The Devil's Chariots

by John Glanfield

  About seventy [caterpillars] are now nearing completion in England, and should be inspected. None should be used until all can be used at once… They are capable of traversing any ordinary obstacle, ditch, breastwork or trench. They carry two or three Maxims each and can be fitted with flame apparatus. Nothing but a direct hit with a field gun will stop them… If artillery is used to cut wire, the direction and imminence of the attack is proclaimed days beforehand. But by this method the assault follows the wire cutting almost immediately, i.e., before any reinforcements can be brought up by the enemy, or any special defensive measures taken.23

  Much of Churchill’s thinking appears naive in the light of subsequent events – his continuing faith in manually pushed shields, the value of torpedo net cutters for wire, a reliance on night attack – but his intention was to inform and redirect tactical planning at GHQ and in that he had some success. We have already noted Tritton’s reference to a nebulous 70 caterpillars ordered and cancelled at around this time.

  A parliamentary question to the Under Secretary of State for War on 8 December explicitly revealed the nature and purpose of the landships. James Hogge, Scottish Radical and self-confessed ‘special investigator’, asked whether Ernest Moir, the Director of Munitions Inventions, had reported to the War Office ‘on the use of mobile forts propelled by caterpillar tractors for use in traversing ground honeycombed by trenches; and if so, has he reported favourably on their utility?’ Harold Tennant replied for the WO that no such report had been received. Hogge was dangerously well informed. The Committee of Imperial Defence ordered that the press should be warned off and asked for measures to be taken in the House to avoid such questions in future.

  Swinton’s guiding presence was providential at this time. Scott-Moncrieff and his team were slow to give d’Eyncourt practical support even when requested. Hetherington later said that as soon as Swinton involved himself they got what they wanted. Without him they would have been ignored by the army. On 17 December Swinton alerted the joint committee to the imminent arrival of the first ‘Land Cruiser’ and the need for a definite policy on production, personnel and finance. Tulloch’s influence is visible in Swinton’s key recommendation calling for production to be controlled by ‘one business man of proved capacity, preferably one who has been connected with the experimental construction up to date’. They clearly meant Stern.

  The second inter-departmental conference followed on the 24th, Scott-Moncrieff presiding. It opened with a somewhat surprising statement from the Ministry of Munitions that it did not want responsibility for supply of armoured land cruisers after all, believing them too complex to fit into its munitions portfolio. Tulloch’s influence was at work here. He and Lt Col Symon were the only MoM representatives present. Tulloch had been pressing since August for the Ministry to disengage, believing that landships production would suffocate and be sidelined under bureaucratic and competitive pressures there. He had Swinton’s support and the tacit agreement of the War Office which resented the increasing powers of the MoM. Tulloch’s call for a freestanding directorate under the auspices of the WO was much more appealing.

  Next the suggestion was made, tongue in cheek, that the Admiralty might take on production, but Rear Adm Morgan Singer pointed out that the machine was hardly a naval craft. It was decided that an inter-departmental Supply Committee with wide powers should be formed as soon as the Army Council confirmed acceptance of the finished machine. It would be sponsored by the War Office with Stern as President, three WO members, including Swinton, and four from the Admiralty. D’Eyncourt and Tulloch would act as technical consultants. The committee would take its instructions on supply and design direct from the General Staff at the War Office which would provide initial funding for 50 landships. The WO would simultaneously form a detachment of the Machine Gun Corps comprising 75 officers and 750 other ranks. Members of the much enlarged No. 20 Squadron would have the opportunity to transfer to the army and join the detachment.

  D’Eyncourt was concerned to maintain secrecy by dropping all reference to landships. In a departmental minute of 4 November he had renamed them ‘Water Carriers’, and the Landships Committee became the ‘DNC’s Committee’.24 The machines suffered the acronym ‘WCs’ until Swinton was asked at the conference to find an alternative. That evening he and Lt Col Dally Jones toyed with words descriptive of the ship’s hull. ‘Container’, ‘Reservoir’, ‘Cistern’ were discarded in favour of ‘Tank’, and this name was written into the report. Perhaps Swinton knew that Foster’s already used it, perhaps not. It was a good choice, as blunt and inscrutable as the machine. Kitchener read the report and minuted:

  As soon as a machine can be produced, the first thing the Secretary of State for War considers necessary would be to test its practical utility under field conditions; without such a test we may be wasting material and men uselessly.25

  A skilled labour shortage hit Foster’s shortly before assembly of ‘Mother’ was due to start. The Wellington Foundry lacked protected status as a war plant and its tradesmen were leaving to work elsewhere on designated production where they would qualify for a War Badge, identifying them as priority workers. Tritton’s repeated requests for badges were ignored until Stern went round to the War Badge Department in Abingdon Street and threatened to send in No. 20 Squadron with an armoured car to take a supply by force. He signed for a sack full.

  ‘Mother’ first moved under its own power into the yard on 7 January 1916, fracturing several track shoes. The shoes had too hard a temper, but Wilson took a chance and had them removed for annealing in one of Foster’s furnaces. The machine was 5ft longer and slightly wider over the sponsons than the wooden mock-up. Visitors from London at that time must have included Maj Hugh Elles RE, a General Staff Officer (Operations) at GHQ. He had been sent over on the orders of Sir Douglas Haig who had replaced Sir John French in December as C-in-C. After reading Churchill’s Variants paper on Christmas Day, Haig had instructed Elles to take a briefing from Churchill before inspecting the machine and reporting back to him personally.

  The tank returned to the yard on 12 January, climbing heaps of pig iron and scrap with ease. Next day it was driven at a sedate 3mph to Poppleton’s Field nearby, crossing ditches and flattening hedges on the way. Wilson, Stern, Hetherington and Symes took turns at the controls, driving across a pond and other obstacles.

  Stern and Hetherington motored up from London to Lincoln on the 19th with a load of solid armour-piercing shell. ‘Mother’ moved that night to a remote corner of Burton Park for live firing next day. D’Eyncourt wanted to know the recoil effect of the 6-pdr on the sponson, hull frame and crew. Hetherington fired the first shot, having bet Wilson £50 that the shock would collapse the hull. There was a misfire and while they were bent over the breech the gun fired spontaneously. Nobody was observing the fall and they feared they might have hit Lincoln cathedral. Two hours of walking and spade work recovered the shell, still in the field. The machine proved stable when further rounds were fired. A 5ft wide trench and a steep bank were crossed without difficulty. It was a deservedly triumphant day.

  A full-dress demonstration nearer to London was planned, but the Wembley ground was too public. With Lord Salisbury’s permission Stern and d’Eyncourt settled on the home park at Hatfield House. It had taken the navy 11 months and cost just under £35,000 to put ‘Mother’ there. The first of His Majesty’s landships was ready for inspection.

  David Roberts.

  Col E.D. Swinton.

  Sir William Tritton.

  Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt.

  Cdre Murray Sueter.

  Lt Walter Wilson and Maj Tommy Hetherington.

  Wg Cdr Charles Samson & Lt Bill Samson.

  Col Bertie Stern.

  Col Rookes E.B. Crompton.

  Col Stern’s team at Renault tank factory, Boulogne-Billancourt, 1917.

  Col Philip Johnson.

  Bramah Diplock’s Pedrail of 1905, and his first chaintrack, 1911.

 
Hornsby’s No. 1 caterpillar, 1905.

  Foster’s howitzer tractor trials, Lincoln, December 1914.

  Tritton’s Automatic Portable Bridge, April 1915.

  Admiralty pattern Rolls-Royce armoured car, France, 1914.

  Bullock tractor with experimental ‘elephant feet’, August 1915.

  Experimental chassis on Pedrail tracks, 1916.

  Mock-up of Tritton’s Trench Tractor, Lincoln, May 1915.

  ‘Little Willie’ on Tritton’s successful tracks, 8 December 1915.

  Conference beside ‘Mother’ during secret trials, Lincoln, January 1915.

  Mk I entraining at Lincoln, 1916.

  Medium A tanks in Foster’s erecting shop, Lincoln.

  Fire trench in replica battlefield at the tank training ground, Elveden, 1916.

  Detail from the newly discovered 1916 plan of replica trench systems at the tank training ground, Elveden.

  Arguably the world’s first building to suffer tank gunfire. Tank training ground, Elveden, 1916.

  Tankodrome at Rollencourt, June 1917.

  Forward assembly area, Arras offensive, April 1917.

  8.

  PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE

  ‘Embark in the chariots of war and slay the malignants with arms of precision.’1

  Winston Churchill’s exhortation to cavalrymen to transfer to the tanks

  Operation Puddleduck (only Swinton could have named it so) saw ‘Mother’ and ‘Little Willie’ heavily sheeted and railed down to Hatfield, unloading at dead of night on 27/28 January 1916. Departure from Lincoln had been threatened by railway officials concerned that the big tank’s tracks projected beyond the sides of the wagon. Wilson reminded them there was a war on.

  The machines were driven to Hatfield Park over closed roads. At the test site Swinton and Hetherington had devised a course prepared by 20 Squadron and members of the Herts Volunteer Regiment. It reproduced British and enemy trenches and wire with a no-man’s-land between. For added realism sappers had blown a replica shell hole and dammed a stream to create a swamp, leaving Lord Salisbury’s private golf course with two additional hazards.

  Working parties completed preparations that day, watched by wives and girlfriends from cars on the estate road. The tanks stood shrouded but in full view 200yd away. To dispel curiosity Swinton and another officer walked along the line of cars and, with frequent glances at the tanks, loudly expressed the hope that the ‘motor pumps’ would be powerful enough to drain the new swamp. An informal trial of ‘Mother’ on Sunday 29 January was watched by many who had been involved in the project. Foster’s had stencilled across its grey hull ‘HMLS Centipede’. ‘Little Willie’ was the reserve machine. Those present included Adm Tudor, Gen Scott-Moncrieff, Brig Gen Louis Jackson and Dr Addison (from the Ministry of Munitions), Col Maurice Hankey (who received his knighthood soon afterwards), Capt Tulloch and Col Crompton who was unimpressed. Col Holden (also about to be knighted) and Cdre Lambert, the hostile Fourth Sea Lord, declined invitations. The run went well, Murray Sueter loudly proclaiming that 3,000 machines should be built immediately.

  The official trial was held after lunch on Wednesday 2 February. Lord Kitchener paid a surprise visit that morning, watching with Tritton as ‘Mother’ gave a special performance. The Secretary of State’s reaction to the tank that day was recorded variously by those who were there as contemptuous or convinced. Tritton recalled that afterwards he and Kitchener sat on a fallen tree and talked alone for over half an hour. ‘K’ raised all possible objections to the machine – perhaps, Tritton thought, to draw him out. Kitchener’s last words when they parted were: ‘It is a pretty mechanical toy, but without serious military value.’2 Tritton wrote this down immediately afterwards. Kitchener stayed for the afternoon display but left before it ended. Swinton overheard him say the war would never be won by such machines; they would be knocked out by artillery.3

  Lloyd George was also at Hatfield Park and recorded in his memoirs that he experienced the same reaction from Kitchener. However, he received a letter some 14 years after the war from Gen Whigham who had accompanied Kitchener to the trials. Whigham wrote that ‘K’ had been so impressed with what he saw that he told Gen Robertson the tank was far too valuable a weapon for such public display, and left early with Whigham and Robertson to convey that he would waste no more time on it. On their way back to London Robertson told Whigham the reason for their hasty departure and swore him to secrecy. Whigham added that Kitchener subsequently ‘had great expectations of them … and referred to them more than once in course of conversation. His one fear was that the Germans would get to hear of them before they were ready.’4 Whigham repeated this account in the national press in 1937. Robertson recorded that even before they left the trial ground Kitchener approved his proposal that 100 tanks should be ordered immediately.5

  Lloyd George observed that if Whigham was right, it was unfortunate that Kitchener never saw fit to tell him, the Minister of Munitions, at the time. Relations between the two Ministries were strained, however, and the MoM had declared only five weeks earlier that it had no wish to become involved with tank production. Kitchener’s disinterest in the landship weapon prior to Hatfield is unquestionable. But if Whigham and Robertson are to be believed, he then underwent a Damascene conversion. There is some significance in his actions that day and the next. Despite the immense demands on his time, Kitchener chose to spend the morning of the trials in a private appraisal of the machine and close questioning of its co-designer. Instead of hurrying back to Whitehall, he remained for much of the official demonstration before making a somewhat theatrical exit with the CIGS and his deputy. He told the War Committee next day that he had been ‘impressed by the trials’.6

  With an eye to funding for production, Hankey and Stern shrewdly cultivated Reginald McKenna, the Chancellor, giving him a good lunch at the United Services Club before driving him to Hatfield in Stern’s Rolls. Arthur Balfour’s 67 years did not stop the First Lord of the Admiralty from going round the course in ‘Mother’, though he was persuaded to disembark before the last and widest trench. The demonstration was a complete success despite an overheating engine.

  The representatives from GHQ were led by Maj Gen R.H.K. Butler, Haig’s Deputy CGS, who asked Stern when he could have some tanks and what alterations were possible. The two questions became a military mantra, repeated with increasing emphasis for the rest of the war. Stern told him that save for changes to loophole positions, no modifications were possible if deliveries were wanted that year. McKenna promised all necessary finance if the army adopted the machines. Swinton accompanied the King to a private trial on 8 February, after which His Majesty had a ride and was much impressed.

  The French Military Attaché and members of the French General Staff, to whom invitations had been sent, were notable absentees from the trials. ‘Mother’ remained at Hatfield a further two weeks on their account before being removed, still unseen by them. This is curious because within a day or two of the tank’s departure, French Army representatives attended the first demonstration of their own armed and armoured tracklayers.

  Col Baptiste Estienne commanding the 6th Divisional Artillery was Swinton’s Gallic counterpart. Since seeing Holt crawlers hauling British guns, Estienne had been trying at intervals for the past year to persuade the C-in-C of the French field armies to develop fighting tracklayers. He finally secured an interview on 12 December 1915 with the Sub-Chief of Staff at GQG (French General Headquarters). Unknown to Estienne, the armaments firm of Schneider et Cie of Le Creusot had demonstrated a fully tracked ‘Baby’ Holt and the bigger semi-track version to the President and senior officers in June that year. Schneider’s was instructed to arm and armour the Baby for use primarily to cut and crush wire, its track length being inadequate for trench crossing. Tactically it could prepare clearways for a rush of advancing infantry. In December, therefore, Estienne found himself pushing an open door. He was sent to Schneider’s where he gave the designer, M. Eugène Br
illié, the benefit of his experience of trench warfare. Design changes followed and two pre-production machines were first demonstrated on 21 February 1916. Four hundred machines – tracteurs Estiennes – on extended tracks were ordered on the 25th for delivery within ten months. They were armed with a short 75mm gun and two machine guns and could cross trenches up to 5ft 10in wide. It is interesting to contrast this confident adaptation of the Holt with the lamentable reaction of Scott-Moncrieff’s committee to the Holt machine 12 months earlier.

  Back in London, reaction to the Hatfield trials was positive but not unqualified. The attack potential of the machine was accepted, as was its ability to flatten wire. Doubts centred on its vulnerability to gunfire, especially when the element of surprise was lost after its first use; the lack of concealment; its low speed and liability to draw fire on troops in its vicinity; and the difficulties of night operations with tanks. However, the Army Council wrote to the Admiralty on 10 February to ask that its very warm thanks and appreciation be conveyed to d’Eyncourt and his committee for their work in evolving the machine, and to Mr Tritton and Lt Wilson for their work in design and construction. No. 20 Squadron was praised for its contribution.

  The most conspicuous absentee at Hatfield was the tank’s sponsor Winston Churchill, who was still in France and commanding the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. D’Eyncourt sent him the news:

  Dear Colonel Churchill,

  It is with great pleasure that I am now able to report to you that the War Office have at last ordered 100 landships to the pattern which underwent most successful trials recently. Sir D. Haig sent some of his staff from the front.