AMPHIBIOUS TANKS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 63, 14 March 1924, Page 7

AMPHIBIOUS TANKS.

A FRENCH INVENTION. Recent advices from America telling i of successful trials carried out witli an . amphibious tank have caused Frenchmen to come forward again with the claim tiiat the military tank is a native invention. Although a controversy which broke out after the war between French and British engineers never was satisfactorily settled, French writers consider that General Etlenne, commander of a corps of engineers during the war. was the first person who conceived these deadly engines. A French newspaper has just reproduced an interview granted by the (ieneral in 1920, in which he said tanks had been thought of many years previously, and that he conceived the idea of an amphibious tank when it was realised that tlic Allies were nearing victory and almost had the Germans on the run. "We had planned to use tanks to cross the Rhine," said General Eticnne, "to capture German bridgeheads. The idea of developing such tanks has not been abandoned." Military experts now say the American tank was the product of French engineering — L considerably developed, •they admit. On the other hand, French officials refuse to say whether the army .is even now equipped with amphibious I tanks, or whether it ever will be.