Ludendorff had already recognised their importance in July, after the French use of them in the Battle of Soissons, when he wrote to his Army Commanders that 'the utmost attention must be paid to combating tanks.

Our earlier successes against tanks led to a certain contempt for this weapon of warfare.

We must now reckon with more dangerous tanks.'" The "earlier successes" mentioned were those of the Third Battle of Ypres.

In the Ypres salient, however, the real anti-tank defence was the mud, and the general conclusions which the German Higher Command drew from the derelict tanks they captured during the fighting of October, 1917, were entirely misleading, as they soon discovered to their cost, a few weeks later, in the First Battle of Cambrai.

They showed, indeed, throughout a curious lack of intelligence and foresight with regard to the new weapon, both as to its possibilities and as to the means of fighting it.