The Tank Corps

The ambitious offensive which the Germans had launched on July 15 had collapsed. Our somewhat tentative counter-offensive at Hamel had been surprisingly successful, and there ha...

“Enough,” said the logical Asiatic when the doctrine of the Trinity was being explained to him by the English missionary, “I understand you perfectly. It is a Committee of three.”

All through the later part of the Ypres struggle the Tank Corps had turned their eyes towards certain other parts of the line with a longing as for The Delectable Mountains.

On November 4, the 1st, 3rd and 4th Armies were to deliver an attack on a combined front of about thirty miles, from the Sambre to the north of Oisy and Valenciennes. The countr...

The night of July 30 was dark and wet, and towards morning a fine mizzling rain blurred the outlines of the star shells that lit up the lines. Along fifteen miles of front the E...

“For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled, And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves,...

The Reconnaissance Officers were the first of the Junior personnel to learn that operations were contemplated for early April, and that the new battle was to be fought before th...

We have said that August 22 had, in the original plan, been devoted to consolidation and to the moving up of guns. Only the 3rd Corps in the 4th Army area, with its twenty-four...

It was not till the Somme offensive, which was launched on July 1, 1916, had been in progress for two months and a half, that it was found possible for the new arm to take its p...

The “Fighting Side” had now been for many months almost exclusively engaged with “operations,” and having fought themselves nearly to a standstill at the Battle of Cambrai, were...

The new battle was to be fought in the area which lay between the rivers Somme and Scarpe, and for his selection of this particular place Sir Douglas Haig in his Despatch gives...

It is not perhaps too fanciful to envisage the battles of April 24, 25 and 26, though they were by no means uniformly satisfactory little actions, as belonging to a different an...

The War had only been in progress for a few weeks when the first idea of the first Tank was born almost simultaneously in the minds of General E. D. Swinton, Major Tulloch, Capt...

In many battles in which Tanks later took part, two or more Tank Brigades would be associated. But the Battles of Arras and Messines belong, the former to the 1st and the latter...

The Third Battle of Ypres represented the remaining fragment of what was to have been a great and extensive campaign. It was the stump of a tree shorn down to shoulder height an...

“The line now runs N. and E. of Niergnies--E. of Seranvillers and La Targette--Esnes Mill--E. edge of Esnes--through Briseux Wood--Walincourt--Audigny trench line to Walincourt...

Though plans for expansion and the complete reorganisation of the unit on a large scale had been begun directly after the results of the action of September 15 were known, littl...

We have said that in the original battle scheme, certain points of vantage, Quennemont, the Knoll, and Bellicourt, were assumed to be in our hands a day or so before the main at...

the two sides worked rather upon regulation than upon formula. The later stages of the war saw a very full appreciation of each other’s point of view and the growth of a very st...

They were like two schoolgirl friends, not to be separated, and at Vaux, whither they had retired for combined training, metaphorically went about all day with their arms round...

The story of the Tank Corps from the beginning of February to nearly the end of March 1918 is one of waiting and expectancy, of strategic moves to unexpected places, of diligent...

Not till Act III. do we get the opening of the main plot of our drama. For it was only at the end of March, 1916 that recruiting for the new arm began, and therefore that “The F...

We have said that the 1st and 3rd Armies were to strike first. Tanks belonging to the 7th and 11th Battalions of the 1st Brigade were to fight with the Canadians and the 4th Cor...

The secrets of the Tank Corps have been so well kept that there are few civilians who even now know anything of Tanks or their crews beyond what might be learned from photograph...

In order to understand the events that followed, we have to imagine a victorious but very weary British Army holding a newly consolidated salient against an enemy whom they have...

We were short of men and short of steel, and to divert steel from shells and men from the infantry was a grave decision. Our rulers were for a moment, perhaps, granted the gift...

The enemy was in full retreat, but we had every reason to suppose that once he had got “home,” back to the Hindenburg Line, he would resist our further attempts to advance with...