Brazen chariots
In June 1915 Lord Cavan, commanding a brigade in France, told Colonel Ernest Swinton, author of a scheme for such things, that:
I welcome any suggestion in this extraordinary war that will help to take an enemy’s trench without a cost of 50 per cent of the leading company and 75 per cent of that company’s officers – for this is what the present day assault amounts to – even with every precaution… The great and serious trouble is that one cannot tell, especially now in high crops – whether the enemy’s wire is cut – or not. Here comes in your ‘Juggernaut’. We know that if five ‘Juggernauts’ have passed through then the wire is no more. This is a saving of hundreds of lives and a fat legacy to ‘morale’.
John Glanfield, The Devil's Chariots
'... the horrified Germans called them the ‘Devil’s chariots’ ...'
Swinton played an important part in the development of the ‘landships’ that went into large-scale production early in 1916. To preserve secrecy the armoured hulls were designated ‘Water Carriers for Mesopotamia’ but workmen called them ‘tanks’, and the nickname became official.
Tanks made their debut on the Somme in September 1916, when the horrified Germans called them the ‘Devil’s chariots’. They fought in much greater strength at Cambrai in November 1917, and were used on a large scale by the Allies in the war-winning offensive of August-November 1918.
Although the British enjoyed an early lead in the development of tanks and their tactics, this was lost during the cut-backs of the 1920s and early 1930s. The Germans, in contrast, took the development of tanks very seriously, and before Hitler’s 1936 repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles (which included tanks amongst the war material prohibited to Germany) carried out tank training in Russia.
Published: 2005-03-01
