LAND & WATER 
November 29, 1917 
Cambrai and Bourlon Hill 
By Hilaire Belloc 
ON Tuesday of last week, the 20th, at dawn, in a mist 
which covered the ground occupied by the 3rd 
Army under General Byng, was launched one of the 
most important offensives of the war : highly im- 
portant — not only in its immediate results, but in its novel 
tactical character and the promise this aff«rds for the future. 
The essential features of the attack were (i) The use of a 
very large number of tanks in line ; (i) their advance without 
any previous bombardment over lirm, open and unspoilt 
country ; {3) the success of the surprise thus effected and 
the consequent destruction of tlie very strong successive 
positions known as the " Hindenburg Hne " upon th? sector 
where these cover the essential nodal point of Cambrai. 
Before discussing the bearings of this success upon the war 
as a whole, we will follow its progress with the aid of Sketch 
Map I., so far as the accounts given in the despatches and 
by newspaper correspondents permit us to do so. 
Taking for our centre the British positions in Havrincourt 
Wood, you have a line of departure running north-north- 
west and south-south-east of wirich the right hand limb is 
about four miles in length and the left-hand limb about si.x, 
but the main effort upon this left-liand limb hardly extended 
lor four miles. In other words, you have an advance starting 
from a base the whole length of which is some ten miles, but the 
main operative part of which is less than eight. There was, 
of course, subsidiary pressure exercised far beyond these limits, 
both to the left and to the right as far as Epehy on the one 
hand, and as far as in front of Bullecourt on the other. But 
the main effort was upon the sector mentioned, of which 
Havrincourt Wood is the centre, and of which the length may 
be set down at under eight miles. This eight miles of line 
forms the sector which exactly covers Cambrai. A per- 
pendicular dropped from the centre of Cambrai Town bisects 
this line exactly, falling upon the British positions in Havrin- 
court Wood ; and the distance from those original positions 
to the centre of Cambrai is about seven miles or a trifle more. 
We must retain (even in this first part of our description 
where we are only following the movements over the ground) . 
the essential fact that Cambrai is the knot of a complete road 
system and also of the main railway system of the enemy in- 
this region. Therefore, his loss of such a centre — or. what 
is the same thing, his loss of the power to pass his supply 
through it — would at the least entail the modification of his 
whole line for a very great distance north and south of it. 
The order of battle along this line, so far as can be recon- 
stituted from the despatches to hand at the moment of writing, 
would seem, to have been this : Upon the right troops from 
the Eastern' Counties ; next to these English Rifle Regiments 
and other English units ; next to these again Highland 
regiments ; in the centre Territorials from the West Riding 
of Yorkshire, and to the left of these again troops from 
Ulster. The list is, of course, quite incomplete, but is all 
that can be drawn up from the information so far afforded. 
In the first advance, during the early morning of Tuesday 
the 2oth, the tanks, having broken down the very wide belts 
of wire protecting the first trenches of the enemy's system, 
and the infantry following through these gaps, the points 
attained were, upon the right, the Hamlet of Bonovis and the 
wood of Lateau, on the height which overlooks the Scheldt 
Canal, and at the meeting point of the great national roads 
which run to Paris and Chalons respectively, and after their 
junction continue in one road for Lille. This dominating 
point was captured by troops from the Eastern Counties. 
From it the ground falls away for miles to the east and north 
towards Scheldt and Cambrai. / 
Immediately to the left of this position, another dominating 
point, that of the spur in front of Vacquerie upon the farm 
known as that of the Bon Vieillard, was occupied by English 
Rifle Regiments and Light Infantry. To the left again English 
County troops advanced along the ravine which carries the 
railway and occupied the wood of Couillet and going down 
into the depression still further to the left carried Ribecourt 
in its hollow. To the left of these again the Highlanders 
crossed the same ravine (about 120 feet lower than the heights 
from which the advance started) and entered Flesquieres, a 
point at which the despatches tell us there was very heavy 
fighting. Next, in the Central point, the West Riding Terri- 
torials coming down the slopes, which face the cut part of 
Havrincourt Wood to the canal, crossed the same ravine 
and carried Havrincourt itself on its height, the village being 
in their hands between 8 and 9 in the morning. Here also 
there was an attempted rally by the enemy which failed, and 
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