[Illustration: Map showing the ground regained and the New Front reached in the First Stages of the last Allied Offensive.]
This success at the beginning of the last battle of the war was due partly to the brilliant tactical surprise, partly to the high efficiency of the new Tanks, and also in some degree to the evident deterioration in the quality of the German infantry in that part of the front. The enemy machine-gunners did not display their old tenacity. The Allied casualties were extraordinarily small, one Canadian division, which was in the heart of the battle, losing only 100 men. It was very clear that the fortitude of the German line was ebbing, and this more than any other fact disturbed the minds of its commanders. Ludendorff has recorded in his Memoirs that after the battle of 8th August he realized that Germany was beaten.
The Tanks played a brilliant and dramatic part in the day's success. One Tank captured a village single-handed, and its wary commander solemnly demanded a receipt for the village before he handed it over to the Australians. But the chief performance of the day was that of the "whippet" Tank "Musical Box," commanded by Lieutenant C. B. Arnold, and carrying as crew Gunner Ribbans and Driver Carney. This Tank started off at 4.20 a.m. in company with the others, and when she had advanced the better part of 2 miles discovered herself to be the leading machine, all the others having been ditched. She came under direct shell-fire from a German field battery, and turned off to the left, ran diagonally across the front of the battery at a distance of 600 yards, and fired at it with both her guns. The battery replied with eight rounds, fortunately all misses, and the Tank now managed to get to the battery's rear under cover of a belt of trees. The gunners attempted to get away, but "Musical Box" accounted for them all.
If a Tank can be said to go mad, this Tank now performed that feat. She started off due east straight for Germany, shooting down Germans whenever she saw them. The Australian infantry were following her, and for some time she was also in touch with two British cavalry patrols. Seeing a party of the enemy in a field of corn, she charged down upon them, killing three or four. She found a patrol of our cavalry dismounted and in trouble with some Germans on a railway bridge, so she made for the bridge and dispersed the Germans. She moved still farther east, and approached a small valley marked on Lieutenant Arnold's map as containing German hutments. As she entered the valley the Germans were seen packing their kits and beginning to move, and "Musical Box" opened fire. There was a general flight, but this did not prevent her guns from accounting for a considerable number. She now turned a little to the left across open country, firing at retreating German infantry at ranges of from 200 to 600 yards, and being heavily fired on by rifles and machine-guns in reply. Unfortunately she was carrying petrol tins on her roof, and these were perforated by the hail of bullets, so that the petrol ran all over the cab. The great heat from her engines and guns, which had been in action for nine or ten hours, made it necessary at this point for the crew to breathe through their box-respirators.