Amabel Williams-Ellis

“ The enemy was counter-attacking over the whole of the thirty-mile front, and the sound of our guns was everywhere. At night the stream of lorries never ceased, and at some point or other in our line, far away, a star shell could always be seen sailing up from behind a rise of ground, giving some fringe of shattered wood, or ruined sugar factory, a fleeting silhouette against its cold white light. ”

“ Even by 10 o’clock—as far as we could learn in the confusion—he seemed in some places to have made no attempt at an infantry attack at all. In others compact but apparently isolated little parties of Guards or Cockchafers, or men from some other picked regiment, had pushed right through our forward zone and were away beyond the places where the cross-fire from our machine-guns was to have checked them, before the men in the redoubts, half-blind amid the clouds of gas, had realised that any Germans had crossed No Man’s Land. ”

“ If one leading machine got into difficulties struggling in the dark through or over these obstacles, the whole string of Tanks behind would be hung up, the deep swamps on either hand making it impossible to leave the road. ”

“ When, as at Amiens, the understanding between infantry and Tanks is almost perfect, and when the magnificent élan of an assault by Australians and Canadians is supported by the weight of 400 Tanks, not even the troops of what was the best-trained Army in the world can stand the concerted shock of their attack. ”

“ And 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 was brought to a standstill. ”

“ They paid the new arm the compliment of an intricate system of defence and counter-offence which included concealed Tank traps made on the model of elephant-pits, formidable double-traversed trenches, a branch of special anti-Tank artillery, heavily reinforced concrete stockades, and an elaborate system of land mines.
With so many obstacles to avoid or to negotiate, with their fate often hanging upon a prompt and accurate use of their guns, the crew inside the Tank were doomed by the conditions under which they fought to an almost incredibly limited view of the surrounding world. ”

“ For the Tanks’ crews the remainder of the night passed in a final tightening of loose tracks and adjustment of the engines, and in listening to the steadily increasing crash and roar of the British bombardment.
The strain on men and officers had been tremendous. Most of them seem to have started the battle having had no sleep for over twenty-four hours.
They were desperately anxious, too, that Tanks should prove their worth, and the Mark I. machine was too capricious to give them much assurance. ”

“ But the strongest element in it was the faith in our weapon—the machine necessary to supplement the other machines of war, in order to break the stalemate produced by the great German weapon, the machine-gun—our mobile offensive answer to the immobile defensive man-killer. ”

“ Shall we be willing to spend money on experiments, money which we must spend if we want to keep that lead? Will the Tanks be given the facilities for both mechanical and tactical training that they ought to have? We may so easily slide back into our old groove. It is always hard to turn to new ways, and to give a preponderating place in the “New Model” to Tanks, would certainly be to effect a very radical change. There does seem to be a certain fear that the Army and the public may feel that the Tanks are all right for War, but hardly the thing for soldiering. ”

“ All these peculiarities have filled the ranks of the Navy and of the Cavalry, and all these peculiarities are suited by the aeroplanes and the Land Ships. Our Commanders, like their men, prefer to be the attackers, and like a war of movement. Almost the whole creed of Nelson, our most popular fighting-hero, was expressed in his assertion that the first and last duty of an Admiral was to find out the enemy’s fleet and to attack it, and in his famous signal, “Engage the enemy more closely.” ”

“ Tanks would not do admirably.
Another point is that “minor wars” are fought by us with as much avoidance of bloodshed as is compatible with the bringing of our opponents to reason.
A weapon which admittedly affected the moral even of admirably disciplined troops like the Germans to a phenomenal degree, is particularly well adapted to this purpose.
It is infinitely more humane to appal a rioter or a savage by showing him a Tank than to shoot him down with an inoffensive looking machine-gun.109
There is yet one final consideration. ”

“ They are the most dangerous foe to hostile machine-guns. They can approach machine-gun nests and destroy them at close range. The great danger of the Tank is obvious when one considers that the defence of the front battle zone chiefly relies on the defensive value of the machine-guns, and that the armour of the Tank renders it invulnerable to rifle fire, and that only seldom and in exceptional cases is machine-gun fire effective. The infantry is therefore opposed to an enemy to whom it can do little or no harm. ”

“ The Battle of the Selle
As fast, however, as the weariness of our infantry and the fewness of our Tanks allowed, we pursued the flying but still coherent German Divisions.
Again and again the enemy tried to turn, to stand just so long behind some natural defence as should enable him to organise his retreat. He still had a hope that a shortened line might enable him to make a final rally, if only, meantime, too headlong a flight had not reduced his army to a mob, and if the advance of the Allies could be stemmed for a little before the vital centre of Maubeuge. ”

“ Within the period of a generation, a time may again come when we shall have to defend our lives and our liberties. We lead the world in the design and manufacture of Tanks. Let us not abandon that lead in the production and use of a vital weapon. ”

“ And yet how well the requirements of a strong force of Tanks would in reality fit the kind of framework which the wisest minds seem agreed should be our Army of the future. We ought to have, they say, a small and highly specialised Standing Army, and behind that a vast Citizen Army on the basis of the Territorial system. What weapon could be more suitably added to the gun and the aeroplane than the Tank in the Regular Army? ”

“ In 1914, they removed from the path of their attacking infantry the prepared obstacles of permanent fortification by means of specially-constructed machines—siege cannon of unprecedented size. Later, they developed the machine-gun in bulk, and so modified the preconceived course of warfare to their own advantage for defence. It is astonishing that for their final offensive effort, they should not have equipped their men with armament for overcoming the very defence in depth supported by the very machine-guns from which they had reaped so much advantage in the previous years. ”

“ The two Tanks detailed to the El Arish redoubt were, after a stiff fight, successful in driving the enemy out of the enclosed stronghold, and were making their way through the maze of trenches, cactus hedges and gardens beyond, when one received a direct hit and the other got ditched in the darkness. Both crews at once joined the infantry. Slowly, scrambling up the mud banks, often fighting hand to hand in the darkness, we advanced. The Turks were fighting stubbornly, but inch by inch we pushed them back. ”

“ At present, when we try to imagine war upon a foreign army waged on one side by air alone, we encounter a dozen mechanical difficulties even in our attempted picture of the first stages: the enormous paraphernalia of bases, the ground-staff, fuel, weather conditions, difficulties of landing, and finally, what is perhaps the fundamental difficulty. ”

“ The engine was not powerful enough. The steam Tank had not in the least answered the riddle. The horse-power could, it is true, be almost indefinitely increased, but, like a kind of Old Man of the Sea, the engine weight would have increased proportionately and the “free” power have been no more.
Indeed till the invention of the petrol engine the Tank was doomed to be unpractical. Its three essentials—armour-plating, guns, and ability to surmount obstacles and traverse open country—demanded a large amount of this “free” power. ”

“ The work carried through in the munitions factories, and the ingenuity and solid labour that backed the efforts of the soldier in the field, are perhaps not yet fully appreciated by the fighting men. In France one might hear of sporadic unrest, but till one met with it, one realised nothing of the genuine faithful grind at production of objects of whose destination the worker often knew nothing, of the blind patience under duress of shortage, and of crowded accommodation ”

“ The “pill-box,” first seen at Messines, was a small concrete fort. Sometimes it only stood up a yard or two above the ground. More often it stood well up, concealed within the ruins of a derelict farm.
It held a garrison of anything up to thirty or forty men, and bristled with machine-guns.
The tactics themselves in which the pill-boxes figured are admirably described by Mr. Buchan:
“The enemy’s plan was to hold his first line—which was often a mere string of shell-craters linked by a trench—with a few men, who would fall back before an assault. ”

“ Visual training or revolver drill? There was no time for everything. There were, however, obviously three or four essentials. Most of the officers and men were already first-rate engineers or mechanics, but they must be trained exactly in the strange machine they were to use. They must understand the peculiarities of Tanks, and, if possible, of their individual Tank, the monster which they had to render animate.
They must be thoroughly at home with their Vickers guns, be accurate shots with them, be able to remedy all stoppages, and to strip their weapons with speed and accuracy. ”

“ Women and children and old men crazed with fright with liveliest memories of the conduct of the Germans in the area occupied by them, were to be seen streaming westwards from their homes, pushing their meagre possessions before them in hand-carts and alternately invoking the aid of their Saints and calling down their wrath upon the hated Boche. ”

“ All ranks were desperately busy, from the mechanics who had new spare engine parts to adjust, to those in command who had their own minds and those of several Major-Generals to make up. Colonel Brough had commanded when the Tanks disembarked, but had now handed over to Colonel Bradley, and he and the Army Corps, and Divisional Commanders with whom he conferred on the 13th seem, perhaps inevitably, to have been as uncertain how to wield the new weapon as were the Tank Commanders of such details as how to fit their new camouflage covers or anti-bombing nets. ”

“ Owing to the employment of an effective barrage having been impossible, the American 27th Division suffered severely from the fire of massed hostile machine-guns from the moment the attack began.
Just as the Tanks of the 301st were moving up in support, ready to deal with the machine-guns which were, as an eye-witness describes it, by now “mowing down the other Americans in swathes,” no less than ten machines struck upon the forgotten minefield. ”

“ And here another question is suggested—a question upon which the civilian ought to satisfy himself. Let us for the moment assume that it is superiority in weapons, not better generalship, not a more stubborn “will to win,” that decides the fate of war.
What reason have we to suppose that it will be superiority in Tanks and not in some other weapon, in aeroplanes for example, that will decide the next conflict? ”

“ For can the most optimistic of us truthfully declare, as he casts his eye over the world, as he looks from Middle Europe to the Far East, from Russia to Mexico, from the Balkans to Egypt, or from Asia Minor to the confines of India, that we need not even consider the possibility of a war within his own generation? ”

“ It is nevertheless true that soldiering, like any other trade, takes time and experience to learn—that though there may be many who, being engineers, or advocates, or business men, or farmers, learn soldiering with great aptitude, the great bulk of any body of men, call them regular soldiers or citizen soldiers, require a deal of training under the best instructors, if they are to draw the full advantage from the ever varying conditions of the battlefield. ”

“ Then when it got a little lighter and the barrage had crept on, we could see thousands of our men popping up from their barely visible ‘assembly slits’ in the ground and pouring up the slope in a slow-moving, loose sort of crowd with no discernible formation, and with and among them, the Tanks. ”

“ He envisaged waves of armoured skirmishers attacking in open order, each man possessing besides his armour a quick-firing weapon with which he could shoot as he advanced.
Now, armour which will protect from machine-gun and rifle fire is too heavy for human legs. The armour must be independently propelled. More, if its occupant is to fire as he advances, it must carry him as well as itself. This postulates an engine, and if there is an engine, there must be a second man to look after it. ”

“ We have all of us known such a time, and most of us now look back upon its very real miseries with a kind of mingled wonder and amusement. Not otherwise do the pioneers of the Tanks look back upon their awkward age. ”

“ The successes which the Allies have gained since the First Battle of Cambrai do not rest on any superior strategy on the part of Foch or on superiority in numbers, although the latter has undoubtedly contributed to it. The real reason has been the massed use of Tanks. Whereas the artillery can only cut wire and blot out trenches with an enormous expenditure of ammunition, the Tank takes all these obstacles with the greatest of ease, and will make broad paths in which the advancing infantry can follow. ”

“ The Tank is the most economical method of using man-power in war, and it also affords the highest possible percentage of invulnerability to the soldiers engaged.
“The armament problems of the future will be limited to three fleets of armoured machines, in which a very limited highly specialised number of men operate the largest possible number of weapons in the most effective way. Armoured fleets at sea, armoured aeroplanes, and armoured landships, or Tanks—these will be our forces for war.” ”

“ As I neared the derelict Tanks, the scene became truly appalling: wounded men lay drowned in the mud, others were stumbling and falling through exhaustion, others crawled and rested themselves up against the dead to raise themselves a little above the mud. On reaching the Tanks I found them surrounded by the dead and dying; men had crawled to them for what shelter they would afford. ”

“ You who have coped in a short compass with the whole story of Tanks can well realise the difficulties of dealing concisely, even by comment, with the kaleidoscopic events of two and a half crowded years—with the questions of organisation, training, personnel, design, supply, fighting, reorganisation, workshops, experiments, salvage, transportation, maintenance. ”

“ Material only wins hands down when the moral of the side possessing it is at least fairly comparable to that of its opponents. Otherwise Byzantium with its “Greek Fire” would have ruled the world.
According to this “material” school of thought, we have in Tanks our superior weapon. They will be developed upon more than one line, and we shall have cross-country equivalents for all arms and services except heavy artillery, the Navy and the Air Force. ”

“ Here and there large parties, a hundred and more strong, would surrender before the Tanks had time to open fire.
The Tank crews,—especially of the Mark V.’s and the Whippets, whose ventilation was less adequate than the old Mark IV.’s—suffered greatly from the terrific heat.
In one or two instances the whole crew of a Mark V. seems to have become unconscious through the appalling heat, the fumes from their own engines, and the gas used by the enemy, the unconsciousness being followed by temporarily complete loss of memory and extreme prostration. ”