A Son of the Rock

Pan, British Battles Series, 1967

Occasionally I like to toss in the odd googly and read a History book.

I’ve had an interest in History, in particular the First World War, almost since I can remember and have a tidy collection of these British Battles Series books which were/are a nice compact size, around 200 pages, easy to hold and carry about, and roam British history from Agincourt through the Spanish Armada (both of which occurred before British History proper began) up to, I think, the Korean War. Taken in all they give a good overview of how this sceptred isle bickered and fought through the ages. Some are more readable than others (A. Farrar-Hockley’s The Somme I remember as less so, sadly.)

With my background of reading around this subject I didn’t really learn much I hadn’t known already from The Ironclads Of Cambrai apart from the fact that the sponsons on the male tank could swing inside to allow it to travel by train. (Male tanks had cannon, female ones machine guns.) The book is at the more readable end of the spectrum, managing to make the elements of the battle as clear as such confused events can ever be rendered. There are some eye witness accounts quoted which add to the clarity. More of these might have been a further boon.

The book starts with the events leading to the formation of The Tank Corps and goes on to delineate the lack of knowledge of how to handle the new weapon plus the waste of its potential advantage of complete novelty through being utilised too early and in too small numbers in the later stages of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and over the totally unsuitable ground/mud in Flanders in 1917.

The terrain in front of Cambrai was a much more promising area for deployment of tanks, being firm and relatively unfought-over. The element of surprise in the attack, though almost compromised, plus the cursory (in First World War terms) preliminary bombardment and the panic the lumbering monsters engendered in the defenders helped achieve a breakthrough which even enthusiasts hadn’t dared to hope for. Cooper makes much of the failure to exploit the initial advantage gained and in particular castigates those commanding officers who had no great hopes for success and stuck too rigidly to timetables drawn up before the attack went in. Their lack of imagination and, crucially, of belief in a breakthrough after the stalemate years were certainly a hindrance.

However, the difficulties of command and control of such a battle in a time when radio was neither truly effective nor practicable make this a harsh criticism. Cooper does note the Germans also failed to make the most of their initially successful counterattack for much the same reasons, so this rather goes against his point that the British generals were the stumbling block to success, that if only they had had confidence in the tanks’ abilities a great victory might have been won. But even by Cooper’s account, the C-in-C General Haig seems to have appreciated at least the possibilities of the tank; though others lower down remained to be convinced. More crucial was the lack of reserves Haig was prepared to commit to the battle. Given that, success was always going to be an ephemera.

The most culpable behaviour, which came in the subsequent enquiry, was the blaming of the loss of ground suffered in the German counterattack on the troops in the line. As ever, this was a gross calumny.

The book of course focuses on the tanks. For this was the first battle in which they had been employed in what has come to be seen as their proper function. Moreover what few tanks were left undamaged and still mechanically sound after the attack was finally called off played a critical role in the holding back of the German counterattack. Cooper emphasises that their deployment in this endeavour was due mainly to the initiative of individual members of the Tank Corps. He finishes by eulogising the Corps and mentions the Tank Musuem at Bovington where one of the ironclads of Cambrai is on display (or was in 1967.)

Final comment:-
In the end lessons were learned. The great victories of 1918 (and they were victories) could not have been achieved without the experiences gained by trial – and error – in the years before. Which, of course, was a tragedy for the many thousands who died or were wounded.

The salient fact of the First World War was that neither sheer weight of numbers nor any of the newly employed technologies, poison gas, air power, the submarine, radio, the tank, were capable of being decisive on their own, or even, in most cases, together. It is pointless to wish that they were. The techniques for coordinating vast resources and numbers of men, even of supplying them – especially in a fluid situation – also had to be developed. All that took time. And a resourceful and resilient enemy didn’t help. It was only the German offensive of early 1918, a near disaster for the Allies, which brought about the final requirement – the implementation of a unified Allied command structure.