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Updated: June 23, 2025
Bourlon Wood famous name! fades behind us. A few rubbish heaps beside the road tell of former farms and factories. The car descends a long slope, and then, suddenly, before us runs the great dry trough of the Canal du Nord; in front, a ruined bridge, with a temporary one beside it, a ruined lock on the left, and rising ground beyond.
And every step beyond Cambrai, desolate as it is, is thronged with these invisible legions. There to our right rises the long line of Bourlon Wood here are the sand-pits at its foot and there are the ruined fragments of Fontaine-notre-Dame.
Our tired men, who had gained the first victory, fought heroic rear-guard actions back from Masnieres and Marcoing, and back from Bourlon Wood on the northern side of the salient.
Flesquières was taken and then Cantaing and Fontaine-Notre-Dame; but the bid for Bourlon developed into a costly, stubborn, and indecisive struggle for five days while the Germans were being steadily reinforced. On the right Byng pushed out to Banteux, but the end of our advance on the 29th left us with a rectangular block of territory loosely attached to our original front.
The attack was covered by an intense bombardment of the enemy front positions and Bourlon Wood, and the advance of the infantry was covered by smoke. Officers from the Battalion observed the attack from Buissy Switch to note where lay the enemy barrage lines. The attack at Inchy was, unfortunately, a failure. On the 12th the Battalion took over the defence of Inchy.
"What has happened?" I asked. He looked at me in surprise. "Don't you know? The enemy has broken through." "Broken through where?" The gunner officer pointed down the road. "At the present moment he's in Gouzeaucourt." I went northward, and saw that places like Hermies and Havrincourt, which had been peaceful spots for a few days, were under heavy fire. Bourlon Wood beyond was a fiery furnace.
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.
If successful it would disorganize the whole German scheme of defence in the West, and would in any case tend to divert the Germans from their Italian campaign. The objective was not Cambrai itself, but to break through the Hindenburg lines as far as Bourlon and beyond, and then to take them in reverse from Bourlon westwards and northwards to the Sensée and the Scarpe.
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