On 29 September 1918 British, Australian and American troops of General Sir Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army attacked the Hindenburg Line where it ran along the St Quentin Canal in northern France. In the south the British 46th Division crossed the canal itself in fog, many of its men in life jackets, and seized the bridge at Riqueval intact. In the north American and Australian divisions fought their way over the canal tunnel at Bellicourt. By evening the strongest German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.
The strongest line
By late September 1918 the Allied Hundred Days Offensive had driven the German army back to the Hindenburg Line, its last and strongest system of defenses. Along the Fourth Army's front the line used the St Quentin Canal as a ready-made obstacle; where the canal ran underground, through a tunnel of some 5,000 meters between Bellicourt and Bony, the Germans had turned the tunnel itself into part of the defenses.1
Rawlinson's attack was preceded by a huge bombardment: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission says 1,600 guns fired close to a million shells. Lieutenant General John Monash's Australian Corps, in the spearhead of the offensive since August, was reinforced by the American II Corps with the 27th and 30th Divisions, which had come from fighting in Belgium earlier in the month.2
Over the tunnel
The Americans led the assault over the tunnel, with the Australians to pass through them. The Australian War Memorial describes a struggle at Bellicourt in which tanks, artillery and aircraft worked together, troops captured the tunnel entrance, and the fighting lasted four days at heavy cost. The American Battle Monuments Commission notes that both the 27th and 30th Divisions fought hard and suffered heavy casualties before Australian troops passed through them and they were relieved on 30 September.3
Across the canal
A few miles south, opposite Bellenglise, the canal ran in a deep cutting with steep banks and water at the bottom. The 46th (North Midland) Division of IX Corps, led by the 137th Brigade, attacked across it in thick fog. The Royal Engineers supplied flotation devices, and many of the men wore life jackets. The Riqueval bridge, one of only two road crossings in the sector, was captured so fast that its German defenders were taken by surprise; Chris Baker of The Long, Long Trail tells how Corporal Openshaw of the engineers led the way across the damaged bridge. By the end of the day the 46th Division had taken Bellenglise.4
The line is broken
By the morning of 30 September the Fourth Army held a bridgehead across the canal. The Western Front Association calls it the first complete rupture of the Hindenburg Line. Casualty figures are rough: the Association gives about 8,000 British, 13,000 American and 2,500 Australian casualties and 36,000 German, mostly prisoners, while the CWGC estimates British and Australian losses at over 10,000 and German prisoners at as many as 36,000.5
Soon after the line broke, Ludendorff demanded an armistice. The battle's place in the final campaign of the war is told in our article on the Hundred Days Offensive. The American dead of the fighting lie in the Somme American Cemetery near Bony, and a memorial stands above the tunnel at Bellicourt.6
