Landships II

James H · Legend

French Trench

Tanker · Field Marshal

Bonjour James,

There is no French tanks attack on May 24th, 1918 !

The last attack with tank was on May 28th, 1918 in Cantigny, with the Big Red One�(1� American Infantry Division) and 12 Schneider M2 from Groupe AS�5.

The next attack is on May 31th, 1918 on Chaudun's Sector, with 31 Renault FT from 3� BCL (501� RAS).

This attack is the first one with Renault FT tanks.�

From May 31th, 1918 to July 17th, 1918, the French tanks (only Renault FT) were used in defensive fights.

The Aisne offensive (with tanks) begun on July 18th, 1918.

It will be very difficult for John Foley to give real sources�for this information . . .

Bonne Recherche - Michel

CharlieC · Legend

�

I think Foley might be trying to describe the A7V action when Nixie II was lost. I'll have to dig out my copy of Hundleby and Strasheim but I recall

that the remaining A7Vs were caught on a road with wide ditches on each side.�

Regards,

Charlie

James H · Legend

Michel - Je crois qu'il y a un malentendu. Foley is referring to an attack by A7Vs on the French lines, as Charlie says.

CharlieC · Legend

My memory hasn't totally rotted. The attack Foley refers to probably occurred in the evening of 31 May 1918 although there isn't much overlap between Foley's and

Hundleby & Strasheim's accounts. The A7Vs weren't in action on the 24th.

From Hundleby & Strasheim (1990).

"The task was basically simple: advance towards Reims, crush all enemy resistance and assist III.Bn/InfRgt 476, which would already be there and waiting for support, into

the first houses of Reims.

At about 2000 hours, the three tanks (525 Siegfried, 528 Hagen and 529 Nixie II) passed through a railway underpass. Twenty minutes later - before the A7Vs had reached

the Pierquin-Ferme - the French artillery opened fire. Some 300 metres east of Pierquin-Ferme, the tank commanders were told, was a machine gun pit which they were to destroy.

This pit turned out to be a full battery of "Soixante-quinzes" the famous French field gun. Nixe II was hit at once. She received two or three direct hits in her left flank and

another in the tail. Two of these penetrated the armour, killing three men and totally disabling the tank.

Fortunately for the crews of Siegfried and Hagen, the German artillery then intervened and engaged the French guns. But Nixie II was finished: 2nd Lieutenant Blitz (the tank commander) was

slightly gassed and the survivors among his crew abandoned the wreck and boarded Siegfried.

What was even worse, the carcass of Nixie II blocked all further advance. There were 2.5 metre wide trenches alongside the road on which the A7Vs had advanced that

Knoop's superior German tanks could only negotiate with the help of some twenty pioneers with picks and shovels. Surrounded on three sides and with the French guns

unpleasantly close, retreat was the only answer. At 2100 hours, tanks 525 and 528 were back at the railway underpass."

Hundleby & Strasheim make the comment elsewhere in the book that the A7Vs were only committed where reconnaisance had shown good ground conditions. If there was

a large French anti-tank trench blocking lines of advance it's unlikely that the A7Vs would have been sent in.

Regards,

Charlie

James H · Legend

Thanks, Charlie. I shall peruse that at length.

A study of Foley's article shows that the 1967 edition had some edits made for the 1998 reprint, not all of them an improvement. But the list of actions is unchanged, and it seems to be all over the place. As you say, the dates don't tally with H&S, and his big, detailed description of the action on October 8th is clearly of Niergnies & S�rainvillers, in which no A7Vs took part.

Good enough for Wikipedia, though.