Postcard of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars.
Völkerkrieg (people's war)1914; In Treue FestPeople's WarFirm in Loyalty
"December 5th [1917].—What is to be thought of the Cambrai affair the Staff seemed so proud of, and of which others were so hopeful until word of the stickiness of the cavalry, and of their mishandling, leaked out? We were left in a bad salient. And now! Above—slackness and want of supervision, below—panic affecting several brigades, have undone everything; the fleeing infantry uncovered their guns."
Entry for December 5, 1917 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. The British launched the largest tank offensive yet seen on November 20, 1917 with three tank brigades, 380 tanks in all, near Cambrai, France. The first day was a success, with an advance of as much as 4½ miles on a 6-mile front. With no fresh reinforcements, specifically none trained to coordinate with tanks, the advance bogged down, with the role of the tanks diminishing. Failures of the British to achieve their goals and a German counterattack on November 30 left the British in an exposed salient. British commander General Douglas Haig ordered a withdrawal beginning the night of December 4–5. In The Tank Corps, Major Clough Williams-Ellis reports that the order to retreat was not communicated to the Tank Corps, then in the process of repairing tanks that had to be abandoned.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 420–421, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1917-12-05, 1917, December, Tank Corps, Battle of Cambrai, Cambrai,
