I
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 now in as urgent need of reorganisation as were their machines of overhaul and repair.
The present chronicle has also for long followed their fortunes, with not a glance to spare for the activities of the manufacturing and other organisations which played the supporting parts “Aaron and Hur” to the Fighting Side’s “Moses.”
At the period we have reached it is high time to pick up the dropped histories of the other persons of the drama. For while the Tank Corps had been fighting, manufacturers had been busy, and a huge network of auxiliary services and organisations had grown up, by means of which the whole Corps was to rise rejuvenated from its ashes.
Before the Tanks fought their next pitched battle the Mark V. had come into being, Whippet Tanks had been issued, a heavy type of infantry-carrying Tank had been designed, and for fast work on good roads a Battalion of Armoured Cars had grown up.
Besides this, a complete system of Supply Tanks and Field Maintenance Companies for salvage and supplies had been gradually evolved during the course of the last campaign.
The Tank Corps Depot had been enormously enlarged, and had moved to its final “location” on the coast near Le Tréport.
The Home Depot at Wool had also increased, and there had been changes and developments at the Ministry of Munitions and in the Tank production side generally.
It is in fact impossible in a single chapter to give more than a brief indication of this universal and increasing “back area” activity.
To begin with the changes in the home organisation and in the production of Tanks.
The “New” Tank Committee was, as we have already related, a success.
In December 1917 and January 1918 it saw a rather interesting new phase, when Majors Drain and Alden, of the U.S. Tank Corps, attended certain of its meetings, and when the manufacture for the British and American Armies of the Mark VIII. or “Allied Tank” was decided upon. This Tank was never fought, but its projection is perhaps interesting as an example of inter-Allied solidarity.
By January 1918 proposals for an expansion from nine to eighteen Battalions and for a reorganisation of Tank control had been put forward.
These proposals were eventually (in April 1918) discussed by the Inter-Allied Tank Committee, a sort of sub-committee of the Versailles Conference, on which the British, French and American Tank Corps were represented.
But neither men nor really constructive thought could then be spared from the immediate needs of meeting the German onrush, and nothing was done to realise their proposals until that onrush was finally stemmed.
But in July 1918 the business was taken up again. It was decided to expand the Tank Corps to thirty-four Battalions armed with about six thousand machines.