Chapter I

INTRODUCTORY: THE GENESIS OF THE LANDSHIP.

I.

This book is not, in a formal sense, a history of the Tank Corps. Such a history must necessarily be impersonal in tone, and probably would aim at being judicial in manner--this last an almost impossible feat in our present state of knowledge. A more elastic form of narrative, based to some degree on my own experiences as a subaltern in the corps, appears to me to be preferable, as it will allow greater freedom of method and opinion and a large scope for the merely interesting and picturesque. Moreover, there already is in preparation (and likely to be in print before this appears) more than one semi-official history. It is my aim, therefore, to avoid giving a monotonous tale of battles which (to the lay mind) seem very familiar in type, and to describe instead in general terms the actual work of the tank in action at various stages of its career as an arm of the service, with its problems, its tactics, and its influence upon the war as a whole.

At the same time, it is necessary to use chronological facts as a scaffolding. The operations of the Tank Corps in the field, up to the date of the Armistice, fall naturally into two phases, marked very happily by a change in nomenclature. During the first phase, as the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps, the new organisation was definitely on trial, finding its feet, learning its job, conquering obstruction, indifference, and other impediments: during the second phase, as a separate arm with a name and establishment of its own, the corps moved onward from success to success, became indispensable and ubiquitous, grew to an astounding size, suffered (from friend and enemy) the sincerest form of flattery, and effected a complete revolution in the tactics of battle. The turning-point in its fortunes is marked approximately by two actions, of widely different scope, fought in the autumn of 1917--the little affair known as the Cockcroft, on August 19th, and the first battle of Cambrai ten weeks later. Such milestones as these, and certain of the final operations in which the corps played a conspicuous part and with which I am personally familiar, I shall treat at considerable length; but for the rest a mere skeleton of history will amply serve.

II.

Introductions, if so labelled, are often left unread; and for this reason I have introduced already into this chapter matter belonging more properly to a preface. There remain certain other points which should be borne continually in mind by all who read this (or any other) account of the birth, growth, and achievement of the corps. I am enumerating them here, out of their real order in the narrative, because, in the present general ignorance of the subject, it is only by the help of some such basis for judgment that an adequate estimate of performance can be attempted.

The points are these:--

(1) The tank, even when the war ended, was still in an
experimental stage.

(2) The Tank Corps was the only arm of the service equipped
with an entirely novel weapon which was formed while the
war actually was in progress. Every one had to learn
everything from the beginning. There were no traditions,
nor any experience of any kind to draw on until the first
battle had been fought.

(3) The corps suffered at the outset from a surfeit of parents.
For months it was governed in turn or together by a number
of departments; and often the right hand did not know what
the left hand was about.

(4) Perhaps at that time it was taken seriously by only two
classes of persons--firstly, the actual projectors, a few
naval and military officers and civil engineers, who worked
tirelessly, without reward or even recognition, and to whom
most of the credit for the eventual triumph is due; and,
secondly, that commercial element which, in our country,
profits by every national crisis and sees in every new and
struggling enterprise for the public benefit only another
opportunity of making money.

(5) Until the first battle of Cambrai the corps was still on
probation. It had enemies among the conservatives at
the War Office and at G.H.Q. in France; and its early
fights, which in effect were practical experiments on an
ever-increasing scale, abounding in lessons for those who
cared to learn, were taken as proof of its permanently
limited value. At Cambrai, for the first time, it was given
a chance under favourable conditions; and after that, all
was changed. No one could have too many tanks. Infantry
commanders clamoured for them in and out of season.

(6) The functions and limitations of the tank as a weapon were
very imperfectly apprehended in the beginning by the other
arms of the service. Again it was Cambrai, that greatest
of all military experiments, which, by its magnitude
and success, drove home once for all the lesson that
notwithstanding wire, entrenchments, and machine-guns,
surprise frontal attacks on a large scale were become
practicable once more.

(7) The tank was now taken up in earnest. Co-operation with
infantry, unheard of as a feature of training until just
before that battle, was practised regularly behind certain
army fronts, and was not suspended even during the German
offensives in the following spring. It was realised at
last that when we regained the initiative we should be
in possession of a weapon which had revolutionised the
principles of attack. The evil of the long preliminary
bombardment, warning the enemy days and weeks before an
assault, and destroying one set of obstacles only to
set up another of its own making, had reached excessive
proportions at Ypres in the past autumn. It was now laid
for ever. The sound of it, at least from the British lines,
was hardly heard again during the remainder of the war. The
tank was to lead the infantry over instead.

(8) If any one invention hastened the end, it was the tank.
The German Higher Command, who ought to know, repeatedly
coupled the new weapon with the blockade as one of
the ultimate causes of their defeat. Captured German
orders during the final year were filled with warnings
and instructions concerning tanks. Telephonic messages
referring to them were to have priority over all others.
Troops were to be trained or cajoled into learning to face
them. Special officers, to deal with anti-tank defence,
were attached to divisional headquarters. Traps were to be
dug. Mine-fields were to be laid. Anti-tank stockades, in
village streets or defiles, were a common feature of the
later battlefields. If it sounds extravagant to claim that
tanks won the war, it is indisputable that they hastened
its end by six months or a year. The final advance would
have been an impossibility without them.

(9) The corps was consistently disregarded in official
despatches. It was hampered at every turn by the
conservative outlook of senior officers. Out of six army
commanders, only three fought offensive actions over ground
where tanks could properly be used, and they, at least,
understood their value. But for a just appreciation one
must turn to the official reports and grateful personal
acknowledgments of infantry brigade and battalion
commanders, and to the infantry rank and file themselves.

(10) As some proof of the vital part which tanks played in
the final advance, it may be pointed out that, from
the 8th August 1918 to the 7th November--approximately
ninety days--the corps led the infantry of two armies
in seventy engagements, ranging from full-dress battle,
where two or three hundred tanks were employed, to the
daily local attacks in which only half a dozen took part.
Simultaneously, the French were using their light Rénaults
in scores: the Americans took Rénaults in at St Mihiel and
our Mark V.’s beyond Le Cateau; and one of the few German
counter-attacks which gained a temporary success was led
by tanks captured from us in the March retreat. On this
occasion a serious reverse was only stayed by the arrival
of some of our own machines, which drove the Germans off
when our infantry was breaking.

Enough has been said at this stage. It will be necessary, at the risk of becoming tedious, to reiterate and amplify these points from time to time as the narrative grows; but it is well to get them tabulated here. We can proceed now to a brief consideration of the modern tank, its genesis, its growth, and its early days of experiment and training.

III.

The curious might spend a profitable week or so at the British Museum investigating the origins of the landship. These are indeed obvious enough, for although there is a school (in the halfpenny press) which traces them no further back than to a story by Mr H. G. Wells, the tank is, in fact, the lineal descendant of the knight in armour, the “war carts” of the Scots, the Roman testudo, the elephants of Hannibal, and the chariots of Boadicea. Among the innumerable activities of Leonardo da Vinci was a scheme for “secure and covered chariots,” carrying guns; and as recently as 1888 (but still forestalling Mr Wells) a steam-driven vehicle on the caterpillar principle was projected. All of these manifestations were but varieties of shock troops, calculated to overcome the defensive tactics of their period. Perhaps the elephant was the least reliable, as he showed a tendency to turn about in the heat of battle and forthwith trample down his own friends. Within the last twenty years the caterpillar tractor, the immediate ancestor of the tank, was pulling 60-pounder guns over ditches on Salisbury Plain; and this form of locomotive was still in use for such haulage purposes when war broke out in 1914.

It occurred to no one in the first stages of this conflict that a continent would prove too small for the manœuvres of modern armies. But the open fighting in the early autumn of 1914 came to an end with the race for the coast; and the opposing forces found themselves entrenched along the whole of the immense front, their flanks resting on Switzerland and the Channel, and therefore perfectly secure, and with no apparent way out of this _impasse_ but the costly method of frontal assaults. Here, in fact, was that German bugbear, the “parallel battle.” The enemy proceeded to launch his series of attacks in Flanders, in an endeavour to create a flank, and learnt again that a stubborn and disciplined infantry, given time to dig itself in, even “if only with a spoon,” could beat off greatly superior numbers. The assailant had everything in his favour, for on top of our numerical weakness we were lamentably short of machine-guns, howitzers, and, in particular, field artillery H.E. ammunition. (Batteries about this time were limited--except during an enemy attack--to five rounds per gun per day; and it is said that on one occasion two of these precious rounds having been expended in answer to some call from our infantry, the gunners rang up the latter to ask if they really needed the remaining three!) It was manifest, therefore, that if opportunity for a serious counter-attack had arisen, even supposing we had the men available, we had no means of preparing the way for their advance. And if and when we had both men and guns, what were the chances of success against the precision of modern weapons? The Germans, tackling the same problem from their side, tried again with poison gas; but to this, after its initial triumph, the chemists speedily found an antidote, and it fell to be a mere adjunct of the ordinary harassing tactics of artillery. The Flammenwerfer, a far more futile invention, went the same road. And when, after several months, our new divisions had been trained, and guns and ammunition manufactured in what then was thought to be sufficient quantity, we found out in our turn at Neuve Chapelle and Loos that the resources of the defence were still too manifold and powerful: that concrete, barbed wire, and machine-guns, if sown lavishly and backed by well-trained infantry and artillery, could fend the assailants off from any but the most limited objectives. It is astonishing and rather pitiful to recall now the optimism of those days. Before the morning of Loos there was much confident talk of our being in Douai the next evening. The cavalry--the phrase was not then as stale as it afterwards became--the cavalry was moving up, ready (in the ingenuous euphemism of operation orders) to be “passed through” the gap which the bombardment and infantry assault would create. Every one, in fact, was anticipating a big advance and a resumption of open warfare. And this in 1915! There was to be no “passing through” for any arm until the tanks broke the Hindenburg Line at Cambrai; and even then we had not the courage of our convictions, and the cavalry was four hours late.

All this, of course, is the obvious wisdom after the event; but there were many who had misgivings at the time. Certainly there was then at work in England a small committee, consisting of naval and military officers and technical advisers, who, realising that no expenditure of blood and shells, as then employed, would carry an attack far enough against modern prepared positions, were seeking for a means by which to overcome the difficulty. Trench warfare, indeed, was hardly begun before they were ready with a suggestion. As early as November 1914, the Committee of Imperial Defence was approached by Colonel Swinton with a proposal for the construction of so-called landships for use on the Western Front.

It will be fitting here to set down the names of these innovators. They were, Colonel E. D. Swinton; Admiral Sir R. H. S. Bacon; Captain T. J. Tulloch, manager of the Chilworth Powder Factory; Mr Diplock, who had designed an improved gun-tractor earlier in the year; and Major Hetherington, of the R.N.A.S.

The problem they were attempting to solve has been indicated already, and, with its developments, will be considered more fully later on; but it may be repeated that in essentials it was this: How to break down the triple obstruction of trenches, wire, and machine-guns to such an extent as would allow the infantry to reach an objective with sufficient numbers and spirit left to ensure its capture and retention. This, roughly, was the limited aim of the first landship. It was known or suspected that artillery alone could not be counted on to do the work thoroughly. After the most intense bombardment, patches of wire would remain uncut, strongly emplaced machine-guns undestroyed, if not in the first hostile line, then in the second or the third; and, in any case, we had not then enough guns or ammunition to make even the effort worth the while. But if in addition to gun-fire some secondary means of crushing wire and neutralising machine-guns could be devised, much might be effected later on. The answer to this problem, in the opinion of Colonel Swinton and his colleagues, was a combination of two existing machines, the tractor and the armoured car--in other words, the tank.

Perhaps this idea smelt too much of Mr Wells and Jules Verne for the Committee of Imperial Defence. Perhaps it really was not their business after all. In any case, they displayed no marked enthusiasm for it, but seem to have forwarded it a little later, not, as might have been expected, to the War Department, but to Mr Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty. They may have thought that so chimerical a project, introduced, moreover, by an officer who had been guilty of writing fiction, was something peculiarly in Mr Churchill’s line. If they did reason in this manner, they wrought better than they knew. They rendered excellent service to the budding enterprise, which secured in the First Lord a powerful and pertinacious advocate. A man so restless and intelligent could not fail to score a hit with some of his shots; and amid the long catalogue of his disastrous experiments it should at least be laid to his credit that he saw at once some of the possibilities of this new weapon of offence. Whether he foresaw all the developments of warfare which it entailed may be doubted; but the thing itself was novel and startling: it appealed instantly to his imagination; and he wrote forthwith a long letter to the military authorities recommending its immediate adoption, and incidentally rebuking them for having failed to think of something of the sort themselves. He pointed out that, modern battles being fought at short range, assaulting troops were exposed to a storm of bullets from the moment they left their cover, and that some kind of steel shelter, running on caterpillar tracks and carrying guns, would be invaluable for convoying them through wire and machine-gun fire. Such an experiment would cost little: if it failed, no harm was done; and if it was moderately successful, its moral effect alone would be great. Going somewhat beyond his brief, the First Lord then proposed the manufacture of steel shields of various types--to be carried, to be worn as body armour, and to be pushed on wheels. He recommended also the use of smoke-screens in the attack, and ended by remarking that if we did not take the lead at once in this department of warfare we might find that the enemy had forestalled us.

This letter was written in January 1915. It produced no immediate effect. Probably any suggestions from this source were suspect at the War Office, and stood little chance of consideration on their merits; and it is true that Mr Churchill’s letter was not conciliatory in tone. About this time Colonel Swinton endeavoured to obtain a hearing on his own account, but with no better result. Shortly after, he returned to his duties in France. Here, during the next six months, he made repeated unofficial attempts to get the landship idea considered, and these may have paved the way; for when, on 4th June, he tried official channels again and forwarded a memorandum on the subject to G.H.Q., he received some encouragement at last. Sir John French, with practical experience of the difficulties before him in the field, thought well enough of the idea to submit it to the War Office.[1]

In the meantime, however, things had been moving in England, although in a manner impossible, one would imagine, in any other country. While the War Office had long forgotten all about this pestilent and unpractical proposal, the Admiralty had been defraying the cost of various experiments carried out with a Foster tractor by Admiral Bacon and Major Hetherington, and with an adapted Holt tractor by Captain Tulloch. The trials of the Holt machine at Shoeburyness were highly successful. Immense cutters, like lobster claws, had been fitted for shearing wire entanglements, but it was found that the tractor flattened out the wire so effectually that these implements were not needed. And now, while Colonel Swinton was drafting his memorandum in France, a Landship Committee came into being at the instance of Mr Churchill. The President was Mr (now Sir Eustace) D’Eyncourt. The Consulting Engineer was Lieutenant (now Major) W. G. Wilson; and Mr (now Sir William) Tritton not only lent his great authority and technical experience, but produced at once designs for an armoured tractor, to be run either on wheels or caterpillar tracks. The first two genuine landships evolved from these and earlier designs, known respectively as “Mother” and “Little Willie,” were discarded; but “Big Willie,” their successor, the joint product of Mr Tritton and Lieutenant Wilson, was to embody all the main features of the Mark I. Tank.

The situation, as regards the War Office, was now rather ludicrous. For when that Department, stirred at length into activity by Sir John French’s advocacy of Colonel Swinton’s scheme, began to look around and make inquiries, it discovered with astonishment that the Admiralty had taken up the idea months before, and had been experimenting quietly ever since. It was impossible, however, that the work could be continued under a dual control; and accordingly, toward the end of June a joint committee was formed to manage the whole enterprise. Henceforth, in effect, the tank became a child of the Army; but it is doubtful if the public ever knew that it was adopted more or less under compulsion, and to the Admiralty is due the credit of having realised its possibilities long before the War Office took a step in the matter. The work now proceeded steadily toward fulfilment. Colonel Swinton, returning in July to assume the post of Assistant-Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, was able to watch over his scheme and help it on its way. “Little Willie,” already on the stocks under the ægis of the original committee, was tested at Lincoln and found wanting; but in the meantime the new joint-control had ordered the building of “Big Willie” on the lines laid down by Tritton and Wilson. This experimental machine was tried at Wembley and accepted as a basis for future construction; and Messrs Foster of Lincoln, Agricultural Implement Makers, embarked at once on the slightly modified copy which became the Mark I. tank. This was indeed (to quote from Mr Williams-Ellis’s book)[2] a case of beating our ploughshares into swords. At the close of the year Mr Churchill, still true to his old love, sent to G.H.Q. in France a memorandum on “Variants of the Offensive,” in which he recapitulated his earlier suggestions for an attack by armour. As a direct result of this, Lieut.-Colonel H. J. Elles, R.E., was ordered to England in January 1916, to report on the progress made; and on February 2nd the improved Wembley machine carried out trials at Hatfield before representatives of the Army Council and G.H.Q. in France. The demonstration was successful. Within a week application was made officially for the construction by Messrs Foster of 150 similar machines in six months. By this time the joint-control had ceased to exist, at least in name; for the new Ministry of Munitions, seeking what it might devour, had descended upon the Landships Committee, swallowed it entire, defined its powers by charter, and then reindued it with life as the Tank Committee. But it was soon felt that here a great chance had been let slip: no Government institution could thrive beneath so simple and banal a designation; and in August, by yet one more feat of legerdemain, the much-harassed control became the Mechanical Warfare Supply Department. All was now well; and under this euphonious title it continued to supply the British Army with tanks until the end of the war.

Hand in hand with these events, a military unit was formed to fight the new machines. The Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps came into being in March, with Colonel Swinton in command.