THE TANKS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 16

THE TANKS

THEIR STRANGE ORIGIN. Writes Captain Alex. Scott D.S.O. AI.C. in the Sydney Alorning Herald: — I, On September 15, 1916, the weird military contraption now known as the tank went into action for the first time, and that classic message came from an R.F.C. observer: “A tank is walking up the High Street of Flers .with the British Army cheering behind it.” Behind this strange statement is an even stranger story. To decide who invented the tank is nearly as impossible as to discover who made the first wheelbarrow. As early as 1903, a tale by H. G. Wells, called “The Land ironclads,” appeared in the Strand Magazine ; and it is certain that in 1912 a proposal and design for a track-driven fighting machine was submitted to the British War Office by an Australian, Mr L. E. de Mole. There may well have been other workers along similar lines. But the man who undoubtedly did most to transler the tank from the realm of theory to actual fact was Colonel E. D. Swinton, II.E. Colonel j Swinton is known to fame as the origin'al “Eyewitness” of the British Expeditionary Force, whose descriptive articles iin the early months of the war were I ppssibly the most eagerly read pro- ' mrtineements in the English tongue. Colonel Swinton was not only a very experienced soldier; he possessed an observant eye and a receptive mind. At the very beginning of the campaign he was impressed by the terrible havoc ;that machine-guns caused among advancing infantry; and he saw that, with the development of trenches and barbedwire entanglements, inevitably this toll would grow. As early as Uctober, 1914, he made suggestions for machine-gun destroyers, and in December of that year Colonel Hankey, at his instigation, prepared a memorandum on the subject for the (Wat Council. Lord Kitchener was sceptical and the chief engineering adviser lat the AVar Office mildly sarcastic. But 'the alert brain of Mr Winston 1 Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was attracted by the idea. He it was who found technical experts, materials, and money—some £70,000 — to carry out investigations on “landships.” For months they experimented without telling the War Office what they were doing; often, it is to be feared, “barking up the wrong tree.” Then, ’ by a fortunate accident, this inter-departmental jealousy was overcome, and Colonel Swinton given complete control. The word “tank” was first used m ! December, 1915, as a handy camouflage that gave no information away in orders or instructions. It excited less curiosity than “landships” or “landcruisers.’ Colonel Swinton states that the German equivalent later was “sehutzengrnbenvernichtungpanzerkraftwagon!” Early in February, 1916, the first tank, known as “Mother,” was put through her paces over a specially prepared course of trencb&s and barbed wire defences at' Hatfield, before a distinguished company, which included Lord Kitchener and Air Lloyd George. When “Mother” proceeded to surmount obstacles and even crossed trenches nine feet wide the civilian specators weie enthusiastic. Unfortunately, Kitchen® i remained unmoved. He called the tank a pretty mechanical toy, and said that the war would never be won by such machines. RELUCTANT DIE-HARDS. Like Lord Kitchener, the authorities in France were at first very doubtful about the tank. Some of tlie “die-hards” at G.H.Q. were prejudiced against the innovation simply by Colonel Swinton’s earlier journalistic efforts. They looked upon a soldier writing for the papers much as the ordinary mortal would view an archbishop ‘hawking peanuts ; and they were inclined to treat the tank as a work of imagination more usually associated with that comic artist, Heath Robinson. Still, they agreed to “give it a go”—to use a colloquial phrase — and ordered 40. which number Air Lloyd George increased to 100. But some impisli spirit of discord seemed to haunt the tanks. They were to be armed with six-pounder guns, and when Colonel Swinton took the personnel to Bisley for training the War Office stopped the firing, because some reglations were being broken. Swinton is reported to have asked tartly if they knew there was a war on ! Once more the Navy came to Ins aid, and the firing was actually carried out on the naval range at Whale Island. It all sounds rather like “Alice in Wonderland.” When the first batch of tanks reached France, the controversy over their use broke out afresh. By this time tanks were also being constructed by the French. Both they and our ” own tank corps protested vigorously against tlie premature disclosure of this new weapon. They saw the valuable element of surprise being fritted away. G.H.Q. overruled these objections for three reasons. One was that they wanted to see how the tanks would work in a modest way before making some more ambitious attack depend wholly on their success. On the question of secrecy, they said that very probably the Germans already knew all about the tanks from their spies. (Thev greatly overrated the German intelligence service. Rumours of tanks had, as it happened, reached Berlin —and been frankly disbelieved.) Lastly, G.H.Q. said that the use of tanks immediately would give a much needed tonic to the morale .of the troops; in that they were quite correct. But whatever the tanks accomplished during the next few months—and thev did some wonderful things— the Tank Corps insisted that their proper use was in large numbers, not in twos and threes. The truth was that many highlyplaced officers refused to take the tanks seriously, and delighted in demanding exhibitions of knocking over trees or brick walls, which made a very fine circus show, but were often bad for the tanks’ innards to say nothing of the innards of the people inside the tank. Not till the battle of Cambrai on November 20, 1917, were the tanks given a chance to show what they could do on ground of their. own choosing. The story of that epic assault has often been tokl. What is still lacking is some adequate account of the Germans’ feelings when out of the murk of dawn there waddled through the Hindenburg Line, as if its elaborate defences did not exist, hundreds of prehistoric monsters! spitting destruction and death. j