Chapter IV were not known of at the Heavy Branch Headquarters.

[22] Major O. A. Forsyth-Major (Second in Command of the Egyptian Tank Detachment), on whose report this chapter is based, lost all his documents and maps at sea in May 1918 when the ship on which he was returning to England was torpedoed and sunk, consequently some of the dates are missing.

[23] “It is not some familiar spirit which suddenly and secretly discloses to me what I have to say or do in a case unexpected by others; it is reflexion, meditation.”--NAPOLEON.

[24] This chapter is extracted from a project submitted by Headquarters Tank Corps on June 11, 1917. It correctly visualised the Third Battle of Ypres, and the German artillery tactics adopted during it.

[25] At this time the German reserves totalled about 750,000 men.

[26] Breakdowns in the past had for the most part been due to bad ground, not defective mechanism.

[27] The statement made in the daily press that General Elles’ order ran--“England expects every tank to do its damnedest,” was a pure journalistic invention and one in very bad taste.

[28] “Battle Notes” were issued from time to time by Tank Corps Headquarters to all tank crews. Their object was to stimulate “esprit de corps and moral.” They were human documents for the most part, referring not only to the tank but also to other arms.

[29] From this it must not be deduced that the officers and men of the Tank Corps would not obey orders, but that the officer in command of the Supply Companies was a student of human nature. Why order when a simple act like this will do the ordering?

[30] The German reports published in April asserted that tanks were used against the British Army on March 21. As nothing is definitely known of their effect they probably failed to come into action.

[31] General de Bourgon was a great friend of the Tank Corps; he presented its Headquarters mess with a charming trophy.

[32] Nine heavy battalions with 324 machines and two medium battalions with 96. Besides these tanks, there were 42 in mechanical reserve, 96 supply tanks, and 22 gun-carriers. In all, and not counting the machines of the 9th Tank Battalion, there were 580 tanks.

[33] This was borne witness to by British troops near by.

[34] Captain of the company to which this tank belonged.

[35] This was contrary to Tank Corps “Standing Battle Orders.”

[36] This report was written by Lieut. Arnold after his return from Germany. The tank was eventually found close to the railway on the eastern side of the Harbonnières-Rosières road.

[37] A supply tank is armed with one Lewis gun.

[38] See “The Tactics of Penetration,” by Captain J. F. C. Fuller, _Journal of the Royal United Services Institution_, November 1914. This article was written in April 1914.

[39] During the war the normal system of detecting new gases was to examine captured respirators, and from the chemicals they contained inversely deduce the gases they would protect their wearers against. In peacetime no such means of detection will be possible.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Inconsistent hyphenation of words and names has not been changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

The edges of some illustrations were lost in the binding by the scanning equipment. Illustrations have been moved between paragraphs, so some of the page numbers in the List of Illustrations no longer match the placement in this eBook. However, in versions of this eBook containing links, the links in those lists lead directly to the corresponding illustrations.

Some of the plates were missing the "Plate" caption, apparently due to cropping during the scanning process. Since other plates include that caption, it has been restored to the ones from which it was missing.

Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.

Text uses “moral” rather than “morale”.

Page 44: The "CHARACTERISTICS" table contains 11 columns and has been split into three parts in the Plain Text version of this eBook.

Pages 44-45: “Tyler engine” also is printed as “Tylor”.

Page 182: In the “A. D. Signals” organization chart, it was unclear whether the lower portion was a continuation of the upper line or subordinate to the “1st Tank Brigade”. The chart has been reproduced here as similarly to the original as possible.

Page 213: “1·57” mm. must be a misprint for “157 mm.”

Page 218: “Noyon-Montdidier” perhaps should be “Noyon--Montdidier”.

Page 272: “2 in. trench-mortar bombs, each containing 50 lb. of ammonal” was printed with those numbers.

Page 310: “Kamtchatka” was printed that way.