Jul 082019
 

THE BATTLE OF AMIENS -The Use of Tanks in the Hundred Days Offensive’
An evening talk

by

Stuart Wheeler,

Was Thursday 20th September 2018, in The Kincaid Gallery, The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum

The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives on the Western Front between August and November 1918; it began with the Battle of Amiens, an attack by 10 Allied divisions with more than 500 tanks that achieved surprise and broke through the German lines.

Tanks attacked German rear positions, sowing panic and confusion and by the end of the day a gap 15 miles wide had been created in the German line south of the Somme. The Allies took 17,000 prisoners and 330 guns; total German losses were estimated to be 30,000 men while the Allies had suffered 6,500 killed, wounded and missing.

The collapse in German morale led Erich Ludendorff to dub it ‘the Black Day of the German Army’; the offensive essentially pushed the German out of France, forcing them to retreat beyond the Hindenburg Line. The term ‘Hundred Days Offensive’ does not refer to a specific battle or unified strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories that led to the armistice and the end of the war.

Stuart Wheeler has been the Archive Manager at The Tank Museum in Bovington since 2014. He has given numerous talks on anti-tank tactics, the birth of the tank and the Battle of Cambrai as well as bespoke tours for the military and other various groups.

He is currently working on producing a second edition of the Tank Museum’s Top Trumps card game.

Sourced From YouTube (Credited to William Wright)