I have alluded above to the Tank Corps as a citizen force. It was, indeed, peculiarly so, for of the 20,000 odd souls that went to compose it, perhaps not more than two or three per cent. were professional soldiers; and, while the General Staff officers on H.Qs. were almost without exception regulars, the whole of the Administrative and Engineering staffs with one solitary exception were drawn from various civil vocations.
Moreover, units as they came into being were built up, not on any old-time tradition of a parent regiment, but each one very much around the personality of its own commanding officer. And it has indeed been interesting to watch the development of particular idiosyncrasies of whole battalions and companies from the characters of their leaders.
Your record has faithfully set forth what has been accomplished by these troops. They are well able to sustain criticism in the light of their achievements.
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I have alluded before to the esprit de corps, founded as it was upon the sentiment of saving of life—a sentiment to which appeal has never failed. Other factors went to strengthen it. It was braced by a high standard of results demanded, by the determination to make good in spite of partial first successes. But the strongest element in it was the faith in our weapon—the machine necessary to supplement the other machines of war, in order to break the stalemate produced by the great German weapon, the machine-gun—our mobile offensive answer to the immobile defensive man-killer.
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It is indeed a curious reflection that the Germans before committing themselves to their great final offensive, should not have followed to their logical conclusion the preparations which they made for the preceding phases of the war with such meticulous forethought. In 1914, they removed from the path of their attacking infantry the prepared obstacles of permanent fortification by means of specially-constructed machines—siege cannon of unprecedented size. Later, they developed the machine-gun in bulk, and so modified the preconceived course of warfare to their own advantage for defence. It is astonishing that for their final offensive effort, they should not have equipped their men with armament for overcoming the very defence in depth supported by the very machine-guns from which they had reaped so much advantage in the previous years.
And yet we see them in March, 1918, reverting after an initial attack, powerfully covered by artillery fire, to the same attempt to break through with men that had failed in 1914. Although machine-gun support was stronger, there was little help from the other arms beyond scanty artillery support and considerable frightfulness of day and night bombing and long-range bombardment. The German infantry was well, often magnificently, led, whether in Picardy or Flanders; and one could not watch the work of the strong offensive patrols without intense admiration of their skill and courage.
The Germans failed against defence in depth. The elements that were wanting were those of continuous mobility necessary to overcome such defence, against which infantry without powerful support and plentiful supply sooner or later become powerless. The Germans lacked the means to move and to supply their guns rapidly. They lacked Tanks to produce surprise or to carry forward the battle as an alternative to guns. They lacked lorries, they lacked cross-country vehicles.
With us, when the tide turned, the converse was the case, and it was at least a part reason of success against an enemy who fought bravely and often bitterly almost to the end.