Most wargamers associate Cambrai with the first Blitzkrieg, but this isn’t technically accurate. Cambrai was only the first use of massed tanks in a serious offensive, and relied as much on surprise as it did on the relative invulnerability of the tank to small-arms fire. In fact, the attack at Cambrai was a compromise. Fuller was reluctant to commit his precious tanks in combat until he had built up a sufficiently large force. But he was overruled by his superiors, some of whom thought that tanks were the miracle weapon that would end the war immediately, and others who thought that tanks were highly overrated and dangerous.

Because he had to commit a number of training vehicles to the attack, vehicles which were made of standard boilerplate rather than armor plate, the tank’s reputation as an unreliable sitting duck was confirmed in some quarters. If you want to read a fascinating study of the development and first use of the tank, you could do worse than A.J. Smithers’ book, A New Excalibur (his Rude Mechanicals. is a fascinating sequel of how British armor almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in WW2).

But I digress.

A Blitzkrieg is the combined and coordinated use of massed armor, air and infantry in an extended attack. Cambrai embodied the combined attack to a degree, but was neither well coordinated nor extended. Instead of bypassing strongholds and rushing into the rear to capture territory and threaten the enemy positions, the tanks at Cambrai were used to overcome obstacles on behalf of the infantry. Instead of exploiting the holes in the enemy’s line, the tanks chugged around virtually aimlessly, until they ran out of fuel, broke down, or were driven back by enemy artillery.

There was not enough infantry available to push through the gaps, and the cavalry, finally provided with the conditions and opportunity for which they had been trained and provided with new pattern swords, were nowhere to be found. Cambrai was a demonstration of potentials, a glass half empty for the British but half full for the Germans.