CHAPTER XII
THE FRENCH TANK CORPS—AMERICAN TANKS AND BRITISH TANKS IN EGYPT
It is said that there is something in the Anglo-Saxon mind which has a special affinity for committees.
“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.”
At least, there is no doubt that the British Tank sprang from committees, and was matured and licked into shape entirely by a large assortment of these excellent bodies.
So with the American Tank Corps. Three or four names are equally illustrious in its early annals.
But with the French, one man, and one man only, stands out as the Father and Mother of Tanks. He was the General Swinton, the Sir Albert Stern, and the General Elles of the French Tanks. That is to say, he was first the principal independent inventor, deriving his inspiration (in early 1915) from Holt Tractors which he saw at work with the British. Then he was for long the principal “propellant” of the Tank idea in official quarters, and was the Commander-in-Chief’s delegate to the Ministry of Munitions in the matter of Tanks. Finally, on September 30, 1916, he was gazetted “Commandant de l’Artillerie d’Assaut[49] aux Armées.”
So much did the personality of this remarkable man permeate and vitalise the French Tank Corps that we offer no apology to the reader in setting forth the following delightful miniature biography of General Estienne by the hand of Major Robert Spencer, the British Liaison Officer to the French Tank Corps:
“Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne was born at Condé en Barrois (Lorraine) on November 7, 1860. Owing to the trend of events during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 his school, the Lycée of Bar le Duc, was forced to shut, and it was whilst enjoying an enforced holiday at the age of ten years at Condé with his parents that his idea of embracing a military career was born. He was one day an interested spectator of the passage of a column of Prussian artillery through the paved streets of his native town, and was lost in youthful admiration of this display of military power. He hastened back to tell his parents of his decision one day to enter as a conqueror into a town with his guns clattering behind him.
“From this hour he became wedded to an artillery-man’s life, and in due course passed in and out of the famous École Polytechnique, where his mathematical ability enjoyed full scope.