In these four acts must be sought the origins of the tank, the idea of which is, therefore, much older than the Trojan horse; indeed, it dates back to some unknown period when aboriginal man raised his arm to ward off the blow of an infuriated beast or neighbour.
To ward off a blow with the bare skin is sometimes a painful operation; why not then cover the arm with leather or iron, why not carry a shield, why not encase the whole body in steel so that both arms instead of one may be used to hit with, for then man’s offensive power will be doubled?
If we look back on the Middle Ages, we find that such a condition of fighting was actually possible and that knights clad in armour cap-à-pie were practically invulnerable. As regards these times there is an authentic record concerning twenty-five knights in armour who rode out one day and met a great mob of insurgent peasants which they charged and routed, killing and wounding no fewer than 1,200 of them, without sustaining a single casualty themselves. To all intents and purposes, these knights were living tanks—a combination of muscular energy, protective armour, and offensive weapons.
Knights in armour remained practically invulnerable as long as the propellant for missile weapons was limited to the bow-string and as long as the knights fought within the limitations which their armour imposed upon them. At Crécy and similar battles, the chivalry of France suffered defeat more through the condition of ground they attempted to negotiate, than through the arrows of the English archers. They, in fact, became “ditched” like a tank in the mud, and being rendered immobile, fell an easy prey to the enemy’s men-at-arms. A fact which proves that it was not the arrow which generally destroyed the knight is that the archers were equipped with maces or leaden hammers[8] by means of which the knight could, when once bogged or “bellied,” be stunned, rendered innocuous, his armour opened, and he himself taken prisoner for ransom.
Diagram 1. Scottish War Cart, 1456.
The true banisher of armour was gunpowder, for when once the thickest armour, which human energy would permit of being worn, could be penetrated, it became but an encumbrance to its wearer. Though gunpowder was introduced as a missile propellant on the battlefield as early as the twelfth century, it was not until the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries that its influence began to be felt, and it is interesting to note that directly it became apparent that the hand gun would beat armour carried by men, other means of carrying it were introduced. These means took the form of battle cars or mobile fortresses.[9] Conrad Kyeser,[10] in his military manuscript, written between 1395 and 1405, pictures several “battle cars.” Some of these are equipped with lances, whilst others are armed with cannon. A few years later, in 1420, Fontana designed a large “battle car,” and the following year Archinger another, to enclose no fewer than 100 men. All these cars were moved by means of muscle power, i.e. men or animals harnessed inside them. A picture of one of these is to be found in Francis Grose’s Military Antiquities, vol. I, p. 388 (see [Diagram 1]). Its crew consisted of eight men, the same as the Mark I Tank. The following extract concerning these carts is of interest:
“Another species of artillery were the war carts, each carrying two Peteraros or chamber’d pieces; several of these carts are represented in the Cowdry picture of the siege of Bullogne, one of which is given in this work; these carts seem to have been borrowed from the Scotch; Henry, in his History of England, mentions them as peculiar to that nation, and quotes the two following acts of parliament respecting them; one A.D. 1456 wherein they are thus described: ‘it is tocht speidfull that the King mak requiest to certain of the great burrows of the land that are of ony myght, to mak carts of weir, and in elk cart twa gunnis and ilk one to have twa chalmers, with the remnant of the graith that effeirs thereto, and an cunnard man to shute thame.’ By another Act, A.D. 1471, the prelates and barons are commanded to provide such carts of war against their old enemies the English (Black Acts, James II, Act 52, James III, Act 55).”
With all these war carts the limitations imposed upon them by muscular motive force must have been considerable on any save perfectly firm and level ground, consequently other means of movement were attempted, and during the last quarter of the fifteenth century the battle car enters its second phase. In a work of Valturio’s dated 1472, a design is to be found of one of these vehicles propelled by means of wind wheels (see [Diagram 2]). Ten years later we find Leonardo da Vinci engaged in the design of another type of self-moving machine. Writing to Ludovico Sforza he says:
“I am building secure and covered chariots which are invulnerable, and when they advance with their guns into the midst of the foe, even the largest enemy masses must retreat; and behind them the infantry can follow in safety and without opposition.”