  THE FIRST TANK BATTLES—THE ATTACK ON MORVAL, FLERS, THE QUADRILATERAL, THIEPVAL AND BEAUMONT-HAMEL IIt was not till the Somme offensive, which was launched on July 1, 1916, had been in progress for two months and a half, that it was found possible for the new arm to take its place in the fighting. We have seen how, secretly, urgently, behind a rich curtain of ingenious and circumstantial lies, the manufacture of the Tanks had been going on. How, secretly, urgently, the crews had been training for their unknown job. Of the fifty Tanks which were destined to take part in the battle of September 15, about thirteen left England on August 15, and the rest followed at intervals and in driblets as the limited transport allowed. The last batch arrived on August 30 and, like its fellows, proceeded to the training centre at Yvrench. Here trenches had been dug and wire entanglements erected, and machine-gun and 6-pounder practice could be carried out after a fashion. But there was no staff of instructors, the ranges were too short, and the conditions for battle practice quite unlike those which prevailed on the Somme. But it had to suffice. The Tanks were wanted at once, and by September 10 “C” and “D” Companies had arrived in the forward area, their H.Q. being established at the Loop. It was thus within a week of their arrival forward that Tanks were called upon to take part in the attack. The battle had now been in progress for nearly ten Most of the men and many of the officers had not been to France before. They found themselves in a strange world. Endless lines of transport crawled over incredibly bad roads bordered by gaunt stumps of trees and by a sordid and tragic litter of dead men and horses, rags, tin cans, rotting equipment, and derelict transport. 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. 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. In an advance when ought a Tank to start? If it started too soon it would draw the enemy barrage; if it started too late the infantry would reach the first objective before it, and it would be of no use. This and other similar dilemmas darkened their counsels, and it was finally decided that the Tanks’ start Much more useful were a series of maps with routes marked out and annotated with the necessary compass bearings, and a detailed time-table with full barrage and other particulars. At least they would have been more useful had not all orders been changed in such a way at the last moment as to invalidate almost every route and hour which they showed. Meanwhile the Tank crews and commanders had been enjoying three or four days of almost comically complete nightmare. In the first place, they had all manner of mechanical preoccupations—newly arrived spare engine parts to test, new guns to adjust, box respirators to struggle with, and an astounding amount of “battle luggage” to stow away. But worst of all, they found themselves regarded as the star variety-turn of the Western Front. Already, before leaving Thetford, they had given a demonstration before the King and several members of the Cabinet. At Yvrench they had performed before General Joffre, Sir Douglas Haig, and the greater part of the G.H.Q. Staffs,13 but on reaching the Loop they “It rather reminded me of Hampstead Heath. When we got there we found that the Infantry Brigades had been notified that the Tanks were to perform daily from 9 to 10 and from 2 to 3, and every officer within a large radius and an enormous number of the Staff came to inspect us. We were an object of interest to every one. This did not help on one’s work.” On the 13th they were to move the Loop to the point of assembly, and the problems of “housekeeping” became acute. 14“The officer and each man carried two gas helmets and one pair of goggles, and in addition to their ordinary service caps, a leather ‘anti-bruise’ helmet; we also had a large field dressing as well as an ordinary first-aid dressing. The usual equipment consisted of revolver, haversack, water-bottles and iron rations. There are eight people in a Tank, and as soon as they get in they naturally take off all these things, which lie about on the floor, unless you devise some method of packing all your equipment.... We carried, in addition to iron rations, sixteen loaves and about thirty tins of food, cheese, tea, sugar and milk. These took up a lot of room. We also had one spare drum of engine oil and one of gear oil, two small drums of grease, three water-cans and two boxes of revolver ammunition ... four spare Vickers barrels, one spare Vickers gun, a spare barrel for the Hotchkiss and two wire-cutters. We also had three flags for signalling purposes, which unfortunately proved to have been lost when they were really wanted.” But Captain Henriques’ list was, even so, not complete. Many Tanks also carried two carrier pigeons, But that was not all. The orders, time-tables and maps upon which the Tank Commanders depended, proved to have been issued in insufficient quantities. “For every three Tanks only one set of orders had been issued, and only one map supplied: consequently we had to grasp these orders before we passed them on to the other two officers.” However, at 5 p.m. on the day before the battle, these written orders were cancelled and new verbal instructions substituted. Roughly, the Tanks were to operate as follows:— On the right with the 14th Corps, ten Tanks were to work with the Guards Division, and seven with the 6th and 56th Divisions, their objectives being Ginchy and the Quadrilateral. On the left eight Tanks were allotted to the 3rd Corps, operating through High Wood and East of Martinpuich. The 15th Corps had seventeen Tanks attached, and the Reserve (5th) Army—fighting between PoziÈres and Martinpuich—had six tanks. With all these groups of Tanks the preliminary moving up into the first-line positions—in the pitch dark, through the mud and in and out of the shell-holes of “It was full of the bodies of dead Boches, and my driver did not like going along it.” 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. To this list of discomforts must be added that most of the men had never heard guns before, and that the lying-up places were close to our batteries. IIThe morning of the 15th was fine with a thin ground mist, and at six o’clock the thunder of the British artillery rose to a final hurricane. The barrage crept forward, and our Tanks and infantry crossed the parapets. The Germans seemed to have heard no breath of the nature of the new arm which was to be used against them, and the light haze added greatly to the looming mystery of the approaching Tanks. Official documents that were later on captured from the enemy revealed something of the deep psychological effect that our Tanks had had on the German infantry. These significant admissions might have done more to One of the best known individual Tank exploits was that of the machine belonging to “C” Company, which helped a New Zealand and an English division in their assault upon Flers. This was the furthest penetration achieved by any Tank that day. This machine led its infantry, and these had their first taste of entering a village which they knew bristled with enemy machine-guns without suffering a single casualty. The adventure had all the exhilaration of surprise, and the men, who had nerved themselves for the usual ordeal of house-to-house fighting, laughed at the astonishing anticlimax presented by their own and the Tanks’ stately progress down an almost empty street. “All dressed up and no one to fight.” It was on this occasion that the airmen’s now famous message was sent back, a message whose repetition rather galled the Tank Corps in the days of ill-rewarded effort that still lay between it and its final triumphs: “A Tank is walking up the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind.” Of two other Tanks which did particularly well, the first, a male, entered Gueudecourt, where it attacked a German Battery and destroyed a field gun; the other gave great assistance to attacking infantry which was held up by wire and machine-guns. The Tank Commander placed his machine astride the trench and enfiladed it; the Tank then travelled along behind the trench and 300 Germans surrendered and were taken prisoners. The following is a short summary of the returns of The casualties among Tank personnel were insignificant, though one officer of great promise was lost:
Of these last fourteen, some served as useful rallying-points for the infantry after they had become immobile, and several could have been extricated in time to render some service if they had not been knocked out by indirect hits. Crews who had been obliged to abandon their Tanks either got out their machine-guns and continued fighting or helped the wounded. IIIThe battle had been essentially experimental. What opinion had been formed of the Tanks? We now know what was the opinion of the German infantry. The German High Command seems in public to have ignored the new arm. In a secret “Instruction” the Chief of the Staff of the 3rd Army Group, however, reminds units that they must “hold ground at whatever cost” and “defend every inch of ground to the last man.” “The enemy in the latest fighting have employed new engines of war as cruel as effective.” THE ORIGINAL THIEPVAL MARK I. TANK WITH ANTI-BOMB ROOF AND “TAIL” FIELD CAMOUFLAGE Every possible counter-measure is to be used against To our own infantry the Tank appeared as a lusty friend, who had at last found a convenient way of dealing with the hitherto deadly partnership of wire and machine-gun—a friend, too, who had a grotesqueness of gait and appearance which was intrinsically endearing. A wounded London Territorial said: “‘Old Mother Hubbard’ they called her and lots of other funny names as well. She looked like a pantomime animal or a walking ship with iron sides moving along, very slow, apparently all on her own, and with none of her crew visible. There she was, groanin’ and gruntin’ along, pokin’ her nose here and there, stopping now and then as if she was not sure of the road, and then going on—very slow, but over everything. “It was her slowness that scared us as much as anything, and the way she shook her wicked old head and stopped to cough. It was a circus—my word! I only saw her for about ten minutes. She came humping out of the fog at one end of the line and humped into it again at the other. The last I saw of her was when she was nosing down a shell crater like a great big hippopotamus with a crowd of Tommies cheering behind.” To the British High Command the Tanks appeared as engines of war which showed considerable promise. They must overcome certain mechanical weaknesses, and tactics must be further modified to suit their peculiarities. The G.H.Q. attitude was, in short, that of men satisfied, though not enthusiastic, and was well expressed by Sir Douglas Haig in his Somme Despatch: “Our new heavily armoured cars, known as ‘Tanks,’ now brought into action for the first time, successfully The despatch goes on to mention the taking of Flers. The delight of the British and French Press knew no bounds. The correspondents threw up their hats and set to ransack their dictionaries for octosyllables in which to describe the new “All British” destroyer of Germans. It was “Diplodocus Galumphant,” it was a “Polychromatic Toad.” It was a “flat-footed monster” which “performed the most astonishing feats of agility as it advanced, spouting flames from every side.” “It ‘leant’ against a wall until it fell and then crawled over the fallen dÉbris. “It went irresistibly through High Wood, the trees smashing like matchwood before it. “It went up to machine-gun emplacements, ‘crushed the gun under its ribs,’ and passed on, spitting death at the demoralised Germans. “It ‘stamped’ down a dug-out as though it were a wasps’ nest. “It crashed through broken barns and houses, ‘straddled’ a dug-out and fired enfilading shot down German trenches. “It put a battery and a half of guns out of action at Flers.” Reuter added a cow-catcher to its equipment. The French Press was enthusiastic: “At the precise moment when the bombardment stopped, the Germans had the surprise of seeing advance in front of the waves of assaulting troops, enormous steel monsters from which spurted a continuous fire of And how did the Tank personnel itself view the events of the day? Half choked with the engine fumes, boxed up for many hours without respite in the intolerable clamour and shaking of their machines, or, worse, having wrestled for hours under heavy shelling with a broken-down Tank, they were inclined to see the exasperations of the battle rather than its successes. It is indeed curious to note the difference in tone between the accounts of those who saw the Tanks dispassionately from without and those who had weltered within, between those who saw what the Tanks did and those whose view of achievement was obscured by a knowledge of what might have been. The Tank Corps was too keen to be in the least satisfied by the measure of success which it had achieved. Only the Press and the Germans perceived that a new “Excalibur” had been forged in England. “Out of the mouths....” IVAfter the battle, such of the Tanks as could go under their own power rallied, and steps were at once taken to salve as many as possible of those which had become incapacitated. From this point, till all available Tanks had been This method of fighting by twos and threes against special strong points was afterwards discarded, as it proved unsatisfactory. Several of these small actions were nevertheless very successful, and showed in miniature some special purpose which Tanks could serve, or illustrated the importance of some special Tank organisation. For example, Thiepval showed how Tanks could be used without artillery preparation, and Beaumont-Hamel showed the importance of a good Reconnaissance Branch. These small actions were therefore important, not in themselves, but because they were microcosms. In one or two unsuccessful actions it was rather the state of the ground which spoiled the battle than mistaken tactics. For as the campaign drew on conditions became worse and worse. By the beginning of October the Army in general, and particularly the Tanks, had a foretaste of the miseries of Flanders. The general conditions of this part of the campaign are admirably described by Colonel Buchan in his History of the War: “October was one long succession of tempestuous gales and drenching rains. “To understand the difficulties which untoward weather imposed on the Allied advance, it is necessary to grasp the nature of the fifty square miles of tortured ground which three months’ fighting had given them, and over which lay the communications between their fighting line and the rear.... Not the biggest mining camp or the vastest engineering undertaking had “There were now two No Man’s Lands. One was between the front lines; the other lay between the old enemy front and the front we had won. The second was the bigger problem, for across it must be brought the supplies of a great army.... “The problem was hard enough in fine weather; but let the rain come and soak the churned-up soil, and the whole land became a morass. There was no pavÉ, as in Flanders, to make a firm causeway. Every road became a water-course, and in the hollows the mud was as deep as a man’s thighs.... “The expected fine weather of October did not come. On the contrary, the month provided a record in wet, spells of drenching rain being varied by dull, misty days, so that the sodden land had no chance of drying. The carrying of the lower spurs—meant as a preliminary step to a general attack—proved an operation so full of difficulties that it occupied all our efforts during the month, and with it all was not completed. The story of these weeks is one of minor operations, local actions with strictly limited objectives undertaken by only a few battalions. In the face of every conceivable difficulty we moved gradually up the intervening slopes.” Such was the setting of this batch of experimental actions. The first of them took place on September 25, when two small parties of Tanks were employed in two distinct actions; the first with the 3rd Corps, and the second on September 25 and 26 with the 15th Corps near Gueudecourt. The first was a failure. Only two Tanks had been allotted; one was ditched on the way to the starting-point, and the other machine was caught in the enemy barrage and knocked out. Very different is the story of the Tanks operating The story is told in the Somme Despatch: “In the early morning a Tank started down the portion of the trench held by the enemy from the north-west, firing its machine-guns and followed by bombers. The enemy could not escape, as we held the trench at its southern end. At the same time an aeroplane flew down the length of the trench, also firing a machine-gun at the enemy holding it. These then waved white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, and when this was reported by the aeroplane the infantry accepted the surrender of the garrison. By 8.30 a.m. the whole trench had been cleared, great numbers of the enemy had been killed, and eight officers and 362 other ranks made prisoners. Our total casualties amounted to five.” At noon on September 26 an attack was launched by General Gough’s reserve army on Thiepval. Eight Tanks co-operated. It was the second attack that we had made on Thiepval, of which the Germans had made a most formidable fortress. The ground had been blasted into the familiar alternation of crumbling mounds and water-logged holes, and the shattered houses and splintered trees—particularly a certain row of apple trees—stood up forlornly amid the general desolation. From the point of view of the Tanks, however, the action was important, because here for the first time Tanks were employed in a surprise attack. No artillery preparation was used, and “our men were over the German parapets and into the dug-outs before machine-guns could be got up to repel them.” A large number of prisoners were taken, and in the Somme Despatch the attack was noted as “highly successful,” and the Tanks as having given “valuable assistance.” By the middle of October 1916 when Tanks were next in action, the ground was hopelessly sodden, and the story of the month which ensued might, with an alteration of place names, be taken for a narrative of the campaign in Flanders. Than this there is no greater condemnation. It would be tedious to particularise the five or six minor actions in which Tanks played, or more often endeavoured to play, a part between October 17 and November 18. Excepting in the interesting little action which took place at Beaumont-Hamel, to which we have alluded before, no further light was to be thrown upon the uses and capabilities of the new arm. The following account of the Beaumont-Hamel fighting was given to the authors by a Tank Officer who was present: “At the end of September it became clear that the Somme battle was fizzling out. The ratio of ‘cost’ to ‘results’ became more and more unsatisfactory; every advance, too, made the devastated and almost roadless area an ever greater problem. “It was decided that an attack, if possible a surprise attack, should be launched on the flank of the Somme battle. The position selected was roughly from about Serre to the high ground some half a mile south of the river Ancre. This sector had, of course, been attacked at the beginning of the Somme battle in July, but the “Tanks were collected and again entrained, the new detraining station being Acheux. This was the first of the many flank moves carried out with Tanks in order that a fresh front might be engaged. “On arrival at Acheux, however, at the beginning of October, very bad weather set in and the preparations for the attack were delayed. Day after day the rain continued, and the ground in the battle zone became steadily worse and worse. It was a trying time for the officers and men of ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies, as they were not in very good accommodation just outside Acheux, expecting daily to move up to battle. It was not until the beginning of November, however, that a move was made by night via Beausart to Auchonvillers and La Signy Farm. The Tanks having reached these lying-up places, the rain came down even faster than before, and a study of aeroplane photographs of the proposed battle sector showed that all the old shell-holes and many of the old trenches had filled up with water, and that the greater part of the front was in a hopeless condition for that type of Tank (i.e., Mark I.). “Just before the day of the Battle, November 13, it was decided to send back nearly all the Tanks from La Signy Farm, and some of those from Auchonvillers, only a few being held in readiness in case the infantry advance should give scope for their use further ahead on better ground. “Three Tanks of ‘A’ Company were due to attack with the main assault on November 13; and one of them succeeded in penetrating into the enemy’s position and advancing for some distance along the enemy’s support line and nearly reaching the Ancre before it became ‘ditched.’ “Further north the attack had met with considerable success, except that the village of Beaumont-Hamel had held out for some hours. Tanks had been called upon to assist, and two of them had advanced along the road to Beaumont-Hamel; just about the time that they “Some of the worst of the ground was now in our line, and an effort was made to get the Tanks through this bad zone in order that they might continue to attack in the neighbourhood of Beaucourt. Efforts were made to prepare a track for the Tanks by means of a considerable digging party, but when the Tanks reached the very broken ground just north of the Ancre, they became one after another firmly stuck; with enormous “Finally, on the evening of the 17th, only one Tank had succeeded in getting through this bad zone and reaching the comparatively good ground beyond. The crew, to whom great credit is due, had already been working continuously for some days and night, and were not only exhausted, but had had no time to carry out any reconnaissance of the position which was to be attacked at dawn the next day. There being, however, only one Tank, made it of greater importance than ever that it should be made the most of. It was decided that it should be used against the very strong position known as the Triangle, which was a redoubt on the high ground, roughly midway between Beaumont-Hamel and Beaucourt. The ground about this redoubt was, unfortunately, also very heavily shelled, and a frontal approach with the infantry was impossible, and it was necessary for the Tank to go in on the flank while the infantry attacked the position frontally. It was realised that the first necessity was that the Tank should reach this redoubt as rapidly as possible, and during the night a route was taped slightly beyond our front line and directing the Tank straight for the Triangle. The weather was now much colder, and the frost rendered the ground less hopelessly outside the capacity of the Tank. “Just before dawn, however, a fresh difficulty arose, and tried still further the already severely tried expedition. It began to snow, and the white tape which was to guide the Tank was obliterated.” Captain Hotblack (now Major, D.S.O., M.C.), the Reconnaissance Officer who had done the taping, was the only man who had reconnoitred this piece of ground, and he immediately volunteered to lead the Tank upon which so much depended. Taking what little cover he could in shell-holes full The machine was now so much in the midst of the enemy that the German artillery did not dare to open upon it, and the Tank poured in a devastating fire from its machine-guns not only upon the men in the trenches, but also upon some horse transport behind the enemy lines. But, meanwhile, the infantry was hung up in another part of the field, and the Tank was urgently needed. At that time signal communication to the Tanks was very imperfect, and there seemed no way of letting the Tank Commander know of the new development. Again Major Hotblack came forward and again he crossed the fire-swept zone undeterred. He reached the Tank and piloted it back behind our lines, where a renewed attack was planned. But before the tired crew could be sent out again, the wind changed and it began to thaw. The ground over which the Tank had passed with difficulty when it was hard became impassable, and the project was abandoned. It was for this remarkable piece of work that Major Hotblack was awarded his D.S.O. The incident naturally had far-reaching results. An inspiring deed, especially if it be one demanding skill as well as courage, will influence and “set the tone” Reconnaissance took its proper place, it was recognised as a fighting service, and its work was seen to be a necessary preliminary to every action. Of the total of about ten Tanks engaged in other small actions which took place at this period, hardly one machine had satisfactory records to look back upon. On November 18 ended the Tanks’ first short campaign. If it did not close in a blaze of glory, at least it had been sufficiently successful for the authorities to decided not upon doubling but on quadrupling their establishment. |
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