Having plowed through the barbed wire and reached the edge of
the Hindenburg trench, the tank would drop the fascine into the center
of the ditch, stretch out its long body, reach the bundle of fagots,
find support on it, and use it as a stepping-stone to the other side.
Very simple in idea and effect!
So it happened, and the mists favored us, as I saw on the morning of
the attack at a little place called Beaumont, near Villers Pluich. The
enemy was completely surprised, caught at breakfast in his dugouts,
rounded up in batches. The tanks went away through the breach they had
made, with the infantry swarming round them, and captured Havrincourt,
Hermies, Ribecourt, Gouzeaucourt, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and a wide
stretch of country forming a cup or amphitheater below a series of low
ridges south of Bourlon Wood, where the ground rose again.
It was a spectacular battle, such as we had never seen before, and
during the following days, when our troops worked up to Bourlon Wood
and through the intervening villages of Anneux, Graincourt, Containg,
and Fontaine Notre Dame, I saw tanks going into action and cruising
about like landships, with cavalry patrols riding over open ground,
airplanes flying low over German territory, and masses of infantry
beyond all trench-lines, and streams of liberated civilians trudging
through the lines from Marcoing.
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