The army behind the army

It is rather a curious circumstance that the idea from which was evolved one of the most formidable weapons of the war, and one which proved a prime factor in bringing Germany to her knees, was obtained by an Englishman in Germany, from under the very noses of the Germans themselves, who did not have the vision to recognize its amazing military possibilities. About a year before the Teutonic wave surged across the frontiers of France, the representative of a California manufacturing concern was giving demonstrations in the larger German cities of a singular device known as the Holt caterpillar tractor. Though this contrivance, in spite of its grotesque and clumsy appearance, could cross ditches and surmount obstacles with amazing agility, it did not arouse particular interest among the Germans, for it was intended for the pursuits of peace, whereas they were even then seeking new means for making war. But it chanced that among the onlookers at one of the demonstrations was an English traveller, who had the imagination to see in the clumsy machine, as it waddled across an apparently impassable terrain with the relentlessness of fate, something more than an agricultural appliance. Upon his return to England he described the tractor to Colonel E. D. Swinton, who evinced the liveliest interest in the subject, closely examining the pictures and asking countless questions. I might add that General Swinton, for he has since been promoted, has, unlike most professional soldiers, a highly developed imagination, as is shown in the stories he has written, the best known of which is entitled The Green Curve. Colonel Swinton, who had served in the South African campaign, had long had in mind an idea for an armored fighting-machine, a sort of small fort on wheels, which could be propelled by its own power over ground impassable to any other type of vehicle. The caterpillar tractor gave him the means of propulsion which he had been seeking. But, as might have been expected, the hidebound, brassbound officials of the War Office condemned the suggestion as fantastic and impractical, it not being until 1915, when the gloom of despondency overhung the land and people snatched at straws of hope, that Swinton’s plans were taken from their pigeonhole for reconsideration and he was reluctantly given permission to show what he could do. Upon caterpillar tractors brought from America he proceeded to mount armored hulls built according to his own designs, the land battleships thus created being armed with both field and machine guns. They were tested under conditions of the greatest secrecy, the trials proving so successful that the construction of a considerable number was immediately authorized. In order that the public might obtain no hint of the true nature or purpose of these terrible new weapons they were referred to as “tanks,” the impression being given that they were intended for transporting water. Painted in dull colors and swathed in tarpaulins, fifty tanks were landed at Le Havre on August 29, 1916, and were moved up to the Somme front under cover of darkness. At dawn on September 15, everything being in readiness for the launching of the great Somme drive, they were entered in battle on a most astonished foe.

Though I saw one of the tanks in action on this occasion—it was named, if I am not mistaken, “Crème de Menthe”—I was not permitted to photograph it or to write about it. It has repeatedly been asserted that these tanks were the first vehicles of their kind in the history of warfare, and that is true, so far as the method used for their propulsion is concerned, yet it is interesting to note that, ten years before the Great Navigator set foot on the beach of San Salvador, Leonardo da Vinci had written as follows to the Duke Ludovico Sforza: “I am also building secure and covered chariots which are invulnerable, and when they advance with their guns into the midst of the foe, even the largest army masses must retreat, and behind them infantry may follow in safety and without opposition.”

Everything considered, the tanks were not of much assistance to the infantry on the occasion of their first appearance, though they unquestionably caused considerable consternation in the German lines. Owing to delay in production, the British were obliged to employ at the battle of Arras, on April 9, 1917, tanks identical with those which had been used on the Somme and which were, in reality, fit only for training purposes, having only 8-mm. armor. Nevertheless, two battalions were launched on a two-kilometre front, and there is no doubt that they rendered valuable service, the capture by twelve tanks of a German stronghold known as “The Harp” being a particularly noteworthy achievement. Eighty-eight tanks of an improved model, protected with 12-mm. armor, were used in the attack on Messines Ridge, June 7, 1917, but the success of the infantry was so complete on that occasion that the tanks had only an unimportant rôle to play. The torrential rains which fell during the early stages of the Ypres offensive on July 31 turned the battle-field into a broad and treacherous morass, in which tanks were of but little use. The following figures, which were doubtless as well known to Hindenburg as to Haig, explain why the tanks did not sweep everything before them, as it was confidently expected that they would do, and why the Germans were no longer particularly alarmed by their appearance:

It was my understanding at the time that the use of tanks by the British during the fighting on the Somme caused great annoyance to the French High Command, it being asserted that the British had agreed not to make use of their machines until the tanks which the French had under construction were ready, when both armies would make a combined tank attack on a large scale. How much foundation there was for this assertion I do not know, but perhaps it was as well that the British tanks made their début when they did, for the French did not make use of tanks until April 16, 1917, when 132 Schneider tanks attacked between Rheims and the Aisne. “In spite of the congratulations of the commander-in-chief,” reads a French report, “the results did not meet expectations, although wherever tanks were used they led the infantry beyond the advance of the rest of the front of attack.”

It would seem that it was not until the British victory at Cambrai, when 430 tanks were used to lead a large attack, in the course of which 8,000 prisoners and 100 guns were taken, that the German High Command realized that the use of tanks could no longer be postponed, for shortly thereafter the German Tank Corps was formed, an Antitank School of Instruction was established, and orders were placed for a large number of antitank rifles. The Germans experienced numerous manufacturing difficulties, however, in the construction of their tanks, and when Marshal Hindenburg inspected the first fifteen panzerkraftwagens, as they were called, at Charleroi, in March, 1918, he damned them with the faint praise: “They probably won’t be of much use, but since they are made we might as well employ them.” This discouraging send-off apparently had its effect, for the original of the Elfriede type—Elfriede herself—was ditched and captured near Villers-Brettoneux a few weeks later. By contriving to unite in this one model all the faults of the British and French tanks, the Germans once again proved the truth of the old saying: “Success has many imitators, but sometimes they copy only her defects.” According to a German deserter, the German Tank Corps in July, 1918, consisted of 25 German tanks and 50 repaired British machines. This same authority stated that 250 light tanks had been ordered for delivery in September, 1918, and that in April construction had been begun on a monster 38 feet long, weighing 110 tons, carrying four 77-mm. cannon and 13 machine-guns. This formidable war-engine, called a “Fahrbarer Sefechtsunterstand: ver dunden mit Artillerie unt Infanterie Beebachtung,” boasted contrivances for creating artificial mists (probably similar to our own smoke-producing devices), for laying and covering its own telephone-wires en route, was equipped with wireless, and carried a crew of an officer and twenty-eight men. If this supertank was ever constructed, it certainly never went into action.

The Germans were more successful, however, when it came to devising protective measures against tank attacks. These consisted of trenches of peculiar construction and design, some of them from 15 to 20 feet wide and 6 to 8 feet in depth; “tank traps,” consisting of deep pits with camouflaged covers; bridges so built as not to support a tank’s weight; mine-fields; special tank observation-posts; Tank Goschutz Batterie, as the Germans called their groups of 77-mm. antitank cannon; 55-mm. tank batteries, which were kept in pits about a thousand metres from the front line and were only brought up when tanks were signalled; trench mortars mounted for horizontal fire; machine-guns firing armor-piercing bullets; hand-grenades with concentrated charges, and antitank rifles. The antitank rifle was a single-shot Mauser, mounted on a bipod, weighing 32 pounds and firing an armor-piercing ball of 13-mm. caliber. At close range this weapon penetrated the British heavy and the French light tanks. Had it been used in groups it might well have proved extremely formidable, but the unpopularity it enjoyed because of its heavy recoil combined with a well-founded reluctance on the part of its users to await the near approach of a tank, in a large measure neutralized its effectiveness. Toward the close of the struggle it seems to have fallen into general disuse, and when the Armistice was signed the enemy was preparing to supplant it with a 22-mm. machine-gun, a few of which had already been used with considerable success.

When the United States entered the war in April, 1917, the value of the tank as a weapon of offense had been so thoroughly established that steps were immediately taken to form a tank organization of our own, a special regiment—the 65th Engineers—being raised for the purpose. The units of this regiment were recruited at Camp Upton, New York; Camp Devens, Massachusetts; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Lee, Virginia, and Camp Cody, New Mexico, the entire regiment being assembled in March, 1918, at Camp Colt, on the battle-field of Gettysburg, which then became the general concentration and preliminary training-camp for the tank organization. The tanks passed from the control of the Corps of Engineers on March 6, 1918, when the Secretary of War directed the organization of the Tank Corps as a separate arm of the service, Lieutenant-Colonel Ira C. Welborn, a regular infantry officer, being commissioned as colonel and appointed director of the Tank Corps in the United States.

The structural organization of the corps, as it existed at the close of the war, consisted of General Tank Headquarters, with 15 officers and 60 men; Army Tank Headquarters (one for each field army), with 7 officers and 27 men; Brigade Headquarters, 4 officers and 47 men; a Heavy Battalion, with a strength of 68 officers and 778 men; a Light Battalion, consisting of 20 officers and 375 men; a repair and salvage company, 4 officers and 146 men; a Depot Company, 4 officers and 138 men. To each Army Tank Headquarters were assigned 5 brigades, each brigade being composed of 3 battalions, 1 heavy and 2 light, and 1 repair and salvage company. A battalion consists of three companies, each company having three platoons. As five fighting-tanks are assigned to each platoon, it will thus be seen that a field army has 675 tanks at its disposal.

The commissioned and enlisted personnel of the Tank Corps was of as high an average, both mentally and physically, as any organization in the army, not even excepting the Air Service. About 65 per cent of the corps were technically trained men—engineers and machinists—while the remaining 35 per cent was composed of business and professional men, farmers, cow-punchers, college undergraduates, and soldiers of fortune. They came from every section of every State in the Union. Their versatility was denoted by the pipings of their overseas caps—blue, red, and yellow—which denoted that they combined the functions of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Several other colors might appropriately have been added, however, for the tank men were as familiar with Browning, Lewis, and Vickers as the machine-gunners, they knew as much about gas-engines as the Motor Transport Corps, they were as competent to make repairs as the men of the Ordnance Department, and in action they took as many risks as the youngsters on whose breasts were embroidered the silver wings. They were as keen as razors and as hard as nails. They were, to use the phraseology of the plains, fairly “rarin’ to go,” and they were ready and anxious to fight at the drop of the hat. In fact, that was why they joined the Tank Corps—because they believed it offered more opportunities for Boche-killing than any other branch of the service.

The training of the tank units was based on infantry drill, which is the best means of instilling discipline. This was supplemented, however, by instruction in the use of machine-guns and tank cannon and in the operation and maintenance of gas-engines, the men finally being brought to a point where they were ready to take up technical and tactical tank training at the British and French tank-training centres, to which they were sent as soon as there was accommodation for them. Thousands of men, trained to the limit of the facilities in this country, were held at Gettysburg from April and May until August and September because of the shortage of tanks and the lack of training facilities in France. Not until September, in fact, did any tanks become available for training purposes in the United States, when there arrived five British heavy tanks and several light tanks of American manufacture, thus permitting training to be resumed on a larger scale. When the Armistice was signed, the Tank Corps had a total of 20,212 officers and men, of whom 8,183 were serving in Europe. Shortly before the collapse of Germany preparations had been begun for the great Allied drive planned for the spring of 1919, steps being taken to increase the corps to a point where it could supply tank units for four field armies. The proposed strength for this purpose was 57,940 officers and men, it being planned to have this entire force fully organized, trained, equipped, and in France by the early spring of 1919.

The programme of tank construction for the American Army was initiated in February, 1918, but, owing to the extensive arrangements which had to be made with numerous manufacturers for the enormous number of parts required, and to the fact that there existed in the United States little or no accurate data regarding tank construction, the first light tank was not delivered to the Tank Corps in the United States until the following September. Owing to the more complicated mechanism of the heavy tanks, none of them was completed before the signing of the Armistice. The machines used by the American Tank Corps units engaged on the Western Front were supplied by the French and British, no American-built tanks being employed in active fighting during the war.

After a series of conferences between American, French, and British tank officers, it was decided that two types of tanks should be manufactured in the United States: a heavy model (Mark VIII) and a light machine (Mark I) known as a “whippet.” The heavy tank, which weighs thirty-five tons and carries a crew of one officer and nine men, is armed with two six-pounder rapid-fire guns and six Browning machine-guns, and is capable of a speed of from four and one-half to six miles an hour over ordinary ground. The whippet, named after a breed of small dog used in England for racing, was an adaption of the French Renault tank. It weighs six tons and carries a crew of two men—a driver and a gunner—and over ordinary ground can move at a speed of from seven to eight miles an hour. These, then, were the two types of tanks originally decided upon, but, as will be seen, the programme was considerably altered.

When it was decided that the United States should embark on a programme of tank construction, the Ordnance Department had only the haziest instructions to guide it. Owing to the mystery in which the French and British enshrouded the details of their tank construction, all that our Ordnance officers knew about a tank was that it should be able to cross trenches at least six feet wide, that it should be protected with armor-plate approximately five-eighths of an inch thick, and that it should carry one heavy gun and two or three machine-guns. Two experimental machines were laid down and work started on them at once, these models being intended to develop the possibilities of the gas, electric, and steam systems of propulsion as well as to ascertain the relative advantages of very large wheels and a specially articulated form of caterpillar tread.

At this time the British were using and were interested in a large tank only. The French had been using a medium-sized tank, known as the Schneider, but, as it had not been wholly successful, they had developed a much smaller two-man machine, called the Renault, which presented some very decided advantages and which they eventually adopted as their only type. While the large British tank had been reasonably successful in operation, it had certain very decided limitations which the British themselves recognized, so, after a thorough investigation of its possibilities and shortcomings, it was decided to redesign the large tank rather than to copy the existing model with its admitted defects. It was furthermore decided that the work of designing should be done jointly by British and American engineers, acting under the Anglo-American agreement drawn up as the result of a conference at British General Headquarters, which provided for the joint production by England and the United States of 1,500 large tanks, England to furnish the hulls, guns, and ammunition, the United States to provide the power-plant and driving mechanism. When the Armistice was signed, approximately 50 per cent of the work represented by the American components had been completed, and it was confidently expected that the entire programme of 1,500 would have been completed by March. England had about 250 of the hulls ready when the Armistice was signed.

The work of manufacturing the French type of tank had not progressed satisfactorily, however, this being partly due to the delay involved in changing all drawings from the metric system to the American, and to the difficulty which was experienced in inducing American concerns to take on the production of this machine, which is extremely complicated and difficult to manufacture. It was necessary, therefore, to divide up manufacturing activities on this tank between a considerable number of plants. The original programme called for 4,440 of these small tanks, of which 209 had been completed by the end of December, 1918, with 289 more partly completed and production just getting under way. There was every reason to believe that the entire number would have been ready for use by April, 1919.

During the last summer of the war two new types of tank were developed. One of these was a two-man, three-ton affair, which the Ford Motor Company guaranteed to produce at the rate of one hundred a day. Orders were placed with that concern for 15,000 of these “flivvers” and the first 500 machines would have been ready for delivery on January 1, but upon the signing of the Armistice their production was stopped. The other machine was a successor to the French Renault, but designed with a view to quantity production. It carried three men instead of two and was armed with both a 37-mm. cannon and a machine-gun, whereas the Renault carried only two men and one weapon. The cost of production would have been very much less than the Renault machine and the weight substantially the same. One thousand of these had already been ordered and negotiations were pending for a second thousand—the first to be delivered in January and the entire two thousand by the end of March.

In addition to the above activities, the Ordnance Department had decided to build 1,450 of the large Mark VIII tanks, including hull, guns, and ammunition, entirely in this country. In fact, work on the interior components for this lot of machines was well under way when the Armistice was signed.

It was perhaps as well for the Germans that they contracted yellow fever when they did, for had the war continued long enough to permit of America launching the avalanche of tanks which she had under construction, the Huns certainly would have had heart-failure. I doubt, indeed, if any Americans, save the handful of officers directly concerned, realize how tremendous was our tank programme. When the war ended, orders had actually been placed for 23,390 tanks, representing an outlay of approximately $175,000,000. This vast fleet of tanks was to be manned by some 58,000 men—as many as there were in the entire American Army prior to the war with Spain. Had these tanks been placed side to side they would have formed a moving wall of steel forty miles long. Even the comparatively few Tank Corps units which had an opportunity to get into action gave the enemy a taste of what we were preparing for him. Their crest was an angry cat. Their motto was “Treat ’Em Rough!” And they did.