The survivors expressed bitterness and a great distrust of the tanks, despite them starting a panic among some of the German defenders; Australians blamed the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division for allegedly leaving them in the lurch.

The Third OHL (the new supreme commanders) ended the offensive at Verdun on the Western Front and requested proposals for a new shorter defensive position in the Noyon Salient.

[3] By the end of September, Rupprecht had no reserves left on the Somme and another thirteen fresh divisions were sent to the British sector, troops being scraped up wherever they could be found.

[3] For the Abwehrschlacht (defensive battle) expected in 1917, the Hindenburg Line was to be built across the base of the Noyon Salient from Neuville-Vitasse near Arras, through St Quentin and Laon to the Chemin des Dames (the Ladies' Path) ridge.

On 18 March the main body of German troops reached the Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung) where work was still being done to remedy defects in the original position.

[13] The 27th (Württemberg) Division was unimpressed by the new positions, the trenches and wire having no deep dugouts, Mannschafts-Eisenbeton-Unterstände (Mebu shelters, pillboxes to the British) or rear defences.

The Siegfriedstellung was on a reverse slope and the troops in the front position could not see far to the south-west, where the British Fifth Army was closing up to the Hindenburg Line from Écoust St Mein and the Quéant railway embankment.

The Fifth Army had been reduced to two corps and stripped of artillery; bringing up the remaining guns and ammunition over the supply desert created by German demolitions was a slow process.

[15] Gough suggested that the Fifth Army could support the attack but for lack of means, only on a narrow front and Bullecourt was substituted for Quéant, which was a much more formidable objective, behind four defensive positions.

Fifth Army attacks on 2 April captured the German outpost villages from Doignies to Croisilles and Gough ordered that risks be taken to advance as much heavy artillery as possible.

The 4th Australian Division (Major-General William Holmes) was not able to use all its seven artillery brigades until 8 April, even after hauling field guns with crews and ammunition by lorry.

[16] The Hindenburg Line defences enclosing the village of Bullecourt formed a re-entrant for about 2,500 yd (2,300 m) to the Balkonstellung (Balcony Trench) around Quéant, defended by the élite German 27th (Württemberg) Division.

Gough ordered the tanks to attack the next day, 10 April, on a front of about 1,500 yd (1,400 m) between Bullecourt and Quéant, leaving no time for rehearsals with the 4th Australian Division.

Gough entertained doubts about the need for the attack because of optimistic reports from the Third Army and escaped prisoners of war that the Germans might retreat to the Drocourt–Quéant Switch Line (Wotanstellung).

A 500 yd (460 m) gap was left between the brigades to avoid a depression at a right-angle to the Hindenburg Line, thought to be an obvious killing ground, dominated by machine-guns.

No reinforcements were rushed to the area because of the crisis at Arras, the only troops in the vicinity being two battalions of the 2nd Guard Reserve Division working on a trench between Cagnicourt and Vis en Artois.

A high state of alert was maintained and at 3:30 a.m. reports of activity at the wire were received, the men stood to and then at 3:45 a.m. the engine noise increased, indicating the beginning of a tank attack.

One tank was unserviceable and only four of the remaining eleven reached their start line by 4:30 a.m. Drowning the sound of their engines with machine-gun fire failed and it was clear that they could be heard in the German defences.

Another tank also veered right and crossed the first trench of the Balkonstellung opposite GR 123 about 500 yd (460 m) to the right of the attack front and was eventually knocked out by machine-guns firing armour-piercing (K bullet) ammunition.

Reserves from IR 124 in Riencourt and the Artillerieschutzstellung (artillery-protection line), prevented the Australians from advancing further from a sunken road running south-east from the village but were then overrun.

At 4:45 a.m. the 16th and 14th Battalions of the 4th Australian Brigade (Brigadier-General Charles Brand) had advanced in four waves, outstripping the tanks and receiving occasional artillery and machine-gun fire.

A party of dismounted cavalry from the Lucknow Brigade ready to cut lanes in the German wire east of Bullecourt were stopped by machine-gun fire after twenty casualties.

Brand decided that it would be futile to send carrying-parties with supplies across the open ground swept by bullets and shells; the remnants of the brigade not taken prisoner tried to retreat and suffered many more casualties.

The Australian infantry suffered many casualties in the absence of the disabled tanks but managed to get into the Hindenburg line defences and were then driven out in desperate fighting.

[38] After the defeat of 11 April, Australian opinion was unanimous that the failure of the tanks caused the disaster and that a conventional attack with an extensive preparatory bombardment and barrages would have succeeded.

Falls wrote that the Australians were probably right and that a plan could have been devised for the tanks, not dependent solely on their success, ...to stake all upon them appears to have been putting too much trust in a largely untried machine.

[33]In The Blood Tub (1998 [2000]), Jonathan Walker wrote that by night on 11 April, the 27th (Württemberg) Division had achieved an outstanding defensive success, during a week of defeats for the 6th Army.

Walker called the failure of the tanks a matter of lesser importance than the decision by Gough to attack a re-entrant, on a narrow front, with deep objectives.

Defensive artillery-fire was dispersed over too wide an area, the troops lacked experience of anti-tank tactics and the defences had been poorly designed, the wire in places being 230–260 ft (70–80 m) beyond the front trench (Kampfgraben) and with dead ground on the right flank.

The Australians repulsed the attacks, except at Lagnicourt, where German troops broke in, took prisoners destroyed six artillery pieces and recovered confidential documents.