GENERAL TANK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 268, 12 October 1932, Page 12

GENERAL TANK.

REAL VICTOR OVER GERMANS. Secrets of the struggle to obtain tanks are disclosed in a history of tanks by Major-General Sir Ernest Swinton, the real originator of the move. He recalls that, despite the trench deadlock, it was obviously imperative to discover a method of countering the deadly German machine-guns to enable a victorious advance. The military authorities' almost unanimously condemned the “futility’ of General Swinton’s suggestion. Earl Kitchener, calling the tank a “pretty mechanical toy,” led the opposition. Headquarters in France ridiculed the idea, even when General Swinton secured the construction of a fair number of tanks. . “Wicked uncles,” as General Swinton characterises the staff, consistently misused the new weapon, revealing the secret by utilising 32 in a petty operation during the Battle of the Somme, although General Swinton urged the employment of huge numbers as a tremendous surprise. Criticising the staff, the general declares: “Dspite the examples of the Germans’ stupendous mistake in releasing gas over a short sector, we, 16 months later, with our eyes open, similarly erred, and discounted a possible future great coup for a slender prospect of immediate gain. “Ultimately, after the tank raid on Cambrai in 1917, the- authorities realised the possibilities of a mass attack by tanks. They used more than 800 in the great push on August 8, 1918, in which Australians participated, and which General Ludendorff called Germany’s Black Day. “General Zwehl later wrote: ‘The Germans were heaten not by Focli but by General Tank in conjunction with American reinforcements.’ ” General Swinton doubts whether the importance of the tank is yet realised in the highest British military circles.