text: 11 April At a conference at the 4th Australian Division HQ, it was decided that the infantry would advance fifteen minutes after the tanks, rather than wait on a signal from them. Only four tanks reached their start line by  but drowning the sound of their engines with machine-gun fire failed and they were heard in the German defences. The tank on the right flank deviated to the right, suffered mechanical difficulties and returned to the railway. Another tank also veered right and crossed the first trench of the  opposite Grenadier Regiment 123 and was knocked out by machine-guns firing armour-piercing (K bullet) ammunition. The next tank to reach the German lines was snagged by wire, then crossed the first trench before being knocked out. The last tank started late and followed a similar path to the first. The four tanks comprising the left-hand section were late and two were knocked out short of the German trenches; the third tank arrived behind the Australian infantry and silenced a machine-gun in Bullecourt. The tank was hit twice, returned to the railway and was hit again.
  The Australian infantry in the German defences were cut off and the 4th Australian Brigade was forced back; many of its troops were taken prisoner and those who tried to retreat suffered many more casualties. In the 12th Australian Brigade, the 46th Australian Battalion in the first trench was forced out and the 48th Australian Battalion further forward was surrounded. The artillery of the 2nd Guard Division and 220th Division added to the barrage in no man's land and prevented another Australian attack. As the Australians were being forced back, they were unable to salvage ammunition and grenades from the dead and wounded. The British and Australian artillery had eventually begun to fire but this fell on the Australian-occupied trenches, making them untenable. At  the 48th Australian Battalion, the last in the German trenches, made an orderly retreated over the bullet-swept ground. By noon the German counter-attack had succeeded; few Australians had managed to re-cross no man's land through artillery and machine-gun fire.
  German attack on Lagnicourt (15 April 1917)