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  The Devil’s Chariots

  The Origins and Secret Battles of Tanks in the First World War

  JOHN GLANFIELD

  This book is dedicated to the brave men who took the first tanks into battle, and to the determined pioneers who fought to forge them the new weapon.

  ‘All his armour wherein he trusted’

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  List of Abbreviations

  Introduction

  1. The Trackless Waste

  2. Early Trials – and Verdicts

  3. Winston’s Circus

  4. Preliminaries to a Dinner Party

  5. The Silent Service

  6. Combined Operations?

  7. Landships

  8. Preparations for Battle

  9. First Blood

  10. Divisions

  11. Crisis

  12. The Production Battlefield…

  13. … and a Body Count

  14. Power Down

  15. But Who Invented the Tank?

  Postscript

  APPENDIX 1

  Principal British Tanks, 1916–18

  APPENDIX 2

  Production Histories of Principal British Tanks, 1916–19

  APPENDIX 3

  British Tank Constructors, Output by Type, 1916–19

  APPENDIX 4

  Quarterly Output of British Tanks by Type, 1916–18

  List of Images

  Notes

  Selected Bibliography

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Of the many who helped so willingly with research, guidance and timely encouragement in the preparation of this account, special thanks must first go to David Fletcher, late archivist at the Bovington Tank Museum and fount of knowledge of all things armoured on tracks and wheels. David has given generously of his time and researches for many years and has contributed more than he may realise to the emergence of this book. Other custodians to whom the author’s grateful thanks are due for their unfailing efficiency and patience are William Spencer and Paul Johnson and their many colleagues at the Public Record Office in Kew; Keith Moore, senior librarian at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; Patricia Methven, the director of archive services, and Kate O’Brien and Marie Taylor at the priceless Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London; Colin Starkey, Meredith Wells and Alan Giddings at the National Maritime Museum; the staff in the old British Library and their colleagues at the Newspaper Library in Colindale; Colin Harris of the Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library; Mrs Vallis at Nuffield College Library, Oxford; Alan Kucia, late of the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge; senior archivist Jonathan Smith and his colleagues at Trinity College Library, Cambridge; John Breslin in the House of Lords library; Angela Wooton of the Imperial War Museum’s Printed Books and Documents Department and the indefatigable John Delaney in the museum’s Photographic Department; Prof. David Jeremy at the Centre for Business History, Manchester University; Alan Crookham in the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University; archivist Robert Sharp and photo researcher Martin Stephens at the Science Museum; Tim Robinson at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies; the library and photo archive staff of the RAF Museum, Hendon; Miss Wraight of the MoD Admiralty Library; Josephine Grant at the London Transport Museum and the staff at the London Metropolitan Archive for much help in tracing members of the ‘motor bus elite’; Elizabeth Dracoulis, Research Centre manager at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra; Susan Applegate of the Boston Public Library, Massachusetts; Bill Woods and Claire Leblanc at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa for unearthing service records; Tom Tytor in the National Library of Canada, Ottawa; Jennie O’Keefe at the Greenwich Local History Library; Ian Johnston at Cricklewood Library for information on the Dollis Hill establishment; Christine Bayliss of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Archives Centre; David Hufford of Huntingdon Library and Susan Thomas at the County Record Office in Huntingdon; Georgina Hammond at Gravesend Central Library; the staff at Tyne & Wear Archives, Newcastle upon Tyne; Adrian Wilkinson at Lincolnshire Archives; Alison Lindsay at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh; Edmund Wyatt in the Mitchell Library of the Glasgow City Archive; Richard Jones and the staff at the Archives and Business records centre, University of Glasgow; Margaret McGarry and the splendid Motherwell Heritage Centre; archivist Peter Miller and the researchers at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu; Margaret Sanders at Worcester City Library; Dawn Winter of the Sandwell Community History Service in Smethwick and Yvonne Richards of West Bromwich library concerning Patent Shaft; Colin Savage, director of the Staffordshire Record Office, Stafford, and the helpful staff at the adjoining Wm Salt Library.

  The author was privileged to have met the late Bryan Wilson, son of Maj Walter Wilson, for a long interview at his Winchester home. John and David Stern, sons of Sir Albert Stern, have willingly made available Sir Albert’s private papers and, with their sister Mrs Patience Marriott, gave wholehearted support. Paul Tritton has provided information on his distinguished relation Sir William. For personal papers and photographs of Col Dumble of the Landships Committee, special thanks go to Gill de Auer in Toronto, Sally Archibald in Scotland and the editor of the Toronto Star for bringing us together. Likewise to Fiona Harris for her kindness in tracing photos and papers relating to Maj Tom Tulloch, and to Geoffrey Jarvis for introducing us. Ray Hooley in Lincoln typically and unhesitatingly offered for study his large archive of material on Foster’s of Lincoln and the early tanks.

  Others who must warmly be thanked for providing information or special permissions are Edward, Earl of Iveagh whose wholehearted support led me to historians Neville and Gill Turner, all three of whom gave much valuable information, Lord Addison for clearance to copy the Addison papers in the Bodleian Library, His Grace the Duke of Westminster and his archivist Eileen Simpson, Idris Bowen, dogged Jack Chamberlain, Wilfred Duncombe, Richard Farman, Michael Lane, author of the masterly The Story of the Wellington Foundry, Lincoln, Stuart Gibbard who wrote the equally impressive Roadless – the Story of Roadless Traction, Charles Lothingland, Dorothy Reid, Ricardo Consulting Engineers Ltd and Margaret Dean for information on Sir Harry Ricardo, John Reynolds whose Engines and Enterprise – the Life and Work of Sir Harry Ricardo is the definitive account, Bill Souster, Anne Williamson and the Henry Williamson Literary Estate.

  The author’s good friend Ven Dodge, retired sales director of Col Johnson’s Roadless Traction Ltd, generously provided material on the colonel’s tank and later developments. He also prepared for publication many of the illustrations in this book, numbers of which entailed challenging restoration. The enthusiastic and professional support of commissioning editor Emily Holmes, Sam Collins and all at Osprey Publishing has ensured a smooth passage for this newly revised edition, for which my grateful thanks. Though many have contributed, responsibility for any errors and misinterpretations is rightly mine alone. Last but most importantly of all, my thanks go to my dear wife Caroline for her encouragement and forbearance.

  LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

  AEC Associated Equipment Co.

  AEF American Expeditionary Force

  ASC Army Service Corps

  BEF British Expeditionary Force

  CGS Chief of the General Staff (GHQ France)

  CID Committee of Imperial Defence

  CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff (War Office)

  CRE Commandant Royal Engineers

  D of A Director of Artillery

  DAA Deputy Assistant Adjutant

  DAD Director of Air Department (Royal Naval Air Service)

  DCGS Deputy Chief of the General Staff (GHQ France
)

  DFW Director of Fortifications & Works

  DMC Director, Military Cooperation

  DMRS Director, Munitions Requirements & Statistics (Ministry of Munitions)

  DNC Director of Naval Construction

  DSD Director of Staff Duties (War Office)

  DTDE Department of Tank Design & Experiment (War Office)

  GC gun carrier

  GHQ General Headquarters (of the BEF, France)

  GSO General Staff Officer

  HE high explosive

  IAE Institution of Automobile Engineers

  ICA Inspecting Captain of Aircraft (Royal Naval Air Service)

  MCD Munitions Contracts Dept (Ministry of Munitions)

  MCWF Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon & Finance Co.

  MG machine gun

  MGC Machine Gun Corps

  MGO Master General of Ordnance

  MMGS Motor Machine Gun Service

  MoM Ministry of Munitions

  MWD Mechanical Warfare Dept (Ministry of Munitions)

  MWEE Mechanical Warfare Experimental Establishment

  MWS Mechanical Warfare Supply (Ministry of Munitions)

  MWSD Mechanical Warfare Supply Dept (Ministry of Munitions)

  NBL North British Locomotive Co.

  O&A Overseas & Allies Dept (Ministry of Munitions)

  OHMS On His Majesty’s Service

  QF Quick firing

  QMG Quarter Master General

  RFC Royal Flying Corps

  RNAS Royal Naval Air Service

  RUSI Royal United Service Institution

  SAA Small arms ammunition

  TSD Tank Supply Dept (Ministry of Munitions)

  WD War Dept

  WO War Office

  INTRODUCTION

  Hundreds of tanks covered a Dorset heath in the first years of peace after 1918. Machines salvaged from the final assaults in France lay beside others on little more than delivery mileage from the railhead at Wool. The Armistice had transformed them overnight from assets to war junk. Production cancellations had gone out to nearly 4,000 tank builders and component suppliers. The Slough Trading Company bought the machines for scrap in 1920. When the breakers hammered out the rivets and torched them, 26 were spared.

  An engineer officer with a sense of history had earlier searched the graveyard for experimental and representative types. Those he found he marked for reprieve. The machines were hauled to a broken-fenced acre of scrub near the tank training schools at Bovington camp where they lay ignored for years in mounting thickets of bramble. Much of the compound became a lagoon after heavy rain, the weapon’s old enemy. A high sun on the closed-up hulls could still sweat the familiar miasma of warm oil, stale petroleum and hot armour. Most of them stayed forgotten for two decades until the heath was combed again in another hunt for scrap to be melted down for another world war.

  A few of those first tanks have survived to mark the bravery and suffering of all crews, and the high engineering achievement and labours of a different and unremembered army. The terrifying new weapon brought the first advance in firepower with mobility across the battlefield since cavalry first carried carbines. Because the machine gun and the tank transformed the conduct of land warfare at that time, their combat histories are well known. Less familiar are the events surrounding the tank’s astonishing birth – the sometimes bizarre experimental work, the endless battles to overcome military prejudice and to get them built, and the men behind it all.

  Here is the pioneers’ story. The heroism of the fighting men is not overlooked, but this is an account of other very different conflicts which were fought out in great secrecy by – and sometimes between – the visionaries and builders, and the High Command at home and in France. Controversy surrounded the tanks from their earliest beginnings until the Armistice and beyond. The lives of tens of thousands of Allied and German soldiers depended on the outcome, yet if the army had had its way in 1915 no tanks would have rolled out of British factories to become the first to enter battle.

  Some personalities and events have become obscured by time, myth or misconception. A number have never received the recognition they deserve, while others later claimed more than the facts rightly allow. The author hopes that those involved in this supreme and ultimately triumphant endeavour will now be seen in a truer light, whatever that reveals.

  The machines will speak for themselves.

  1.

  THE TRACKLESS WASTE

  ‘Before going on further with these trials it would be well to discuss the object of introducing this form of tractor into the service. What is it for?

  Is it to take the place of horses altogether … and if so, is it because horses are getting scarce or because it is thought mechanical draught is better?’1

  Brig Gen Stanley von Donop, Director of Artillery, on the proposed introduction of tracked gun tractors, December 1911

  Before the onset of winter in 1914 the series of running battles across Belgium and northern France had seized into deadlock. The Allied and German armies had reached the sea in October after a leapfrogging north-westerly drive as each tried to outflank the other. Now locked in a static and bloody clinch, they were digging in. Their growing trench lines and defence works would tie Switzerland to the North Sea along a 300-mile front. In the ensuing siege war Germany’s Maschinengewehr ’08 Maxims dominated the battlefield. The machine gun became the supreme defensive weapon.

  The shock of early and severe British losses for negligible gain brought many suggestions for breaking the stalemate. They came from the public as well as serving officers, reflecting a deep national anxiety to find some new weapon to overcome wire defences, smash trenches and neutralize the Maxims. A few ideas held promise – most were bizarre. Lord Hankey, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, wryly observed, ‘For the most part it is found that the “bright ideas” of the outside inventor are not new and that the new ideas are not bright.’2

  To overcome the very serious problem of barbed wire, Sir Charles Parsons the shipbuilder and father of steam turbines proposed a fleet of small, unarmoured cars fitted with front-mounted wire-cutting mowers powered by compressed air. They would operate on the principle of the farmer’s reaping machine, with a crew of two or three men. The cars were to be driven at night across no-man’s-land to nose into the enemy’s wire entanglements. As their slowly revolving iron sails swept the wire against a high-speed cutter bar, the vehicles were intended to mow a lane through for the following infantry. Other considerations apart, the cutters would have seized the instant they bit on an iron picket. The idea was not followed up.

  A wire-crushing solution was preferred by Mr Harcourt of Portarlington, near Dublin, who submitted a design comprising twin 20ft rollers inside a heavy timber frame. The 8ft diameter leading drum would be clad in sheet iron and ribbed with steel strakes to provide a cutting face when in contact with hard ground. The heavier trail roller was 11ft in diameter. Motive power would comprise an engine ‘or horses’ positioned inside the frame between the widely spaced rollers. This, too, was quickly rejected.

  Col Louis Jackson, Assistant Director of Fortifications and Works at the War Office, said that he processed ten or 12 suggestions for trench-destroying machines that first winter. One comprised a ‘vessel’ 150ft long with an armoured hull like an inverted keel and bunks for the crew. The Inventions Department of the Ministry of Munitions (MoM) received 20,000 suggestions for new weapons and warlike stores in the year following its creation in August 1915; it dealt with 50 ideas for portable bullet-proof infantry screens in its first fortnight. Lt C.A. Smith of the Royal Marines produced his own, a heavy armoured shield on a pair of artillery wheels. It was deployed to protect raiding parties – Smith among them until he was returned home wounded.

  In similar vein Ernest Milligan, a Medical Officer of Health in Derbyshire, submitted drawings for ‘The Barrow Shield’, an armoured wheelbarrow mounting a machine gun protected by a steel screen. It carried a stock of bombs for a three-m
an crew and could also be used to rush up weapons and supplies under fire. Though never built, the idea was reflected in the sidecars of fighting motorcycle combinations.

  A versatile ‘Rapid Travelling Armour Clad Field Fortification’ was proposed by Evelyn Mills of London. His long narrow motorized fort would carry a battery of 3-pdr guns and 200 riflemen and incorporate a giant plough at each end for charging breastworks. Alternatively, two or more machines could operate in line astern, driving right up to an enemy position before coupling nose to tail to form an elongated boxcar from the front of which its garrison could spill, the armour cladding at each end being hinged for the purpose. Another possibility entailed multiple units being driven in line into water obstacles to form a strong box-section ‘bridge’. Designs were submitted in October 1914 and were still under consideration by the War Office the following April.

  ‘Lemon’s Wheel and Rotating Machine’ produced disconcerting trials results. In October 1915 the Trench Warfare Department at the MoM conducted experiments with a motorized rig which was designed to rotate a heavy wheel at up to 100mph before releasing it at a hostile trench along a short launching board. The spinning missile carrying a powerful explosive charge would hurtle into the enemy wire, through which Mr Lemon expected it to flay a path for the following infantry, before it exploded above the trench. The experimental wheel duly tore through the wire before hitting the dummy trench parapet and taking off to land in a second trench 50yd beyond. Unfortunately the wire entanglement immediately sprang back, and as there was no means of controlling the detonation of the explosive, the project got no further.

  William Stewart of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company wrote from Petersburg, Virginia, advising Lord Kitchener to substitute snuff for shrapnel in artillery shells. He said he initially thought such action would be beneath an Englishman but German atrocities now justified ‘almost any retaliation’. The War Office passed his letter to the Director General of Munitions with the implication that the idea was not to be sneezed at.