During all the battles onwards from August 8 to the capture of Landrecies the work carried out by the Tank Supply Companies and the Gun Carrier Companies was not only useful but of great importance, as in many places the roads were too bad for mechanical transport. When they were not required to bring forward tank supplies they were engaged in carrying every sort of ammunition and engineer stores, especially through zones which were harassed by machine-gun fire and in which, had infantry carrying parties been used, many lives would have been lost.
When the possibilities of these companies became realised, infantry commanders were continually asking for their assistance, preference being given to the gun-carriers on account of their greater capacity for light stores.
The Gun Carrier Companies, besides doing excellent work as infantry supply companies, kept both field and heavy artillery well supplied. No. 2 Gun Carrier Company carried out some very successful heavy sniping by carrying forward a 6 in. howitzer, and by moving it from place to place during the night it both harassed and puzzled the enemy. Besides this, several successful gas attacks were carried out with the aid of the gun-carriers, which transported the projectors and bombs to positions over country which wheeled transport could not have negotiated. By using these machines it was possible to get in three or more “shoots” in one night and to retire out of the danger zone before dawn.
If in the days of the great Napoleon, when a soldier went into action with frequently less than twenty balls in his pouch and a couple of spare flints, an Army “crawled on its stomach,” how much more does it crawl to-day! When the lessons of the war are sorted and tabulated in order of importance, very near the top, if not at the top itself, will be found that of “road capacity,” in other words, that victory rests with the side which can maintain the broadest communications. To widen existing roads directly by enlarging them or to construct new roads are both works of great labour; they absorb not only time and men but also transport of every kind, especially in a country like north-eastern France, where suitable stone for road-metalling is practically non-existent. To do so indirectly is best accomplished by a cross-country tractor, that is, by a machine which can move on or off a road. With such a machine roads can be indefinitely widened; paradoxically they cease to exist, for they are no longer necessary.
The tank is, first of all, a cross-country tractor, and it is curious that none of the contending nations appear to have appreciated this until well towards the end of the war, in spite of the fact that the reason for the general slowness of the advances which followed any initial success was nearly always due to inadequacy of supply.
By the end of March 1918 the German attack “petered out” for want of supplies; by the end of May it again did likewise for a similar reason. Had the Germans possessed on March 21 and May 27 5,000 to 6,000 efficient cross-country tractors, each of which could have carried five tons of supplies, all the hosts of brave men, which the United States of America could have poured into France, could not have prevented a separation of the British and French Armies from being effected. Had such a separation taken place it is impossible to say what the result might not have been; but what is possible to say is that had the Germans “scrapped” half their guns and replaced them by cross-country tractors they would have gone nearer winning the war than they did.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME
With the close of the battle of Cambrai the British Army abandoned the offensive, which had been initiated on April 9, and a period of passive defence was developed. At this time all three Tank Brigades had assembled at or near Bray-sur-Somme, where extensive hutments existed and where the old devastated area offered excellent facilities for training. Towards the end of December a request was made by the Tank Corps to establish at Bray a large tank and infantry school, so that co-operation between these two arms might be secured; further, as artillery ranges were near at hand it was felt that a complete tactical unity of action between tanks, infantry, artillery, and aeroplanes could now be established: besides this, Bray formed an excellent strategical centre to the Somme area should the Germans at any time launch an attack between the Oise and the Scarpe.