Читать книгу The Tank Corps - Clough Williams-Ellis - Страница 19

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The battle had been essentially experimental. What opinion had been formed of the Tanks?

We now know what was the opinion of the German infantry. The German High Command seems in public to have ignored the new arm.

In a secret “Instruction” the Chief of the Staff of the 3rd Army Group, however, reminds units that they must “hold ground at whatever cost” and “defend every inch of ground to the last man.”

“The enemy in the latest fighting have employed new engines of war as cruel as effective.”

THE ORIGINAL THIEPVAL MARK I. TANK WITH ANTI-BOMB ROOF AND “TAIL”

FIELD CAMOUFLAGE

Every possible counter-measure is to be used against these “monstrous engines,” which will probably be adopted on an extensive scale by the British.

To our own infantry the Tank appeared as a lusty friend, who had at last found a convenient way of dealing with the hitherto deadly partnership of wire and machine-gun—a friend, too, who had a grotesqueness of gait and appearance which was intrinsically endearing.

A wounded London Territorial said:

“‘Old Mother Hubbard’ they called her and lots of other funny names as well. She looked like a pantomime animal or a walking ship with iron sides moving along, very slow, apparently all on her own, and with none of her crew visible. There she was, groanin’ and gruntin’ along, pokin’ her nose here and there, stopping now and then as if she was not sure of the road, and then going on—very slow, but over everything.

“It was her slowness that scared us as much as anything, and the way she shook her wicked old head and stopped to cough. It was a circus—my word! I only saw her for about ten minutes. She came humping out of the fog at one end of the line and humped into it again at the other. The last I saw of her was when she was nosing down a shell crater like a great big hippopotamus with a crowd of Tommies cheering behind.”

To the British High Command the Tanks appeared as engines of war which showed considerable promise. They must overcome certain mechanical weaknesses, and tactics must be further modified to suit their peculiarities. The G.H.Q. attitude was, in short, that of men satisfied, though not enthusiastic, and was well expressed by Sir Douglas Haig in his Somme Despatch:

“Our new heavily armoured cars, known as ‘Tanks,’ now brought into action for the first time, successfully co-operated with the infantry, and coming as a surprise to the enemy rank and file, gave valuable help in breaking down their resistance.”

The despatch goes on to mention the taking of Flers.

The delight of the British and French Press knew no bounds. The correspondents threw up their hats and set to ransack their dictionaries for octosyllables in which to describe the new “All British” destroyer of Germans.

It was “Diplodocus Galumphant,” it was a “Polychromatic Toad.” It was a “flat-footed monster” which “performed the most astonishing feats of agility as it advanced, spouting flames from every side.”

“It ‘leant’ against a wall until it fell and then crawled over the fallen débris.

“It went irresistibly through High Wood, the trees smashing like matchwood before it.

“It went up to machine-gun emplacements, ‘crushed the gun under its ribs,’ and passed on, spitting death at the demoralised Germans.

“It ‘stamped’ down a dug-out as though it were a wasps’ nest.

“It crashed through broken barns and houses, ‘straddled’ a dug-out and fired enfilading shot down German trenches.

“It put a battery and a half of guns out of action at Flers.”

Reuter added a cow-catcher to its equipment.

The French Press was enthusiastic:

“At the precise moment when the bombardment stopped, the Germans had the surprise of seeing advance in front of the waves of assaulting troops, enormous steel monsters from which spurted a continuous fire of great violence. One would have described them as gigantic infernal machines. Their front, which was shaped like a ram, smashed down every obstacle. The heavy automobiles bounded across the overturned and uneven ground, breaking through the barbed wire and jumping the trenches. In the German ranks there was a really mad terror. A prey to panic, the soldiers of the German Emperor fell back in haste, abandoning their arms, ammunition and equipment.”

And how did the Tank personnel itself view the events of the day?

Half choked with the engine fumes, boxed up for many hours without respite in the intolerable clamour and shaking of their machines, or, worse, having wrestled for hours under heavy shelling with a broken-down Tank, they were inclined to see the exasperations of the battle rather than its successes. It is indeed curious to note the difference in tone between the accounts of those who saw the Tanks dispassionately from without and those who had weltered within, between those who saw what the Tanks did and those whose view of achievement was obscured by a knowledge of what might have been.

The Tank Corps was too keen to be in the least satisfied by the measure of success which it had achieved.

Only the Press and the Germans perceived that a new “Excalibur” had been forged in England. “Out of the mouths....”