a number of D Battalion tanks were ditched, they had still enabled the infantry to get through the wall of wire into the enemy’s trenches. Working with them on the left were 5th Bn Gordon Highlanders, who described what happened: ‘On reaching the Hindenburg Line, it proved to be so wide and deep that very few tanks succeeded in crossing it and at least three were completely ditched. Their presence was, however, sufficient to enable the front wave to capture the trench, which contained two machine guns.’27
Once the Gordons had broken into the front line the enemy were powerless to resist the Highlanders, as described by their battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell McTaggart:
With a yell of excitement our infantry were in the trench pursuing them down the track as hard as they could, inflicting terrible losses on them with bayonet, bullet and bomb. On close examination this front trench of the Hindenburg line was seen to be a wonderful piece of workmanship. Fully ten feet deep, and twelve to fifteen feet wide, it was indeed a serious obstacle for any tank to cross, and a great many were temporarily ditched. But they had effected their principal task. They had enabled the infantry to set foot in the German trench system, and if no tank was available to crush the wire above the ground, the men could get under the wire by running down the communication trenches.28
With only one tank still supporting them, the attack by 5th Bn Gordon Highlanders hung in the balance, but their report boasted how ‘the situation was tackled with great dash and determination’ as the infantry swarmed through the trench system, hurling phosphorus bombs into the deep dug-outs and killing or capturing anyone they encountered.29 The accounts do not mention it, but this fearsome onslaught would have been accompanied by the skirl of bagpipes.
As they rushed through the first and second line trenches, they soon came upon a deep sunken road running at right angles to the main trench system and down towards the Grand Ravine. The Germans called this the Stollenweg, or ‘Bunker Way’, and it formed the heart of their defences in this sector. Its elaborate dug-outs housed the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion, 84th Infantry Regiment, and as the defenders were driven back, they now prepared to mount a last desperate stand.