72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - waughfamily.ca

CHAPTER XIV.CAMBRAI.Review of the situation Germans with their backs to the wallBattalion bombed in Arras Station Another zero hour Battalion storms high ground northeast of Bourlon The attackresumed next day Battalion captures Sancourt and BlecourtLieut. Knight s remarkable achievement Sergt.-Maj. G. H.Soles wins second bar to D. C. M.IN ORDER to estimate the full significance of the actionsfought from September 27th to about the 9th of October,under the general heading of Cambrai, some idea of theconditions existing on the western front priorto the attack is necessary.Beginning on August 8th, the hammer-blows of the Allied Armies had pushed back the German line along practically the whole battle-front, a distance varying fromten to forty miles. All the gains of the enemy s costlyspring offensive had been wiped out, and more. His linewas now further back /than it had been since the positionwarfare of the opening phases in 1914 had given placeto the stalemate of trench life. The enemy s front had beengreatly shortened, and as a result his powers of resistancehad been considerably increased. It was not now essentialthat he should garrison the huge salient south and westtowards Paris and the coast. So far as the British Armieswere concerned, they now faced an enemy who had fallenback upon immensely strong natural and artificial defencesalong the approximate line of Douai-Cambrai and St. Quentin.Particularizing still further, the Canadian Corps facedthe barrier of the Canal du Nord from a point just south136