The Devil's Chariots

by John Glanfield

  Churchill: It is perfectly obvious what the first thing is to be done. Sir Arthur, you will make proposals as soon as possible for meeting the WO demand for 450 supply tanks in the best possible way open to us now, by the 1st March.

  Sir A. Duckham: I think the first thing to be done is to get over this trouble with the WO.

  Sir J. Stevenson [member of Munitions Council]: It seems to me the Design Department wants straightening out. Frankly, I do not understand how it stands now. One moment you say you are responsible for design and the next moment you say you are not.

  Stern: I do not say I am not. I say we are responsible for design. You only want to look at the papers … and they [the War Office Tank Committee] have done everything to interfere with us.

  Sir J. Stevenson: Then it is not satisfactory.

  Stern: I put it up to Dr Addison time after time. As I could get no satisfaction, I put up a minute to the War Cabinet…

  Churchill: As I understand the procedure it ought to be this. The Army say ‘We want so and so by such and such a date.’ The Ministry says ‘We submit the following proposals’ … then they take their choice… I should have thought that it was the most simple thing if you were not so completely at loggerheads.

  Stern: We are not at loggerheads. The point is this – that there has been no-one at the War Office (I have been pressing for months and months and months) whose business it was to deal with tanks until quite lately when the Master General of Ordnance took it on. I have been told that there probably would be no tanks [required] at all, that they want other things before. I am restricted in my factories. You know perfectly well, Mr Layton, that they said that they did not want any more gun carriers; they wanted railway material before.

  Layton: We have done our best to give decisions on those points.

  Stern: Dr Addison did not take the slightest interest in it.

  Churchill: I am only pointing out to you how easy it is to get into difficulties. Instead of making heavy weather of it, it is quite easy to make the best plan you can. If that is not accepted, you then make a less good plan. What I am complaining about with regard to these supply tanks is that I do not think that any plan of getting the numbers realised has been made.

  Stern: When was the desire first expressed?

  Churchill: I heard of supply tanks certainly as soon as I arrived here.

  Stern: Nobody could give a decision on anything.

  D’Eyncourt: There has been nobody to say ‘Yes, go on with supply tanks.’8

  And so it continued. It was left that Duckham would propose means of meeting the full programme to December 1918; Churchill would consider a draft letter to the War Office setting out the basis for authorizing design; d’Eyncourt was to find a way to convert Mk IV tanks for supply and for towing trailers; Stern would urgently submit proposals for meeting Haig’s request for 450 supply tanks by 1 March, and would produce basic design alternatives for a medium machine. He was also asked to list the 12 best ideas for immediate experiment, to which he replied, ‘I will give them to you but it is a very complicated thing. One affects the other. We are so near the limits of possibility.’

  Stern was either tired or badly rattled – perhaps both. Throughout the meeting he had been off balance, truculent and defensive, sometimes dissembling. He conveyed a lack of grip in the conduct of his department which convinced Churchill that he must go. Mindful of the Prime Minister’s regard for Stern, Churchill wrote to Lloyd George four days later, marking his letter ‘Secret’:

  There are one or two points on which I want to know your views before acting. Stern has rendered very good service in the past about tanks, but I am sure he is not the man to carry this job further. It is in a very bad condition. The Tank Supply Department and the War Office are at loggerheads and this is particularly true of Stern and the soldiers. You know I do not set undue store by their opinion, but I am sure that the development of tanks is prejudiced at this stage, however it may have gained in the past, by Stern’s methods and personality. Personally I like Stern and should be very sorry to hurt his feelings, but I have no doubt whatever that the moment has come for him to go… It would be very difficult for me to find him another suitable job, but he has certainly deserved a KCMG or something of that sort. Have you a strong view against his being superseded, and if not, can I count on giving him the honour?9

  Lloyd George approved Churchill’s proposals. The Minister let the matter lie while a search was made for Stern’s successor. Duckham’s report to Churchill saluted Stern and his team for their achievement in developing a practical method of mechanical warfare in face of ‘much opposition’, but he found the design department lacking firm direction and expertise at the top. Designers were working out their own ideas and submitting them to Stern for decision. Duckham pointed to the limited expansion of the Tank Corps and the need to encourage America to build a mighty tank fleet. A dynamic individual should take a small staff and a Mk V over there and promote volume tank production. He nominated Stern.

  Churchill chaired a conference at the Ministry on 29 September to review, in his words, the ‘very serious and unsatisfactory’ state of the 1918 tank programme. Butler, Whigham, Capper, Elles, Duckham, Stern and others attended. The session underlined the lack of communication between Stern’s department and the War Office. The army was largely ignorant of the capabilities of the supply side, and the supply side was uncertain of what was required of it. Butler reminded them that the number of tanks required was dictated by the 18,500 men to be made available for the Tank Corps in 1918. (Corps establishment was then 12,000 to 13,000 officers and men.) The army wanted 700 heavies and 600 medium types by 1 March. Churchill had to tell the meeting that the Ministry could supply no more than 200 and 250 respectively by that date, and only 200 of the 450 supply tanks, comprising converted Mk IVs. There was no problem with the 48 gun carriers. In other words the Ministry expected to deliver only some 9,000 tons of the 28,000 tons of fighting tanks required. The March deadline was put back to 1 June.

  The army representatives returned to the charge that the Ministry was building 40 per cent more Mk IVs than ordered. They wanted none of the unauthorized 400. Stern wisely avoided citing in his defence the vague War Office continuation order of 21 March – he had acted on it and contracted out the extra 400 before a single Mk IV had been built.

  Elles left the meeting deeply dissatisfied with progress. He set out his concerns in a memorandum to the War Office a week later. They centred on the inadequacy of Mk IV, the delay in introducing a Mk V replacement and on having to decide between continued production of Tritton’s three-man Whippet, which had performed disappointingly at its acceptance trials, and its replacement by Wilson’s Medium B for which no trials machine or performance guarantee was available to assist him. This was hardly surprising as the drawings had only just been completed. The Medium B reverted to a single engine, a Ricardo 100hp unit with epicyclic transmission, located well back and separated by a bulkhead from the four-man crew in front whose fighting compartment was topped by a large turret. A 2-pdr gun was planned. (Elles chose the Medium B; 650 were ordered on 8 October for delivery by July 1918. Stern had wanted to build 1,200. The 2-pdr was replaced in March 1918 by four Hotchkiss MG.) Elles called for a system of batch manufacture in which large orders would be broken down into small production runs, each of some four months’ duration. Urgent design improvements could then be introduced more frequently, between batches. He and Capper appear to have believed that the extra production breaks would remain compatible with high output providing they were systematized in this way. Stern and Metropolitan disagreed.

  As to labour shortages and strikes, Elles wanted ‘a variety of designs ready proved and tested, so that manufacture can be switched from one pattern to another at the shortest notice’. It was a wildly impracticable idea. Standby production would have to be tooled up and supported by stockpiles of materials and sub-assemblies, all standing idle awaiting possible trouble. Striking labour would al
most certainly ‘black’ these fallback measures wherever they were. Elles continued:

  Relations between the producers and users of the machines are unsatisfactory… The user has no reason for confidence in design. On our proposals to date there has been little or no progress except on paper and very little of that… There has been no trial under battle conditions. The experimental Department has only been formed in the last six weeks and no serious effort on practical experiments has been made until the last fortnight. The ideas and suggestions both of designers at home and of the practical users in France are in the hands of an individual [Stern] who has seen one battlefield for the space of three hours. A very serious lack of confidence exists.10

  Elles scribbled a telling footnote:

  Desiderata.

  Separate design from supply.

  Put design in France.

  Manufacture by blocks.

  Build experimental types.

  Get rid of Stern.

  Realizing the gravity of his position, Stern asked to see Churchill. He told him that the three previous Ministers had shown him their confidence and support, and without the same backing from Churchill he could not make a success of the operation. The Minister assured Stern of his personal confidence but said that the War Office wanted him replaced, accusing him of lumbering them up with useless tanks at the front, wasting public money, neglecting experimental work and losing a year’s development with a total failure of design and progress. Stern, who was taking notes, emphatically denied the charges and asked Churchill if he had consulted d’Eyncourt and other informed sources before making the allegations. Churchill said he had not, but had been briefed by Duckham as head of department. Stern challenged the Minister to give one instance in which he had prevented progress or a free play of ideas, adding that he had been ‘fighting the forces of reaction’ since the cancellation of the 1,000 tanks order. As for research, he cited the Oldbury transmission trials and his request in March to turn Tritton’s works into an inter-Allied tank development unit. With that the interview ended.11

  After an anxious weekend Stern confronted Duckham, who assured him that he had said nothing critical of him to the Minister save the objection that too many experiments and designs were in train. This hardly squares with Elles who had just criticized Stern for producing too few of either. Stern exploded, ‘What a damned liar he is … why does he want to get rid of me?’12 Duckham told him that generals Whigham, Butler and Elles considered him a hindrance to the development of tanks; Churchill’s mind was made up and Stern was to be sacked. Duckham suggested he took a team to America to foster tank production, but Stern dismissed it as a job his butler could do. Duckham turned to the design department, saying it needed reorganization and Walter Wilson ‘locked up so as not to be allowed to interfere’. Stern made it clear he would go down fighting because he believed his remaining in post was in the national interest. He saw the Prime Minister that evening but Lloyd George had already approved Churchill’s decision. All he could offer Stern was the assurance that he had seen the Minister who had promised to arrange matters satisfactorily with Stern.

  The end came the next morning, Tuesday 16 October. Stern and d’Eyncourt asked for a joint interview with the Minister, the DNC adding his considerable weight in support. Churchill asked d’Eyncourt to leave before telling Stern there was nothing more to say. He acknowledged Stern’s excellent work but said he had taken Duckham’s advice, adding, ‘I was kicked out too and thought I was right.’ Stern refused to resign, forcing Churchill to dismiss him.13 Years later Stern referred to the meeting, saying he had challenged Churchill to fight for more tanks as his Ministerial predecessors had done. He claimed Churchill replied that:

  he had been out of office since 1915, the beginning of 1915, and that he knew his business and his business was to supply the requirements of the War Office and not to tell the War Office what they ought to have, and therefore he could take no action. I told him that he undoubtedly knew that the Army required large numbers of tanks for the campaign of 1919 and that if he did not push it, it might be good personal politics but not honest public policy.14

  Churchill reminded him: ‘that is all right from Bertie to Winston but not from Stern to your Minister’.15

  Vice Adm Sir Archibald Gordon Moore took over the MWSD two days later, starting with a clean sheet. He had never seen a tank. Walter Wilson was appointed head of design and given control of all experimental work. The MWSD was renamed the Mechanical Warfare Department.

  Given the shifts and conflicting demands of war, tensions between the tank producers and the army were unavoidable. What had been so very damaging was the descent on both sides into mutual contempt and relative isolation. Bertie Stern had no time for the politics and prejudices of members of the High Command and no career to protect. When they turned on him he flashed his ace – a direct line to Lloyd George, his friend and their Secretary of State. Stern’s unshakeable conviction in the value of the tank was shared by a few field commanders. Haig was an early supporter in spite of the efforts of many on his staff. Stern’s war was directed as much at military hostility and its plodding organization, as at fighting for the resources to build tanks.

  Against the expectations of the Army Council, Stern had forced it to withdraw its 1,000-tank cancellation in September 1916. His profoundly significant victory opened the way to marshalling labour, materials, tooling and armament for volume production. It enabled him to deliver nearly 800 Mk IV machines between April and September the following year, and compelled the army to expand the Heavy Section to receive them. Had he failed, production would have reverted to a small-scale and open-ended run-on of Mk III construction which was all the War Office was willing to sanction while it deliberated on ‘the utility of those now employed and the possibility of improvements’. There would have been no time to build sufficient machines and train crews for a mass deployment in 1917, finally establishing the tank as a decisive weapon and galvanizing production for 1918.

  Stern’s sons, John and David, recall his intolerance of anyone holding views opposed to his own, but he inspired intense loyalty among kindred spirits. Harry Ricardo told Hankey years later that, ‘Stern is a difficult man … he is, or was, the most superb organiser and team leader I have ever met, and it is no exaggeration to say that but for his leadership we should never have had any tanks in the last war, but he is very much an individualist.’16 Others disagreed. Lord Weir was Controller of Aeronautical Supplies at the Ministry in 1917 and his Priority 1 for engine supply was under regular attack from Stern. He recalled, ‘I do not think Sir Albert is a good team worker… Quite frankly, Sir Albert Stern is an enthusiast and a driver and works best when he is in full charge and is doing everything his own way.’17 Such views typify reaction to Stern’s supercharged style. His task was to build tanks. To do so he and d’Eyncourt had to fight every inch of the way.

  Five weeks after his departure, the first mass attack by tanks at Cambrai brought victory and vindication for the new weapon and transformed war policy. The discredited master builder sent Elles a telegram of congratulation, receiving a generous and well-earned acknowledgement in reply: ‘Very many thanks. It was your battle too.’18

  12.

  THE PRODUCTION BATTLEFIELD…

  ‘The resources are available, the knowledge is available, the time is available, the result is certain; nothing is lacking except the will… We have instead only carried out a series of costly experiments, each of which has shown us the chance we have lost and exposed our thought to the enemy.’1

  Churchill on lost opportunities with the tanks; paper to War Cabinet, 5 March 1918

  The War Office Tank Committee was flawed and had contributed little of value to the tank programme. Sir Arthur Duckham in the Ministry of Munitions brokered a smaller and genuinely representative ‘New Tank Committee’ which was agreed a week before Stern’s dismissal in October 1917. It was chaired again by Gen Capper as Director General of the War Office Tank Department,
the other members being Gen Elles, Stern’s successor Adm Moore and the dependable d’Eyncourt as chief technical adviser. They were to meet fortnightly, alternating between France and England. The committee would consider tank requirements and formulate delivery programmes, advise on the lines to follow in experiments and where they should be conducted (in recognition of past failure to test jointly with the Corps in France) and establish the cordial relations which were so lacking between producers and users. On design they would only provide a general specification to meet conditions at the front, leaving the detailed work to Moore’s MWD. An MWD office was to be set up at Central Workshops in France. Wilson’s design team would include a representative from the Corps in France and from the WO. Duckham’s initiative was well considered and long overdue.

  Churchill offered Stern the new post of Commissioner for Mechanical Warfare (Overseas and Allies Department), Ministry of Munitions. He would have the same status as Moore, reporting direct to Churchill with Duckham as ‘adviser’. He was to ‘investigate the possibilities of supplies of tanks in France and America and elsewhere and to arrange in what manner the Allies and ourselves can render the greatest assistance to each other and to take charge of all such negotiations’. He was to set up and control a workshop in France for conversion of Mk IV and other obsolescent tanks to improved types. Mention was made of full-scale production at a later date. Stern was also to create a distribution system to channel tank materials and parts from one Allied country to another. He would control matters of design, experiment and supply between Britain and her Allies and would have his own representative on Moore’s design committee. Stern was not, however, to be a member of the New Tank Committee, though he would receive the minutes. He accepted the post on 24 October, while remaining profoundly disturbed by events. Stern warned Churchill bluntly a few days later: