Chapter I: Introduction

The following work is the story of a great and unique adventure as heroic as the exploits of the Argonauts of old, and, though the time perhaps has not yet arrived wherein to judge the part played by tanks in the Great War, I feel that, whatever may be the insight and judgment of the eventual historian of the British Tank Corps, he will probably lack that essential ingredient of all true history--the witnessing of the events concerning which he relates.

I, the writer of this book, first set eyes on a tank towards the end of August 1916. At this time I little thought that I should eventually be honoured by becoming the Chief General Staff Officer of the Tank Corps, for a period extending from December 1916 to August 1918. The time spent during this long connection with the greatest military invention of the Great War, it is hoped, has not been altogether wasted, and the story here set forth represents my appreciation of having been selected to fill so intensely interesting an appointment.

Besides having witnessed and partaken in many of the events related, those who have assisted me in this book have all been either closely connected with the Tank Corps or in the Corps itself, they one and all were partakers in either the creation of the Corps or in the many actions in which it fought.

So much assistance have I received that I can at most but consider myself as editor to a mass of information provided for me by others. Those I more especially wish to thank amongst this goodly company are the following:

Captain the Hon. Evan Charteris, G.S.O.3, Tank Corps, for the accurate and careful records of the Corps which he compiled from the earliest days of the tank movement in 1914, to the close of the battle of Cambrai. Many of these were written under, shall I say, far from luxurious circumstances, for Captain Charteris, I feel, must have often found himself, in his shell-blasted estaminet, less well cared for than the rats of Albert and as much out of place as Alcibiades in a Peckham parlour.

When Captain Charteris forsook the “cabaret sans nom,” for some ill-disposed shell had removed half the signboard, Captain O. A. Archdale, A.D.C. to General Elles, took up the difficult task and, from March 1918 onwards, kept the Tank Corps Diary upon which Chapters XXIX, XXXIII, XXXV, and XXXVII are founded.

Taking now the chapters seriatim, I have to thank Major G. W. G. Allen, M.C., G.S.O.2, War Office,[1] for parts of Chapter I, and also the editors of _The American Machinist_ and _The Engineer_ for allowing me to quote respectively from the following admirable articles: “The Forerunner of the Tank,” by H. H. Manchester, and “The Evolution of the Chain Track Tractor”; Sir Eustace Tennyson D’Eyncourt, K.C.B., Director of Naval Construction, the Admiralty, and Major-General E. D. Swinton, C.B., D.S.O., both pioneers of the tanks, and indefatigable workers in the cause, for much of the information in Chapters II and IV; Major H. S. Sayer, G.S.0.2, War Office,[2] for Chapter III; Major O. A. Forsyth-Major, Second in Command of the Palestine Tank Detachment, for the reports relative to the second and third battles of Gaza, upon which Chapters XI and XVII are based; Major S. H. Foot, D.S.O., G.S.O.2, War Office,[3] my close friend and fearless assistant, for suggestions generally, and particularly in Chapter XVI. My thanks are also due to some unknown but far-sighted benefactor of the Tank Corps for Chapter XX; to Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Bradley, D.S.O., and Brigadier-General E. B. Mathew-Lannowe, C.M.G., D.S.O., G.O.C. Tank Corps Training Centre, Wool, for information regarding the Depot in