10
A Historic Anniversary
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
THURSDAY,
SEPTEMBER 17,
1936.
Blunder That Added Two Years To The War 9
T
A Military Correspondent
WENTY years ago this week the tank had its baptism of fire,
Bumbledom presided over the christening ceremony.
The story of how this new weapon, conerived by British bralne, wos Best resisted and then thrown away is ab unsurpassed example of official blind- ness and prejudice.
The one revolutionary new weapon that we produced in the war might have led the war and saved two more years of smughter,
Instead, having barely survived du- clumsy or mallelotas mishandling of the official mkiwiyes, I then narrow- ly escaped being smothered after the christening.
Long befor the
war the fertile
brain of M, 45 G. Wells find co- crived the ide of using armored machines restend of marinosed in- funtry.
1 sel it forth in a magazine story sub- in 1903. But in far-sighted
was treated as merely as gestion novelist's fancy,
Then in 1012 on Australian, Mr. 1. E de Male, submitted detailed draw-
and a
a model of a Mani:" to the War Office. But no use was made of If, although Juckily for us Mr. de Mole refused to sell it to the Germans. After the war. In which he had pri- been employed merely as a vate in the lighting Har. his design the plecon- was unearthed from
Office, and the holes of the War Noral Commission on Awards to
One of the first tanks going into action in Chimpanzee Valley, on the Somme, September 1916
ཏ་!་
that "before considering this proposal we should descend from the realms of imagination to solid facts."
Kitchener's Scorn
were
ONE OF BRITAIN'S LATEST TANKS
randum that the whole effect would
ed lo provide the German army with
be lost if they were to be used in adequate tanks. driblets ns, they became available.
The Ailled leaders had learned late, Before the battle of the Somme began. Haig, the new Commander- but they had learned at last, the value In-Chief. agreed to this condition. of toak. Their view is shown by the But after his original attack' had Peace Treaty, which forbade the de-
feated army to possess tanks. failed he changed Els mind.
5
Although he had. "uo reserves in hand, save tired troops," he breame
to have "anxious
a gamble about
September 15. with the object of breaking down German
resistance
Tanl year. however, dummy tanks look pari In the German manoeuvres, and although the vell of secrecy is tightly drawn, reports have leaked through of the efforts that Germany is making to re- equip herself.
and getting through to Depune,"
The handful of tanks then availabler were to be the stake in th ramble
Despite the protests of the tank
Since the War a British have experts, supported by Mr. Lloyd hitherto kept their lead in tank de- development took place of the Ad- George, a mere sixty of the unrently sign. We have the fastest and most miralty conducting experiments in tanks with their incompletely trained teleat innks in the world. land warfare that the War Office crews were hurried out to France. neglected.
But the British Army has only a On arrival they found no proper After nearly a year of war they preparations made, and instead of few. brought to fruition, when being allowed to complete their train- On a viall hume, however, Colonel szinten had gained the tardy in- ing they were made to waste their Swinton and ren more fortunate. terest of headquarters in Franer. . time in giving circus performances industry Tiden had at once appealed to the In February 1916 the first machine for the entertainment of the staff,
When the uttack WBS receptive mind of Sir Maurice Han--called "Moiner," or "Big Willie?”...---
launched, key, the Secretary of the Committee waderwent its official trial in Hatch over utterly unsuitable ground, only of Imperial Defence, and later of the Park, Kitchener scornfully spoke of If thirty-two were brought to the start, War Cabinet, who paper it on ns" pretty mechanical toy," but on ing poist, and these were used in actually went into operation on the throath the Prime Minister to two others it made a deeper impression. little packets of two or three. Severai A large number of muchlries were of them did good service, and one Somme in September 1016.
One
the historic Office. Here ordered, and their crews were trained caused
TheSKALC: wan the War after brief consideration it was dron- in a huge secret enclosure, surrond- " tank is entering Flers with the peď awhy largely to "freezing, ed by armed guards, near Thetford, British Army following.” verdict of the then Director of Me- In Norfolk. chanical Transport,
Inventors remarked that
superior to the machine
which
When one remembers the scores of thousands of lives that were sucrificed before that date it is difficult to for rive the military haremuerals who contemptuously turned down Mr, de Mole's life-savlag idea-heentre 1 was novel to them.
Rejected Idea
Even the tank which of lnst ap- peared in September 1916 suffered badly from offeinl obstruction.
The men who were doomed to be thrown zuminst barbed wire and wa- thine guns found a Trend at bead- quarters as early as October 1914.
This was
vas Colonel Swinton, the ap- propriately named "Eye Witness" who wrote the much-censored frag- ments of news that were given to the public at home.
More impressed than the High Command by the futility of piting flesh and blood against machine guns, he cudgelled his brains to ind a substitute.
▷
-He-hud-studied-agricultural-enter--- pillar tractors before the war, nind he now conceived the idea of armour- ing them--they could then cross trenches while themselves impervious to bullets and destroy the deadly ma- chine guns.
He made the proposal at hend- quarters only for it to be scornfully dismissed. When It was revived half
a year later u dignitary remarked
quarters.
1
The essential purpose as to pro- The other was Mr. Winston duce a great surprise by muddenly Churchill, then First Lord of the touching a mass of the new machines Admiralty, whose mlod had already against some suitable part of the Ger- been working on somewhat similar man front. ines. Through him the strange
Swinton-jointed out in a memo
GENRENNICIOASEDVEZANOMIEINTERESUHINOOR 3619ZENTANTE211BE96|2|315STfullert Stress: BA191192PCITINGARRASCHBAUENTAGE231
AIR CASTLES.
1 would rather be a builder
Of castles made of air.
To be rebuilded ev'ry day,
And dwell in fancy there With ev'rything to make me glad, The doors all closed to gloom,
And sunlight of to-morrow ·
Shining into ev'ry room. Than ever keep within the walls -Of-sad-things,-past-or-now:--
For though my castles do not last, -
They're cheering anyhow,
And so I build and build again.
Rebuild from day to day,
And some time the Master Builder
May let my castles stay.
J
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Cancelled Order
For several years past the British
has kept itself alive by selling tanks to other countries.
It has been forced to do this be- cause the War Office has given alh
and are orders.
Easy Targets
has 126
The British Army still battalions of out-of-date infantry, but only five baitalions of tanks, and most of the tanks in these ure of a ten-years-old pattern.
Worse still
If nothing has been Many members of the Higher Con- Tearned, much is being forgotten.
This year the
War Ofte brake up mund, however, jumped at the chance to condemn them as a failure.
the one tankt brigade that had been machines had just been given, but what is called "close co-operation"
An order for a thousand improved formed,
ed, and sent the tanks back to
the War Office impulsively cancelled with the old arms,
11.
According to thore who have Luckily the officer in charge of this watched the manoeuvres, this attempt construction was a temporary soldier to combine fast armoured machines of strong charneter, Major Albert with slow-moving horse and foot has Stern,
foresndown a
He at once saw Mr. Lloyd George, and obtained the withdrawal of the cancellation order.
"It
was
bent
proved a feree and tragedy.
The tanks are tied down to narrow areas, where they become easy tar- gets. The advantage of their speed and range is thrown away.
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In the final year of the war official prejudice was at last overcome and
The folly of 1916 Is even being the tanks came into their own.
They
had such an effect that the repeated by using them in Hitle Germans themselves have confessed packets instead of in a swarm.
not Marshal Foch who They have been driven head on against isolated hills bristling with us, but General Tank"
Runs when they might. When Hindenburg and Ludendorff anti-tank Informed the political leaders of Ger- have been circling round the hostile many that they would have to sue army and cutting off its supplies. for peace, they put the British tanks If the present policy continues it first among the facts that were "de- is safe to predict that the few tanks cisive for this issue."
we possess would be used up in the first few days of another war, leaving the unfortunate masses of obsolete In- fantry to commit "hara-kiri" again in NEW YORK SERVICE · It was all the harder for them to face of the enemy's man-killing ma- admit this, because they had neglect- chine guns.
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