LAND & WATER 
November 29, 1917 
corresponding fragment of the Bapauine Road ; and (3) all 
the St. Quentin road, the particular value of which last was 
its feeding the front line all the way to St. Quentin, while from 
the latter at the point marked A on Map III., a branch, the 
few miles in German hands of the main road from Paris to 
Cambrai (3) further served that front. 
Upon the eastern side the three remaining great roads led, 
two of them to the enemy's bases in Belgium and Germany, 
the one (4) through Lille to the other (5) through Valen- 
ciennes. The former by a branch road from Douai, marked B 
on Map III., further helped to feed the front ; the latter 
enjoyed a cross communication road from Douai, maiked C, 
which added to its usefulness. The third road (6), passing 
through Le Cateau, was the main lateral road for traffic 
south-east, a sort of artery for all the rest of the front. 
In between these six great spokes of which Cambrai is the 
hub, there was a large system of country cross roads, all of 
which ultimately came from Cambrai and which have their 
< wn subsidiary centres on which they concentrate, such as 
Clary and Marcoing. 
Cambrai was, therefore, so far as roads alone were con- 
cerned, the centre of a vital web. 
It was also a verv important railway centre. The great 
main, international lint- from Paris to Germany runs up 
through Cambrai from St. Quentin. It is served by a main 
line also coming in from the south and east- — that is, the 
rest of the German front— and it splits after Cambrai into 
two, one part going through Douai to Lille and so to central 
Belgium and Germany, the other to Valenciennes and so to 
southern Belgium and Germany. I have marked the main 
trunk line, with the figures 2, 2, on the Sketch III., and it will 
be seen there how the other double lines and the supple- 
mentary angle lines feed it pnd dents from it. Every- 
thing going and coming though Lille or through Valenciennes 
and so to Belgium and Germany had to pass through Cam- 
braL 
All movement up from- the east came by the two feeding 
lines (i) and (2) on ?.'ap III., and the maintenance of the 
front from Cambrai to St. Quentin and again from St. 
Quentin to Rheims had Cambrai for a necessary place of 
passage. The single line railways indicated also upon y.a.p 
III. supplemented this system arid, as will there be seen, also 
centred upon Cambrai. 
From these considerations the value of an attack right 
■upon the sector covering Cambrai will be evident, and the reason 
that the sector of the attack thus chosen immecfiately faced 
the city will be equally clear. 
The sector of Cambrai having been chosen and the attack 
having been launched e.xactly opposite that town and directly 
for' it, the German front was driven in over an area nearly 
rectangular in shape and from four to five miles deep. The 
consequence was that two flanks were created, one to the 
south and one to the north, behind the old Hindenburg line. 
The operations were then being conducted in the open with 
the enemy reduced to entrenching himself perfunctorily and 
very rapidly and depending rather upon his pouring in of men 
than upon artificial defence. The British had got, on last 
Tuesday, right in behind the line of that defence, which he 
had called impregnable, and which the less responsible of our 
(\vn orators and writers had described in much the same 
terms and at the enemy's valuation. 
Here we must pause to note in the British Command that 
General Byng at the head of the 3rd Army, had done what is 
one of the chief tests of success in a prolonged war, that is, 
invented and put into practice a new tactical method. The 
tanks were here used in a fashion favourable to their method 
of fighting over open country, unspoilt b}' heavy shelling and 
not blinded by hedges or numerous woods. It was these 
engines which broke the great gaps in the tremendous belts of 
wire, and which destroyed in the first few hours of the day 
all the defensive system of the enemy. 
Their action would, however, have been impossible but 
