TANKS IN THE GREAT WAR
[Illustration: BIG WILLIE, MOTHER OF CENTIPEDE, ORIGINAL MARK I TANK.]
TANKS
IN THE GREAT WAR
1914-1918
BY
Brevet-Colonel J. F. C. FULLER, D.S.O.
(Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry)
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
1920
_DEDICATIONS_
I
_I dedicate this book to the modern military scientists, that small
company of gentlemen who, imbued with a great idea, were willing to set
all personal interest aside in order to design a machine destined to
revolutionise the science of war._
II
_I dedicate this book to the modern armourers of the British factories,
those men and women whose untiring patriotism and indomitable endurance
in the workshops produced a weapon whereby the lives of many of their
comrades were saved._
III
_I dedicate this book to the modern knights in armour, the fighting
crews of the Tank Corps; those Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and
Men, who, through their own high courage and noble determination on the
battlefield, maintained Liberty and accomplished Victory._
INTRODUCTION
The following work is the story of a great and unique adventure as
heroic as the exploits of the Argonauts of old, and, though the time
perhaps has not yet arrived wherein to judge the part played by tanks
in the Great War, I feel that, whatever may be the insight and judgment
of the eventual historian of the British Tank Corps, he will probably
lack that essential ingredient of all true history--the witnessing of
the events concerning which he relates.
I, the writer of this book, first set eyes on a tank towards the end of
August 1916. At this time I little thought that I should eventually be
honoured by becoming the Chief General Staff Officer of the Tank Corps,
for a period extending from December 1916 to August 1918. The time
spent during this long connection with the greatest military invention
of the Great War, it is hoped, has not been altogether wasted, and the
story here set forth represents my appreciation of having been selected
to fill so intensely interesting an appointment.
Besides having witnessed and partaken in many of the events related,
those who have assisted me in this book have all been either closely
connected with the Tank Corps or in the Corps itself, they one and
all were partakers in either the creation of the Corps or in the many
actions in which it fought.
So much assistance have I received that I can at most but consider
myself as editor to a mass of information provided for me by others.
Those I more especially wish to thank amongst this goodly company are
the following:
Captain the Hon. Evan Charteris, G.S.O.3, Tank Corps, for the accurate
and careful records of the Corps which he compiled from the earliest
days of the tank movement in 1914, to the close of the battle of
Cambrai. Many of these were written under, shall I say, far from
luxurious circumstances, for Captain Charteris, I feel, must have often
found himself, in his shell-blasted estaminet, less well cared for than
the rats of Albert and as much out of place as Alcibiades in a Peckham
parlour.
When Captain Charteris forsook the “cabaret sans nom,” for some
ill-disposed shell had removed half the signboard, Captain O. A.
Archdale, A.D.C. to General Elles, took up the difficult task and, from
March 1918 onwards, kept the Tank Corps Diary upon which Chapters XXIX,
XXXIII, XXXV, and XXXVII are founded.
Taking now the chapters seriatim, I have to thank Major G. W. G. Allen,
M.C., G.S.O.2, War Office,[1] for parts of Chapter I, and also the
editors of _The American Machinist_ and _The Engineer_ for allowing
me to quote respectively from the following admirable articles: “The
Forerunner of the Tank,” by H. H. Manchester, and “The Evolution of
the Chain Track Tractor”; Sir Eustace Tennyson D’Eyncourt, K.C.B.,
Director of Naval Construction, the Admiralty, and Major-General E. D.
Swinton, C.B., D.S.O., both pioneers of the tanks, and indefatigable
workers in the cause, for much of the information in Chapters II
and IV; Major H. S. Sayer, G.S.0.2, War Office,[2] for Chapter III;
Major O. A. Forsyth-Major, Second in Command of the Palestine Tank
Detachment, for the reports relative to the second and third battles
of Gaza, upon which Chapters XI and XVII are based; Major S. H. Foot,
D.S.O., G.S.O.2, War Office,[3] my close friend and fearless assistant,
for suggestions generally, and particularly in Chapter XVI. My thanks
are also due to some unknown but far-sighted benefactor of the Tank
Corps for Chapter XX; to Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Bradley, D.S.O., and
Brigadier-General E. B. Mathew-Lannowe, C.M.G., D.S.O., G.O.C. Tank
Corps Training Centre, Wool, for information regarding the Depot in
Chapter XXI; to the relentlessly inventive Lieutenant-Colonel L. C. A.
de B. Doucet, O.C. Tank Carrier Units, and so commander of the first
supply fleet which ever “set sail” on land, for information to be
found in Chapter XXII; to Lieutenant-Colonel J. D. M. Molesworth,
M.C., A.D.A.S., Tank Corps, who in spite of the scholastics gave the
lie to the tag _Ex nihilo nihil fit_, for parts of Chapter XXIV; to
Major R. Spencer, M.C., Liaison Officer, Tank Corps, whose unfailing
charm and insight always succeeded in extracting from our brave Allies
not only the glamour of great adventures but the detail of truthful
occurrences, for the events described in Chapters XXV and XXXVI;
to Major F. E. Hotblack, D.S.O., M.C., G.S.O.2, War Office,[4] my
friend and companion, who unfailingly would guide _any one_ over wire
and shell-hole immune and unscathed, for Chapters XXVIII, XXXI, and
XXXIV; to Lieutenant C. B. Arnold, D.S.O., Commander of Whippet Tank
“Musical Box,” for the simple and heroic exploit related in Chapter
XXX; to Major T. L. Leigh Mallory, D.S.O., O.C. 8th Squadron, R.A.F.,
whose energy resulted not only in the cementing of a close comradeship
between the two supreme mechanical weapons of the age but of a close
co-operation which saved many lives in battle, for much of Chapter
XXXII; to Lieutenant-Colonel E. J. Carter, O.C. 17th Tank Armoured Car
Battalion, who was as great a terror to the German Corps Commanders as
Paul Jones was to the Manchester merchantmen and who had the supreme
honour to break over the Rhine the first British flag--the colours of
the Tank Corps--for Chapter XXXVIII.
It was a great brotherhood, the Tank Corps, and if there were “duds” in
it there certainly were not old ones, for the Commander of the Corps,
Major-General H. J. Elles, C.B., D.S.O., was under forty, and most of
his staff and subordinate commanders were younger than himself. Youth
is apt, rightly, to be enthusiastic, and General Elles must frequently
have had a trying time in regulating this enthusiasm, canalising it
forward against the enemy and backward diplomatically towards our
friends.
We of the Tank Corps Headquarters Staff knew what we wanted. Realising
the power of the machine which the brains of England had created, we
never hesitated over a “No” when we knew that hundreds if not thousands
of lives depended on a “Yes.”
Modestly, looking back on the war from a comfortable armchair in
London, I see clearly, quite clearly, that we were right. The war
has proved it, and our endeavours were not in vain. We were right,
and youth generally is right, for it possesses mental elasticity,
its brains are plastic and not polarised. The mental athlete is the
young man: the Great War, like all other wars, has proved this again
and again. We have heard much of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, but they
scoffed at the tank just as Wurmser and Alvinzi scoffed at the ragged
voltigeurs of the Army of Italy with which the Little Corporal was,
in 1796, about to astonish Europe. We have also astonished Europe, we
who wandered over the Somme battlefield with dimmed eyes, and over the
Flanders swamps with a lump in our throats.
There was Colonel F. Searle, C.B.E., D.S.O., Chief Engineer of the
Corps, a true civilian with a well-cut khaki jacket and lion-tamer’s
boots. He could not understand the military ritual, and we soldiers
seemed never to be able to explain it to him. Throughout the war, in
spite of his immense mechanical labours, I verily believe he had only
one wish, and this was to erect a guillotine outside a certain holy
place. There was Major G. A. Green, M.C., Colonel Searle’s deputy,
the father of terrible propositions, the visitor of battlefields,
the searcher after shell-holes, the breather of profane words. The
Corps owed a lot to Green; a firm believer in seeing things before
criticising them, he was a very great asset.
The “King of Grocers,” this was Colonel T.J. Uzielli, D.S.O., M.C.,
D.A. and Q.M.G. of the Corps, business-like, and an administrator from
boot to crown. Suave yet fearless, tactful yet truthful, the Corps owed
much to his ability. It was never left in want, his decision gave it
what it asked for, his prevision cut down this asking to a minimum.
Ably seconded by Major H. C. Atkin-Berry, D.S.O., M.C., and Major R. W.
Dundas, M.C., the “A” and “Q” branches of the Tank Corps Staff formed
the foundation of the Corps’ efficiency.
On the “G” side there was myself. Under me came Major G. le Q. Martel,
D.S.O., M.C., very much R.E. and still more tanks, the man who
“sloshed” friend or foe. One day, in March 1918, I was at Fricourt,
then none too healthy. Martel walked down the road: “Where are you
going?” I shouted. “To Montauban,” he answered. “I hear it is full of
Boche,” I replied. “Well, I will go and see,” said Martel, and off he
moved eastwards. There was Major F. E. Hotblack, D.S.O., M.C., lover of
beauty and battles, a mixture of Abelard and Marshal Ney. Were Ninon
de l’Enclos alive he would have been at her elbow; as she is dust,
he, instead, collected “troddels”[5] off dead Germans--a somewhat
remarkable character. As G.S.O.2 Training, Major H. Boyd-Rochfort,
D.S.O., M.C., from West Meath, his enthusiasm for tanks nearly wrecked
a famous corps; yet Boyd only smiled, and his smile somehow always
reminded one of Peter Kelly’s whisky, there was a handshake or a
fight in it. The two G.S.O.s3 were Captain the Hon. E. Charteris and
Captain I. M. Stewart, M.C. Charteris was the “_Arbiter Elegantiarum_”
of our Headquarters. He kept the Corps’ records, as already stated,
and without these it would scarcely have been possible to write this
history. He was our _maître d’hôtel_; he gave us beach nut bacon and
honey for breakfast, kept his weather eye open for a one-armed man,
elaborated menus which rivalled those of Trimalchio, and gave sparkle
to us all by the ripple of his wit. Lastly, Ian Stewart of the Argyll
and Sutherland Highlanders. In kilts, no girl between Hekla and Erebus
has ever been known to resist him; but his efforts, whilst in the Tank
Corps, did not lie in conquering hearts but in perpetually worrying my
unfortunate self to become party to his own suicide--for nothing would
keep him from the battlefield.
The first three brigadiers of the Corps were all remarkable men.
Brigadier-General C. D’A. B. S. Baker-Carr, C.M.G., D.S.O., commanding
the 1st Tank Brigade, started the war as a gentleman chauffeur, a most
cheery companion, the Murat of the Corps, ever ready for a battle or
a game. I remember him at Montenescourt, during the battle of Arras
1917, fighting with the telephone, at Ypres fighting with the mud, at
Cambrai fighting with a comfortable, vacant, rotund little man, but
ever cheerful and prepared to meet you with a smile and a glass of
old brandy. Commanding the 2nd Tank Brigade was Brigadier-General A.
Courage, D.S.O., M.C. He possessed only half a jaw, having lost the
rest at Ypres; yet at conferences he was a host in himself, and what
a “pow-wow” must have been like before the Boche bullet hit him is
not even to be found in the works of the great Munchausen. No detail
escaped his eye, no trouble was too great, and no fatigue sufficient
to suggest a pause. The successes of Hamel and Moreuil in 1918 were
due to his energy, and on these successes was the battle of Amiens
founded. The last of the original Brigadiers was Brigadier-General J.
Hardress-Lloyd, D.S.O., commanding the 3rd Tank Brigade. He started the
war as a stowaway. This resulted in no one ever discovering what his
substantive rank was; by degrees a myth as to his origin was cultivated
by innumerable “A” clerks both in France and England; these lived
and throve on this mystery, which no doubt will at a distant date be
elucidated by some future Lemprière. Hardress-Lloyd was one of the main
causes of the battle of Cambrai. He, I believe, introduced the idea to
General Sir Julian Byng, this away back in August 1917. Hardress-Lloyd
was a man of big ideas and always kept a good table and a fine
stable--in fact, a _beau sabreur_. I will leave Hardress at that.
Above are to be sought the real foundations of the Corps’ efficiency
under its gallant Commander, Major-General H. J. Elles, C.B., D.S.O.,
who endowed it with that high moral, that fine _esprit de corps_ and
jaunty _esprit de cocarde_ which impelled it from one success to
another. These foundations no future historian is likely to be so
intimately acquainted with as I--and now for the story.[6]
The history itself is purposely uncritical, because any criticism which
might have been included is so similar to that directed against the
introducers of the locomotive and the motor-car that it would be but a
repetition, tedious enough to the reader, were it here repeated.
Human opinion is conservative by instinct, and what to mankind is most
heterodox is that which is most novel: this is a truism in war as it is
in politics or religion. It took 1000 years for gunpowder to transform
war. In 1590, a certain Sir John Smythe wrote a learned work: “Certain
discourses concerning the forms and effects of divers sorts of weapons,
and other very important matters militarie, greatlie mistaken by divers
of our men of warre in these daies; and chiefly, of the Mosquet,
the Caliver, and the Long-bow; as also of the great sufficiencie,
excellencie and wonderful effects of Archers,” in which he extols an
obsolete weapon and decries a more modern one--the arquebus. “For the
reactionaries of his time George Stephenson with his locomotive was the
original villan of the piece; he was received with unbridled abuse and
persecution. Most of Stephenson’s time was spent in fighting fools.”[7]
At the beginning of the present century nearly every English country
gentleman swore that nothing would ever induce him to exchange his
carriage for a motor-car--yet the locomotive and the motor-car have
triumphed, and triumphed so completely that all that their inventors
claimed for them appears to-day as hostile criticism against their
accomplishments.
So with the tank, it has come not only to stay but to revolutionise,
and I for one, enthusiastic as I am, do not for a minute doubt that
my wildest dreams about its future will not only be realised but
surpassed, and that from its clumsy endeavours in the Great War will
arise a completely new direction in the art of warfare itself.
That the Tank had, and still has, many doubters, many open critics,
is true enough; but there is no disparagement in this, rather is it a
compliment, for the masses of mankind are myopic, and had they accepted
it with acclaim how difficult would it have been for it even to come,
let alone stay and grow.
The criticism directed against this greatest military invention of
the war was the stone upon which its progress was whetted. Without
criticism we might still have Big Willie, but we enthusiasts determined
that not only would we break down this criticism by means of the
machine itself, but that we would render our very machine ridiculous
by machines of a better type, and it is ridicule which kills. So we
proceeded, and as type followed type, victory followed victory. Then
our critics tacked and veered: it was not the tank they objected to but
our opinions regarding it; they were overstatements; why, we should
soon be claiming for it powers to boil their morning tea and shave them
whilst still in bed. Why not? If such acts are required, a tank can be
built to accomplish them, because the tank possesses power and energy,
and energy is the motive force of all things.
It is just this point that the critics missed; their minds being
controlled by the conventions of the day. They could not see that
if the horse-power in a man is _x_, that the circumference of his
activities is a circle with _x_ as its radius. They could not see that
if the horse-power of a machine is 100_x_; its circumference will
be vastly greater than that of man’s; neither could they see that
whilst in man _x_ is constant, provided the man is supplied regularly
with beef, bread and beer, in a machine _x_ may be increased almost
indefinitely, and that if a circle with _n_ as its circumference will
not embrace the problem, probably all that is necessary is to add more
_x_’s to its radius. Indeed, the science of mechanics is simplicity
itself when compared with that of psychology, and as in war mechanics
grow so will psychology, in comparison, dwindle, until perhaps we may
see in armies as complete a change from hand-weapons to machine-weapons
as we have seen in our workshops from hand-tools to machine-tools, and
the economy will be as proportionate.
Before the Great War I was a believer in conscription and in the Nation
in Arms; I was an 1870 soldier. My sojourn in the Tank Corps has
dissipated these ideas. Today I am a believer in war mechanics, that
is, in a mechanical army which requires few men and powerful machines.
Equally am I a disbeliever in what a venerable acquaintance, old in
ideas rather than years, said to me on the afternoon of November 11th,
1918. These are his words, and I repeat them as he exclaimed them:
“Thank God we can now get back to real soldiering!”
J. F. C. F.
LANGHAM HOTEL, LONDON, W.1.
_November 20, 1919._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ORIGINS OF THE TANK 1
II. THE INVENTION OF THE LANDSHIP 18
III. MECHANICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TANKS 35
IV. THE MARK I TANK AND ITS TACTICS 49
V. THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME AND ANCRE 54
VI. THE GROWTH OF THE TANK CORPS ORGANISATION 60
VII. TANK “ESPRIT DE CORPS” 68
VIII. TANK TACTICS 73
IX. THE BATTLE OF ARRAS 81
X. TANK BATTLE RECORDS 90
XI. THE SECOND BATTLE OF GAZA 98
XII. STAFF WORK AND BATTLE PREPARATION 103
XIII. THE BATTLE OF MESSINES 108
XIV. A TACTICAL APPRECIATION 113
XV. THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 117
XVI. TANK MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 125
XVII. THE THIRD BATTLE OF GAZA 130
XVIII. ORIGINS OF THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI 135
XIX. THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI 140
XX. AN INFANTRY APPRECIATION OF TANKS 154
XXI. THE TANK CORPS TRAINING CENTRE 159
XXII. THE TANK SUPPLY COMPANIES 166
XXIII. THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME 172
XXIV. TANK SIGNALLING ORGANISATION 178
XXV. THE FRENCH TANK CORPS 184
XXVI. PREPARATIONS FOR THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 199
XXVII. THE BATTLES OF HAMEL AND MOREUIL 204
XXVIII. GERMAN TANK OPERATIONS 212
XXIX. THE BATTLE OF AMIENS 217
XXX. THE FIGHT OF A WHIPPET TANK 230
XXXI. GERMAN APPRECIATION OF BRITISH TANKS 236
XXXII. AEROPLANE CO-OPERATION WITH TANKS 242
XXXIII. THE BATTLE OF BAPAUME AND THE SECOND BATTLE OF ARRAS 250
XXXIV. GERMAN ANTI-TANK TACTICS 260
XXXV. THE BATTLES OF EPEHY AND CAMBRAI--ST. QUENTIN 266
XXXVI. THE U.S.A. TANK CORPS 277
XXXVII. THE BATTLES OF THE SELLE AND MAUBEUGE 283
XXXVIII. THE 17TH TANK ARMOURED CAR BATTALION 289
XXXIX. A RETROSPECT OF WHAT TANKS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED 297
XL. A FORECAST OF WHAT TANKS MAY DO 308
INDEX 323
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
BIG WILLIE, MOTHER OR CENTIPEDE, ORIGINAL MARK I TANK _Frontispiece_
PLATE FACING PAGE
I. LITTLE WILLIE AND MARK IV TANK (FEMALE) 26
II. GROUND OPERATED OVER BY TANKS DURING THE BATTLE OF MESSINES,
SHOWING PRELIMINARY BOMBARDMENT ON JUNE 5, 1917: AND
GROUND OPERATED OVER BY TANKS IN AUGUST 1917, DURING
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 122
III. MEDIUM MARK “A” TANK (WHIPPET) 176
IV. FRENCH SCHNEIDER TANK AND FRENCH ST. CHAMOND TANK 186
V. MARK V TANK (MALE) 204
VI. FRENCH RENAULT TANK AND GERMAN TANK 214
VII. GUN CARRIER AND MARK V STAR TANK (FEMALE) 220
DIAGRAMS
1. SCOTTISH WAR CART, 1456 3
2. VALTURIO’S WAR CHARIOT, 1472 5
3. HOLZSCHUHER’S BATTLE CAR, 1558 6
4. SIMON STEVIN’S LANDSHIP, 1599 7
5. THE APPLEGARTH TRACTOR, 1886 10
6 and 6A. THE BATTER TRACTOR, 1888 12 and 13
7 to 15. TANK TACTICS 75 and 77
16. GERMAN ARTILLERY TACTICS 115
MAPS
I. THE BATTLE OF ARRAS, APRIL 9, 1917 84
II. THE SECOND BATTLE OF GAZA, APRIL 17, 1917 100
III. THE BATTLE OF MESSINES, JUNE 7, 1917 110
IV. THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES, JULY 31, 1917 120
V. THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI, NOVEMBER 20, 1917 146
VI. THE BATTLE OF SOISSONS, JULY 18, 1918 192
VII. THE BATTLE OF HAMEL, JULY 4, 1918 206
VIII. THE BATTLE OF MOREUIL, JULY 23, 1918 208
IX. THE BATTLE OF AMIENS, AUGUST 8, 1918 222
X. GENERAL MAP End of Volume
TANKS IN THE GREAT WAR
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGINS OF THE TANK
In war the main problem to solve is--“How to give blows without
receiving them”; it has always been so and is likely always to remain
so, for battles are two-act tragedies: the first act consisting in
hitting and the second in securing oneself against being hit.
If we look back on the 4,000 years of the known history of war, we
shall find that its problems are always the same: thus in battle the
soldier has to think of four main acts:
(i) How to strike his opponent when at a distance from him;
(ii) How to move forward towards him;
(iii) How to strike him at close quarters;
(iv) How to prevent himself being struck throughout the whole of
this engagement.
In these four acts must be sought the origins of the tank, the idea of
which is, therefore, much older than the Trojan horse; indeed, it dates
back to some unknown period when aboriginal man raised his arm to ward
off the blow of an infuriated beast or neighbour.
To ward off a blow with the bare skin is sometimes a painful operation;
why not then cover the arm with leather or iron, why not carry a
shield, why not encase the whole body in steel so that both arms
instead of one may be used to hit with, for then man’s offensive power
will be doubled?
If we look back on the Middle Ages, we find that such a condition
of fighting was actually possible and that knights clad in armour
cap-à-pie were practically invulnerable. As regards these times there
is an authentic record concerning twenty-five knights in armour who
rode out one day and met a great mob of insurgent peasants which they
charged and routed, killing and wounding no fewer than 1,200 of them,
without sustaining a single casualty themselves. To all intents and
purposes, these knights were living tanks--a combination of muscular
energy, protective armour, and offensive weapons.
Knights in armour remained practically invulnerable as long as the
propellant for missile weapons was limited to the bow-string and as
long as the knights fought within the limitations which their armour
imposed upon them. At Crécy and similar battles, the chivalry of France
suffered defeat more through the condition of ground they attempted
to negotiate, than through the arrows of the English archers. They,
in fact, became “ditched” like a tank in the mud, and being rendered
immobile, fell an easy prey to the enemy’s men-at-arms. A fact which
proves that it was not the arrow which generally destroyed the knight
is that the archers were equipped with maces or leaden hammers[8] by
means of which the knight could, when once bogged or “bellied,” be
stunned, rendered innocuous, his armour opened, and he himself taken
prisoner for ransom.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 1. SCOTTISH WAR CART, 1456.]
The true banisher of armour was gunpowder, for when once the thickest
armour, which human energy would permit of being worn, could be
penetrated, it became but an encumbrance to its wearer. Though
gunpowder was introduced as a missile propellant on the battlefield
as early as the twelfth century, it was not until the close of the
fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries that its influence
began to be felt, and it is interesting to note that directly it
became apparent that the hand gun would beat armour carried by men,
other means of carrying it were introduced. These means took the form
of battle cars or mobile fortresses.[9] Conrad Kyeser,[10] in his
military manuscript, written between 1395 and 1405, pictures several
“battle cars.” Some of these are equipped with lances, whilst others
are armed with cannon. A few years later, in 1420, Fontana designed
a large “battle car,” and the following year Archinger another, to
enclose no fewer than 100 men. All these cars were moved by means of
muscle power, _i.e._ men or animals harnessed inside them. A picture of
one of these is to be found in Francis Grose’s _Military Antiquities_,
vol. I, p. 388 (see Diagram 1). Its crew consisted of eight men, the
same as the Mark I Tank. The following extract concerning these carts
is of interest:
“Another species of artillery were the war carts, each carrying
two Peteraros or chamber’d pieces; several of these carts are
represented in the Cowdry picture of the siege of Bullogne, one of
which is given in this work; these carts seem to have been borrowed
from the Scotch; Henry, in his History of England, mentions them
as peculiar to that nation, and quotes the two following acts of
parliament respecting them; one A.D. 1456 wherein they are thus
described: ‘it is tocht speidfull that the King mak requiest to
certain of the great burrows of the land that are of ony myght, to
mak carts of weir, and in elk cart twa gunnis and ilk one to have
twa chalmers, with the remnant of the graith that effeirs thereto,
and an cunnard man to shute thame.’ By another Act, A.D. 1471, the
prelates and barons are commanded to provide such carts of war
against their old enemies the English (Black Acts, James II, Act
52, James III, Act 55).”
With all these war carts the limitations imposed upon them by muscular
motive force must have been considerable on any save perfectly firm and
level ground, consequently other means of movement were attempted, and
during the last quarter of the fifteenth century the battle car enters
its second phase. In a work of Valturio’s dated 1472, a design is to
be found of one of these vehicles propelled by means of wind wheels
(see Diagram 2). Ten years later we find Leonardo da Vinci engaged in
the design of another type of self-moving machine. Writing to Ludovico
Sforza he says:
“I am building secure and covered chariots which are invulnerable,
and when they advance with their guns into the midst of the foe,
even the largest enemy masses must retreat; and behind them the
infantry can follow in safety and without opposition.”
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 2. VALTURIO’S WAR CHARIOT, 1472.]
What the motive force of this engine of war was is unknown, but the
above description is that of the tank of today, in fact so accurate is
this description that Leonardo da Vinci, nearly 350 years ago, had a
clearer idea of a tank operation than many a British soldier had prior
to the battle of Cambrai, fourteen months after the first tank had
taken the field.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 3. HOLZSCHUHER’S BATTLE CAR, 1558.]
A somewhat similar self-moving wagon was designed for Maximilian I and
in 1558 Holzschuher describes a battle car a picture of which shows it
in action preceded by infantry and flanked by cavalry (see Diagram 3).
In 1599 Simon Stevin is supposed to have constructed for the Prince of
Orange two veritable landships; these consisted in small battleships
fully rigged, mounted upon wheels (see Diagram 4).
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 4. SIMON STEVIN’S LANDSHIP, 1599.]
“The earliest English patent for a self-moving wagon which could,
if desired, be used in war, was probably that taken out by David
Ramsey in 1634. In 1658 Caspar Schott designed one to inclose 100
men and to be employed against the Turks.”[11]
All the users of these inventions were destined to disappointment,
for the science of mechanics was not sufficiently advanced to render
self-movement practical and it was not until the middle of the
eighteenth century that a fresh attempt was made to reintroduce so
essential a weapon as the war cart. The following account of this
reintroduction is quoted from Mr. Manchester’s most interesting article:
“After the practical application of steam by Watt in 1765 we find
an early attempt to apply it to land transportation in what must be
considered the first steam automobile. As early as 1769 Cugnot in
France set a steam boiler upon the frame of a wagon and succeeded
in making the wagon go. His idea was that this invention could be
used in war, and on this presumption he was the next year assisted
by the government to construct an improvement. The speed, however,
was scarcely more than 2½ miles an hour, and the machine would run
only twenty minutes before it had to stop for fifteen minutes to
get up more steam. In his first public trial he had the ill-luck to
run into and knock down part of a stone wall. This led to his being
temporarily cast into jail, and his experiments were abandoned.
Napoleon must have visualised the possibilities of Cugnot’s machine
for military purposes, for when the great general was selected a
member of the French Institute, the subject of his paper was ‘The
Automobile in War.’”
The “battle car” had now, at least experimentally, evolved into the
steam wagon which could run on roads; the next step was to invent one
which would move in any direction across country, in other words to
replace the wheels by tracks. The evolution of the caterpillar tractor
brings us to the fourth phase in the evolution of the “battle car.”
The idea of distributing the weight of a vehicle over a greater area
than that provided by its own wheels is by no means a novel one; one
year after Cugnot produced the first steam automobile Richard Lovell
Edgeworth patented a device whereby a portable railway could be
attached to a wheeled carriage; it consisted of several pieces of wood
which moved in regular succession in such a manner that a sufficient
length of railing was constantly at rest for the wheels to roll upon.
The principle of this device was but a modification of that upon which
the tracks of tanks now depend, and all subsequent ideas were founded
on this basis.[12]
The endless chain track passed through various early patents. In
1801 Thomas German produced “a means of facilitating the transit of
carriages by substituting endless chains or a series of rollers for the
ordinary wheels.” This definitely cut adrift from the idea of wheels
and replaced it by that of tracks. In 1812 William Palmer produced a
somewhat similar invention, and in 1821 John Richard Barry patented a
contrivance consisting of two endless pitched chains, stretched out and
passing round two chain wheels at the end of the carriage, one on each
side, which formed the rails or bearing surface of the vehicle.
Footed wheels were not, however, abandoned, and in 1846 a picture of
the Boydell engine shows the wheels of this machine fitted with feet.
In 1861 an improved wheel-foot was patented by Andrew Dunlop which was
modified by other inventors and by degrees evolved into the pedrail,
trials of which were carried out at Aldershot under the War Office in
1905.
In 1882 Guillaume Fender of Buenos Aires suggested and John Newburn
patented certain improvements to endless tracks. Fender realised that
the attempts to produce endless travelling railways had not met with
great success owing to the shortness of the rails or tracks employed;
he, therefore, proposed that their length should be the same as the
distance between the vehicle’s axles. If it were desired to have short
links the number of wheels must be increased; furthermore, should the
tractor be used for hauling a train of wagons, the endless track should
be long enough to embrace all the wheels. This is the original idea of
the all-round track.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 5. THE APPLEGARTH TRACTOR, 1886.]
Among the many interesting patents of about this date were the
Applegarth tractor of 1886 (see Diagram 5) and the Batter tractor of
1888. In the former the forward portion of the track was inclined and
suggests the contour of the track as applied to the front of tanks. The
track being raised in front gives an initial elevation when an obstacle
is met with and very greatly assists in surmounting banks and other
irregularities.
Diagram 6 depicts the Batter tractor and it clearly shows the basic
ideas which have been employed in tank transmission and tank design.
This tractor was patented in the U.S.A., it was furnished with two
tracks, their contour very closely resembling those of the Medium Mark
“A” (Whippet) and gun-carrier machines (see Plates III and VII) The
motive power was steam, and two separate engines, fed by one boiler,
were used, one to drive each track; apparently provision was made, if
desired, for the crankshafts of these engines to be clutched together.
Each track consisted of two endless belts, an inner and an outer; the
outer belt, that which impinges on the ground, was composed of shoes
arranged transversely and coupled together. Between the outer belt and
the rollers ran the inner belt. The inner belt or link was of much
less width than the outer and thus allowed the latter to swivel and
adapt itself to irregularities of the ground, whilst the working of the
rollers was not interfered with. A system almost identical with this
one has recently been adopted for tank tracks.
The rollers were alternately flanged and plain, as on tanks. Two tails
for steering and balancing the machine were fitted; a similar idea was
adopted on Mark I machines and gun carriers, but subsequently discarded.
The general introduction of the internal-combustion engine and petrol
as a fuel gave a further impetus to the tracked machine. In 1900 Frank
Bramond patented a track which could be applied to pneumatic-tyred
vehicles, either to single wheels or to two pairs of wheels. In 1907
a Rochet-Schneider was fitted with a track by Roberts and tested at
Aldershot. This car was exhibited together with a 70 h.p. Hornsby
chain-track tractor and took part in the Royal Review at Aldershot in
May 1908. This same year Hornsby fitted up a 75 h.p. Mercedes motor-car
with a track to demonstrate its advantages for high-speed work on sand.
“This car was run daily for five months at Skegness, on loose sand, and
it is understood that a speed of twenty miles an hour was obtained.”[13]
Of later years, American inventors and manufacturers have made great
progress in chain-track tractors, but practically all the principles of
design were originally applied in Great Britain. The Holt caterpillar
is the outstanding American design for tractors which has been adopted
during the war.
[Illustration:_The Engineer._] DIAGRAM 6. THE BATTER TRACTOR, 1888.]
[Illustration:_The Engineer._] DIAGRAM 6A. THE BATTER TRACTOR, 1888.]
It is interesting to note with reference to the above inventions that
neither Germany nor Austria ever appears to have contributed any basic
suggestion relating to track-driven machines.
To return now to the military aspect of our subject, gunpowder did
away with armour, for if armour can be pierced its defensive value
is lost and it only becomes an encumbrance to the wearer by reducing
his mobility and exhausting his muscular energy. Did this change the
main problem in the art of war? Not at all, for “the giving of blows
without receiving them” remains the unchangeable object of battle
irrespective of the change of weapons, and all that happened was, that
the soldier, no longer being able to seek protection by body-armour,
sought it elsewhere--by manœuvring, by covering fire and entrenchments
as typified in the drill of Frederick the Great, the cannonades and
sharpshooters’ fire of Napoleon, the fortifications of Vauban, and
later on the use of ground by Wellington as cover from fire.
The opening of the war in 1914 saw all sides equipped with similar
weapons and in comparatively similar proportions. The great sweep of
the Germans through Belgium was followed by the battle of the Marne,
a generic term for a series of bloody engagements which raged from
Lorraine to Paris. Then came the great reaction--the German retreat
to the Aisne, the heights along which had been hastily prepared for
defence. The battle swayed whilst vigour lasted and then stabilised as
exhaustion intervened. At first cautiously, then rapidly, did the right
flank of the German Armies and the left flank of those of the French
and British seek to out-manœuvre each other. This led to the race for
the coast. Meanwhile came the landing of the British 7th Division at
Zeebrugge and then the First Battle of Ypres, which closed the German
offensive on the British front for three years and four months.
The quick-firing field-gun and the machine-gun, used defensively,
proved too strong for the endurance of the attackers, who were forced
to seek safety by means of their spades, rather than through their
rifles. Whole fronts were entrenched, and before the end of 1914,
except for a few small breaks, a man could have walked by trench, had
he wished to, from Nieuport almost into Switzerland.
With the trench came wire entanglements--the horror of the attack,
and the trinity of trench, machine-gun, and wire, made the defence
so strong that each offensive operation in turn was brought to a
standstill.
The problem which then confronted us was a twofold one:
Firstly, how could the soldier in the attack be protected against
shrapnel, shell-splinters, and bullets? Helmets were reintroduced,
armour was tried, shields were invented, but all to no great purpose.
Secondly, even if bullet-proof armour could be invented, which it
certainly could, how were men laden down with it going to get through
the wire entanglements which protected every position?
Three definite solutions were attempted--the first, artillery; the
second, gas; and the third, tanks--each of which is a definite answer
to our problem if the conditions are favourable for its use. Thus
at the battle of the Dunajec, in the spring of 1915, the fire of
Mackensen’s massed artillery smashed the Russian front; this success
being due as much to the fewness of the Russian guns as to the skill of
that great soldier. At the Second Battle of Ypres the German surprise
gas attack succeeded because the British and French possessed no
antidote. At the First Battle of Cambrai, the use of tanks on good firm
ground proved an overwhelming success, whilst at the Third Battle of
Ypres, on account of the mud, they were an all but complete failure.
All armies attempted the first method by increasing the number of their
guns, the size of their guns, and the quantity of their ammunition.
So thoroughly was this done that whole sectors of an enemy’s front
were blasted out of recognition. This, however, was only accomplished
after all surprise had been sacrificed by obvious preparation during
which notice and time were given to the enemy to mass his reserves
in order to meet the attack. Further than this, though the enemy’s
wire and trenches were destroyed all communications on his side of “No
Man’s Land” were obliterated, with the result that a new obstacle,
“the crumped area,” proved as formidable an antagonist to a continuous
advance, by hampering supply, as uncut wire had done to a successful
assault, by forbidding infantry movement.
Instead of solving the problem: “How could mobility be reintroduced
on the Western Front?” the great increase in artillery, during 1915
and 1916, only complicated it, for, though the preliminary bombardment
cut the wire and blew in the enemy’s trenches and the creeping barrage
protected the infantry in a high degree, every artillery attack during
two years ended in failure due to want of surprise at its initiation
and the impossibility of adequate supply during its progress.
The Germans attempted the second method--gas, and from the Second
Battle of Ypres the chemist fell in alongside the soldier. That gas
might have won the war is to-day too obvious to need accentuation.
Two conditions were alone requisite--sufficient gas and a favourable
wind. Fortunately for us the German did not wait long enough to
manufacture gas in quantity; unfortunately for them the prevailing wind
on the Western Front is westerly, consequently when we and the French
retaliated they got more than they ever gave us.
The introduction of gas still further complicated the problem, for,
whilst it is easy for the defender to launch gas clouds, it is
difficult for an attacker to do so, consequently once soldiers had been
equipped with respirators the defence gained by this method of fighting
and warfare became still more immobile.
As regards the British front the opening day of the First Battle of the
Somme, July 1, 1916, showed, through the terrible casualty lists which
followed, how far the defence had become the stronger form of war. At
no date in the whole history of the war was a stalemate termination
to all our endeavours more certain. The hopes of nearly two years
were shattered in a few hours before the ruins of Thiepval, Serre,
and Gommecourt, where our men fell in thousands before the deadly
machine-gun fire of the enemy. Eleven weeks later, on September 15, a
solution to the problem became apparent, a solution due to the efforts
of a small band of men, of whose energy and endeavours the next chapter
will relate.