Cambrai: The Right Hook, another in the Battleground Europe series, is something of a disappointment. First, as the title implies, the volume only covers the eastern half of the Battle of Cambrai. Instead of a comprehensive treatment of the first major tank assault of the First World War, the reader instead is only presented with the operations of three of the six British divisions used in the attack. Second, the maps used to depict the battle start off well, with a detailed and annotated 1:20,000 scale map for each British division's attack on 20 November 1917. Unfortunately, the maps used to depict the German counterattack and subsequent actions are difficult to follow. Third, fully one-third of the book is devoted to the tour guide section and less than 30 pages are spent detailing the British attack. Fourth, the authors waste another 18 pages discussing the New Zealand Division attack over the same terrain almost a year later in 1918. Finally, the authors' approach to this subject is sloppy and uneven, with great detail provided in some areas (e.g. Victoria Cross winners) and less than adequate detail in other areas (e.g. tanks, casualties, order of battle). Certainly the most disappointed readers will be armor officers or enthusiasts, since the authors spend very little effort discussing the combat employment of this new weapon system.
Cambrai: The Right Hook consists of five historical chapters, beginning with the background to the battle, the First Day of the Battle of Cambrai, the period 21-27 November 1917, the German Counteroffensive and the New Zealand Division attack in October 1918. A sixth chapter covers five different tour routes of the battle area. Note that much historical commentary on the battle is also provided in the tour section, which makes for disjointed reading in attempting to follow specific actions. On the other hand, the photographs are decent and effectively demonstrate the open nature of the Cambrai battlefield and why this area was chosen for a tank assault. The authors provide three succinct orders of battle for the three assaulting British divisions but this information is incomplete in regard to tanks employed in this sector and fails to mention any of the supporting artillery or corps units. No German OB data is ever presented and the authors fail to mention that the British were attacking the German 2nd Army under General von der Marwitz. It might have also been useful to see what type of force ratios the attacking British had in this sector and more detail on the Hindenburg Line defenses. Instead, the authors' preference to include the section on the New Zealand Division action in 1918 appears a flagrant waste of narrative space.
Despite these flaws, Cambrai: the Right Hook does provide some historical value in the areas that the author's have chosen to emphasize. The role of British Brigadier General Elles, commander of the tank corps, is often ignored and his leading the assault in a headquarters tank was remarkable. Interestingly, Elles argued for massing the tanks into a few spearheads but lost the argument to the predominant infantry generals who wanted the tanks spread evenly across the units. This doctrinal argument was to continue for decades after Cambrai. The British tank-infantry team was able to penetrate the first two defensive belts of the Hindenburg Line with light casualties in less than six hours, but the attack started to founder when the lead elements hit the German third belt sited behind the St. Quentin Canal. Essentially, the British attack reached its culminating point due to a failure to adequately plan for a canal-bridging effort (the tanks could not get across the canal's few damaged bridges) and the infantry could not advance without tanks. It is also apparent in these pages that the British Army in late 1917 still retained an aggressive combat spirit. The authors provide details on many of the Victoria Cross winners, like Captain Richard Wain of the tank corps, who, "his tank damaged by a direct hit, his crew killed or wounded and despite being severely wounded himself, dismounted and took a Lewis gun, charged an enemy machine gun nest of five Maxim guns. He captured it and caused the remaining Germans to flee to the rear." Despite efforts of recent trash revisionist historians to blacken the reputation of the British Army, it is clear that the British soldier in November 1917 was still capable of aggressive action on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the German soldier was also still capable of aggressive action and the German counterattack sent the depleted British divisions reeling. Cambrai was an attack conducted on the cheap by a British Army that lacked adequate manpower reserves after Third Ypres and it was this lack of manpower reserves that ultimately undermined the first successful large-scale use of tanks. Thus, Cambrai demonstrates that a new weapon system employed en masse could work, but it still has to function as part of a combined arms team and by November 1917 the British were weak in infantry.
Cambrai: The Right Hook also helps to demonstrate the enduring truthfulness of Napoleon's dictum that in war, the material is to the moral as three is to one. The three assaulting British divisions in III Corps had 36 infantry battalions supported by about 150 tanks, which equates to only about one tank platoon for each infantry battalion. After six hours of fighting at least half the tanks were out of action, reducing their support to a token level. In a material sense, the tanks were few in number but psychologically they acted as a great combat multiplier for the hard-used British infantry and gave them the confidence to assault fortified trench lines. Thus, it was not British tanks that broke the Hindenburg Line but the British combined arms team.
