1936-09-17 — Page 22

10

A Historic Anniversary

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1936.

Blunder That Added Two Years To The War o

A. Military Correspondent

WENTY years ago this

Tweek the tank had its

baptism of fire.

Bumbledom presided over the christening ceremony.

The story of how this new weaxon, conceived by British brains, was first resisted and then thrown away is ni unsurpassed example of offelaj blind- ness and prejudice.

The one revolutionary new weapon that we produced in the war might have ended the war and saved two more years of slaughter.

Instend, Inving barely survived the clumsy or malicious mishandling of the official midwives; it then narrow- ly escaped being smothered after the christening.

Long before the

war the fertile

brain of Mr. II. G. Wells had con- celve the Iden of using armoured mchines instead of unarmoured in- Lintry.

He set it forth in a magazine story in 2003. But his far-sighted gug- Restion

was treated un merely n novelist's fancy.

Then in 1912 an Australian, Mr. L E. de Mole. submitted detalled draw- ings and a model of a "tunic" to the Offee. But no use was made of Wor R. although luckily for us Mr. de Mole refused to sell it to the Germanis, After the war, In which he had been employed merely as pri- vate in the fighting fine, his design was unearthed from the pigeon- holes of the War Office, and the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors remarked that It wan to the machine which actually went into operation on the Somme in September 1916.

crier

When one remembers the scores of thousands of lives that were sacrificed before that date 11 is difficult to for- Kive the military bureaucrats who contemptuourly turned down Mr. de Mole's life-saving Idea-because it was novel to them,

Rejected Idea

Even the tank which at last ap- peared in September 1910 suffered bndly from ofletal obstruction.

The men who were doomed to be

chlaninst barbed wire ind -

guns found a friend at head- quarters as early as October 1914.

This was Colonel Swinton, the op- propriately named "Eye Witness" who wrote the much-censored trage ments of news that were given to the public at home.

More impressed than the High Command by the fully of pittfor flesh and blood against machine guns, he cudgelled his brains to find a substitute.

He had studied agricultural enter- plar tractors before the war, and be now conceived the idea of armour- ing them-they could then cross trenches while themselves Impervious to hullets and destroy the deadly ma- chine guns,

He made the proposal at head- quarters only for it to be scornfully dismissed. When It was revived halt n year later a dignitary remarked

ONE OF BRITAIN'S LATEST TANKS

randum that the whole effect would ed to provide the German army with

to be used in adequate tanks. be lost if they were

driblets as they became available.

The Allied leaders had learned late, Before the battle of the Somme began, Ilala, the new Commander- but they had learned at last, the value In-Chief, agreed to this condition. of tanks. Their view is shown by the But after his original attack had Peace Treaty, which forbade the de

feated army to possess tanks. alled he changed his mind.

Although he had "no reserves In hund, sav

Last year, However, dummy tankk took part in the German manoeuvres, and although the veil of secrecy is tightly drawn, reports have leaked through of the citorts that Germany in making to re- equip herself.

save tired troops," he became "anxlaus to have n tumble about September 15, with the object of breaking down German resistance and getting through to Bapaume."

The handful of tanks then available One of the first tanks going into action in Chimpanzee

vere to be the stake in this gamble, Valley, on the Som me. September 1916.

Despite the protests of the tank

Since the war the 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 unready sign. We have the fastest and most miralty conducting experiments in tanks with their incompletely trained celent tanks in the world,

that the War Offer crews were hurried out to France. land warfare

But the British Army has only a neglected.

On arrival they found no prover After nearly a year of war they preparations made, and instead of few. were brought to fruition, when being allowed to complete their train- swinton had gained the tardy in- ing they were made to waste their terest of headquarters in France.

entertainment of the

that "before considering this proposal we should descend from the realms of imagination to solid facts."

Kitchener's Scorn

ume in

For several years past the British has kept itself alive by industry

It has been forced to do this be

On a visit home, however, Colonel Swinton had been more fortunate,

In February 1916 the first machine for the ing circus performances selling tanks to other countries. His iden had at once appealed to the receptive mind of Sir Maurice Han- --called "Mother." er "Big Wille"- When the attack was kumched, key, the Secretary of the Committee underwent its official trial in Hatfield over utterly unsuitable round, only of Imperiol Defence, and later of the Park, Kitchener scarufully spoke of it thirty-two were brought to the start. Smuli and rare orders,

ཀ

use the War Ofee has given such Easy Targets

War Cabinet, who passed it on as a pretty mechanical toy" but on ing point, and these were used in through the Prime Minister to two others it made a deeper impression. little packets of two or three. Several quarters.

A large number of machines were of them did good service, and one One was the Wor Office. Here ordered, and their crews were trained enused the historie messaje: The British Army sill has 120 after brief consideration it was dran. In a huge secret enclosure, surround. "A tank is entering Flera with the battalions of out-of-date infantry, but ped owing largely to freezing-ed by armed guards, near Thetford, British Army following."

only five battalions of tanks, and verdiet" of the Bien Director of Me- in Norfolk.

most of the ionics in these are of a chanical Transport.

The essential purpose was to pro-

ten-years-old pattern The other was Mr. Winston duce n great surprise by suddenly

Worse still, nothing has been Churchill, then First Lord of the launching a mass of the new machines

learned, much is being forgotten. Admirdity, whose mind had already against some suitable part of the Ger-

This year the War Office broke up been working on somewhat simBar man front,

the one tank brigade that had been Inca...Through him the strange Swinton pointed out in a memo-

An order for a thousand improved formed, and rent the tanks back to machines had just been given, but what is called "close co-operation" The War Ofter impulsively cancelled with the old arms.

DEBABKAN TANANE JEQUINE FRANITZAZNANO1935E DENTAL BRODES BRIANASI ALTE PRINTABILIZERA||NICIRATORNADANANAZIONALACSIN

AIR CASTLES.

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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'r 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.

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Cancelled Order

Many members of the Higher Com- mand, however, jumped at the chance to condemn them as a failure.

It.

According 10 those who have Luckily the ofleer in charge of this watched the manoeuvres, this attempt construction was a temporary soldier to combine fast armoured machines of strong character, Major Albert with slow-moving horse and foot has Stern.

proved a farce and foreshadows a

He at once saw Mr. Lloyd George, tragedy, and obtained the withdrawal of the cancellation order.

In the final year of the war official prejudice was at last overcome and the tanks cure into their own.

The tanks are tied down to narrow areas, where they become easy tar- cts. The advantage of their speed and range is thrown away.

The fully of 1916 is even being had such an effect that the repeated by, using them in.little s themselves have confessed packets instead of in a swarm.

They have been driven head on against isolated hills bristling with

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heat us not Marshal Foch a

but 118, When Hindenburg and 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 prezent policy continues it first among the facts that were "de- 13 safe to predict that

the fet cisive for this issue,"

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