INTRODUCTION
My dear Williams-Ellis,
You ask me for a foreword to your history, and invite me, too, to agree to, criticise, or even refute the conclusions of your Epilogue.
The first task I undertake with pleasure, though I feel it would be more justly and more skilfully done either by one of the pioneers who sowed that we might reap, or by the rare thinker who in our own time has contributed so much to keep us on the lines of clear understanding and progress.
As to the second task I must decline a direct reply, and for many reasons I can no more than touch generally upon the questions you have dealt with in so interesting a way. I find them, however, not yet sufficiently remote in time, either to be clear themselves, or to be distinctly placed in a picture itself still obscure.
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Of the early days of the Tanks, and of the early struggles, difficulties and hopes of the pioneers, I have no first-hand knowledge—to comment at any length upon them would be out of place. They do, however, represent a remarkable effort of persistent and courageous faith, of determination to succeed in the face of lukewarmness and even scepticism, of the overcoming of many practical difficulties. Above all, they present a great clearness of vision on the part of three men in particular—Swinton, Stern and d’Eyncourt.
It is remarkable that one of the first official papers on the tactical use of Tanks, written by General Swinton early in 1915, should have been almost literally translated into action on August 8, 1918.
To General Swinton, too, is due the implanting, into all ranks, of the fundamental idea of the Tank as a weapon for saving the lives of infantry. This idea was indeed the foundation of the moral of the Tank Corps, for it spread from the fighting personnel to the depots and workshops, and even to the factories.