Three definite solutions were attempted—the first, artillery; the second, gas; and the third, tanks—each of which is a definite answer to our problem if the conditions are favourable for its use. Thus at the battle of the Dunajec, in the spring of 1915, the fire of Mackensen’s massed artillery smashed the Russian front; this success being due as much to the fewness of the Russian guns as to the skill of that great soldier. At the Second Battle of Ypres the German surprise gas attack succeeded because the British and French possessed no antidote. At the First Battle of Cambrai, the use of tanks on good firm ground proved an overwhelming success, whilst at the Third Battle of Ypres, on account of the mud, they were an all but complete failure.
All armies attempted the first method by increasing the number of their guns, the size of their guns, and the quantity of their ammunition. So thoroughly was this done that whole sectors of an enemy’s front were blasted out of recognition. This, however, was only accomplished after all surprise had been sacrificed by obvious preparation during which notice and time were given to the enemy to mass his reserves in order to meet the attack. Further than this, though the enemy’s wire and trenches were destroyed all communications on his side of “No Man’s Land” were obliterated, with the result that a new obstacle, “the crumped area,” proved as formidable an antagonist to a continuous advance, by hampering supply, as uncut wire had done to a successful assault, by forbidding infantry movement.
Instead of solving the problem: “How could mobility be reintroduced on the Western Front?” the great increase in artillery, during 1915 and 1916, only complicated it, for, though the preliminary bombardment cut the wire and blew in the enemy’s trenches and the creeping barrage protected the infantry in a high degree, every artillery attack during two years ended in failure due to want of surprise at its initiation and the impossibility of adequate supply during its progress.
The Germans attempted the second method—gas, and from the Second Battle of Ypres the chemist fell in alongside the soldier. That gas might have won the war is to-day too obvious to need accentuation. Two conditions were alone requisite—sufficient gas and a favourable wind. Fortunately for us the German did not wait long enough to manufacture gas in quantity; unfortunately for them the prevailing wind on the Western Front is westerly, consequently when we and the French retaliated they got more than they ever gave us.
The introduction of gas still further complicated the problem, for, whilst it is easy for the defender to launch gas clouds, it is difficult for an attacker to do so, consequently once soldiers had been equipped with respirators the defence gained by this method of fighting and warfare became still more immobile.
As regards the British front the opening day of the First Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916, showed, through the terrible casualty lists which followed, how far the defence had become the stronger form of war. At no date in the whole history of the war was a stalemate termination to all our endeavours more certain. The hopes of nearly two years were shattered in a few hours before the ruins of Thiepval, Serre, and Gommecourt, where our men fell in thousands before the deadly machine-gun fire of the enemy. Eleven weeks later, on September 15, a solution to the problem became apparent, a solution due to the efforts of a small band of men, of whose energy and endeavours the next chapter will relate.
CHAPTER II
THE INVENTION OF THE LANDSHIP
It is not proposed in this chapter to give an answer to the question: “Who first thought of the tank?” The idea of combining mobility with offensive power and armour, as the previous chapter has shown, is a very old one, so old and so universal throughout history that, when the Great War broke out in 1914, many soldiers and civilians alike must have considered ways and means of reintroducing the knight in armour and the battle car by replacing muscular energy by mechanical force—in other words, by applying petrol to the needs of the battlefield.