November 28, 1918 
LAND er* WATER 
n 
for them, on a well-thought-out and co-ordinated scheme 
enabling their peculiar powers to be exploited, to bring off 
a second successful surprise with a weapon of whose exist- 
ence the enemy had been aware for over a year. The sub- 
sequent failure of this offensive had nothing to do with the 
Tanks, which carried out their tasks with an ease and celerity 
which was surprising even to the side which was operating 
with them. This second lesson was not lost upon the Ger- 
mans, and they set to work again in haste to equip themselves 
with Panzer Kraflwagen for their own use, and also to elaborate 
their counter-measures to meet future attacks of this nature. 
As to their actual employment of Tanks, they intended 
to make use of a few captured British machines in their 
great assault on March 21, 1918, but for some reason 
did not do so. About a month later, however, some of their 
own manufacture were ready, and in their attack near Villers 
Bretonneux, to the east of Amiens, they used six. They 
were all of the so-called male type, and each carried a 
■75 gun. And on this day there occurred the first 
battle of Tank versus Tank — a historic event, possibly the 
precursor of what will be a normal occurrence in the future 
warfare of monsters. One of their machines encountered 
and with true Hunnish gallantry knocked out two British 
"females" by shell. It then came up against a British 
"male," and was itself put out of business by gunfire — 
which encounter is typical of the struggle for life between 
animals since primeval times. Details of these machines have 
already been published, and, as will be understood, this is 
no place for any comment on their fighting value, or tl^e 
reverse. An insight into the opinion of the nature of the 
Tank Service held by the enemy is given by the fact that 
every member of a German Tank crew is awarded the Iron 
Cross. 
The Germans have not infrequently this year made use of 
captured British Tanks, The most recent attempt to do 
this, in a counter-attack on October 8 on the Cambrai- 
St. Quentin battle front, had a curious sequel, for the British 
Tanks captured and manned bv Germans were put out of 
action or dispersed by German Anti-Tank rifles captured 
and fired by the British. 
General von Wrisberg, speaking in the Reichstag for the 
Minister of War, stated that ; 
The attack on August 8 between the Avre and the Ancre 
was not unexpected by our leaders. When, nevertheless, the 
English succeeded in achieving a great success, the reasons 
have to be sought in the massed employment of Tanks 
and surprise, under the protection of fog. 
The American .A.rmies also should not terrify us. We 
shall also settle with them. More momentous for us was 
the question of Tanks. We are adequately armed against 
them. Anti-Tank defence is nowadays more a question 
of nerves than material. 
But of the many recent articles, one of the most detailed 
and most interesting is tliat by the military critic, Fabius, 
writing in the Neue Freie Presse of Septembsr 15 of this 
year, in which he discusses the developments in offensive 
tactics which have taken place during this war. He instances 
the replacement of cavalry as a means of breaking through 
a defensive line, by the massed drive of infantry, and the 
abandonment of this method owing to the huge losses 
incurred ; the subsequent inauguration of the colossal artil- 
lery bombardment as a preparation for the assault, these 
tactics having been started by the Central Powers at the 
battle of Gorlice, the credit for ihitiating them being given 
to the Austro-Hungarians, owing to the super-excellence of 
their artillery material. He then describes the latest step 
in the evolution of breaking through — the advance of Tanks 
— and states that, when properly applied, it is the most 
suitable for the purpose. In discussing the various methods 
of meeting this form of attack he points out that the Germans 
are more and more inclined to take up defensive positions 
behind rivers and canals, or other similar obstacles, owing 
to the fear with which this new weapon has inspired them. 
Now we come to the most pertinent and possibly the most 
interesting part of .what there is to be said about the new 
arm, though it can only be touched on. Sufficient experi- 
ence has now been gained to enable some analysis to be made 
of the action of Tanks from an economic or business side. 
By "business" side is not meant the narrow financial aspect 
only, but the common-sense point of view, from which the 
conduct of the war is regarded as a business proposition in 
the broadest sense of the word. 
As regards economy in fighting man-power, a comparison 
of Tanks with ordinary artillery in the terms of the amount 
of fire-power given by either arm for the same number of 
personnel shows that the Tanks provide the fire-power of 
four light guns and seven machine-guns for the same number 
of men as are required to keep in the field one field gun or 
• 60-pounder gun. Again, when the Tanks are employed in 
a surprise attack to replace the usual artillery preparatory 
bombardment, the work formerly done by the guns is re- 
placed as efficiently, if not more so, by the action of the Tanks 
with about 4 per cent, of the number of men. 
An approximate comparison between the number of men 
necessary in an offensive executed by infantry and Tanks, 
and by infantry alone, is that in the former case the same 
fire-power can be furnished with about one-third the number. 
Economy in Man Power 
Perhaps the most important feature connected with Tanks 
is the saving of life effected by them. Experience has shown 
that by their intervention the rate of loss of life of attacking 
troops is about halved. This, of course, is mostly due to 
the mastery obtained over the machine-guns and barbed 
wire. When it is remembered that this reduced rate is 
applicable to a total force of only about one-third of that 
which, without Tanks, would have had to be thrown into 
action to give equal fire-power, the net saving of life is strik- 
ing. Further, when a Tank operation of the nature under 
consideration is carried out without preliminary artillery 
"preparation," the losses caused by the enemy counter- 
battery work — in reply to the "preparation " before the actual 
assault is launched — are entirely obviated. In this connec- 
tion it may be mentioned that in one such "prepared" 
offensive our casualties due to this cause incurred before our 
infantry advanced amounted to several thousand. To 
assess the increase in losses caused to the enemy by the 
Tanks is almost impossible ; but an idea may be gained 
from the few examples given of hundreds of Germans sur- 
rendering to one or two Tanks, and from the total of prisoners 
and guns gained in recent operations. Finally the moral 
effect on our own and the German soldiers has been tremen- 
dous. 
In material the directions in which the employment of 
Tanks results in economy are various. To specify only a 
few: wherever the artillery "preparation" is replaced by 
a modern Tank advance, thousands of tons of the shells 
that would have been fired are not expended. This implies 
a saving in money, a corresponding saving in the labour 
necessary to make that ammunition, the transport 6f the 
raw material of which it is composed, the tonnage to convey 
it overseas when made, the transport to carry it up to the 
guns, and the wear and tear on roads, etc. In regard to the 
saving of labour in manufacture, the difference between 
the man-hours required to make the gun ammunition fired 
away in the preparatory bombardment of a certain previous 
battle, and the man-hours expended in constructing the Tanks 
which were lost at the battle of Cambrai, in November, 
1917, amounted in round numbers to 70 millions, while the 
difference in cash value was some millions of pounds sterling. 
In another direction, as to maintenance, the cost of the 
continuous supply of fodder for horses is enormously greater 
than the intermittent supply of petrol (gasoline), etc., to 
an equivalent number of Tanks. One more factor is that of 
time. The saving of time between that required to attain 
a break-through accompanied by success on a large scale — 
such as that of Cambrai in 1917- — and that required for the 
long-drawn actions, with days of preliminary artillery 
preparation, needs only to be mentioned to be recognised. 
In ordinary life it is said that "Time is Money." In war, 
time is very nearly everything, it often means something which 
money cannot buy — Victory. A Tank costs so much, but 
only takes a few weeks to produce. To breed good draught 
horses takes at least six years ; to breed fighting men 
takes nineteen. 
It is by now a platitude, though not universally imderstood 
nor admitted by those who should know, to say that the intro- 
duction of the Tank has marked the commencement of a 
new era in warfare — that of fighting with power-driven 
machines and steel instead of with naked human bodies. 
The chief value so far obtained from its use has been the 
power of meeting and establishing movement in the face 
of that terrible and murderous combination of machine-gun 
and barbed wire, which, during the last four years, has been 
responsible for more loss of human life than any other weapon 
used in warfare. But though the Tank as it exists to-day 
is still in its infancy, and is capable of improvement, it has 
obvious physical limitations. It is, from its ruiture, essen- 
tially a slow-moving ponderous Behemoth, a weapon of brute 
force and not of finesse — a bludgeon and not a rapier. It 
is, however, endowed with attriljutes which, though they 
have not always been fully exploited, have sufficed to defeat 
the weapon in which the Germans quite correctly placed 
so much trust, and upon which, as the best man-stopper 
in the world, they relied to hold back the inevitable tide 
of advance of the Allies. 
