CAMBRAI BLUNDER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 44, Issue 134045, 12 January 1918, Page 5

CAMBRAI BLUNDER.

BLUNDERS IN GENERALSHIP.

(Sydney Sun Correspondent.) LONDON, .January 2. M. Marcel Hutin, in the ''Echo do Paris," throws some light on the Cambrai battle. He says that the cavalry did not intervene in time to push home the infantry's and tanks' vigorous attack, after which the Germans rallied. The British retreat was owing to surprise, and might have been considerable but for the admirable resistance of two divisions, .including the Guards, who held their own against a whole German army, and succeeded, unaided, in freeing a number of prisoners and recapturing most of the guns and all the tanks. The-" Standard" refers to the widespread talk of the Cambrai failures, and tlie hesitation and delay when the promptest action was needed. This prevented the recapture of a great part of Northern France, and the shaking of the whole German position. The dismissal of brigadiers is not suflicient. It was- not generalship which saved the situation, but the tenacity and courage of the Tommies. The Manchester Guardian's military correspondent, advocating rigid economy of man-power in the west, states that the faults- in generalship came, out in the battle of Cambrai, which began as our most remarkable victory, and ended as our worst defeat.