also the idea of giving wheel-borne collective protection to several men at a time, and devices for doing this have been numerous, and have varied according to the progress of mechanical knowledge and the resources available at the moment.
The Assyrians made use of war chariots, or mobile fortresses, which were adopted from them by the Egyptians and Israelites.[1] Chariots were also employed by the Chinese in 1200 B.C. Then, for siege warfare, there were the Roman Testudo, or "Tortoise," and the mediaeval Beaufroi, or "Belfry," which was usually assisted by the "Cat" or "Sow," an engine of a more mobile type. About 1400 A.D. Conrad Kyeser wrote on this subject, and some 20 years later Fontana and Archinger designed cars, the latter a large machine to carry 100 men. In the middle of the 15th century appeared the "Scottish War Carts," known also as "Tudor War Carts." In 1472 one Valturio designed a machine to be propelled by wind sails. In 1482 Leonardo da Vinci wrote to Ludivico Sforza describing a machine which, except in motive power, was in essentials the counterpart of the tank. A battle car was designed for the Emperor Maximilian I., and in 1558 Holzschuher described one for use with infantry and cavalry. Eleven years later two land battleships are stated to have been built by Simon Stevin for the Prince of Orange. Except those propelled by the wind, all the above were moved by the muscular power of men or horses. In 1634 David Ramsey took out an English patent for a self-moving car, and Caspar Schott designed one for use against the Turks. In 1769 Cugnot, a Frenchman, actually constructed a steam-driven road car which could be used in war; and later Napoleon wrote a paper on the subject of the automobile in war. In 1855 James Cowan, in England took out provisional protection for a "locomotive battery fitted with scythes to mow down infantry," and endeavoured to persuade Lord Palmerston to take up this adaptation of the chariot. Capt. Nadar put forward a similar suggestion in 1870; and in 1900 John Fowler, of Leeds, produced armoured steam traction engines for S. Africa.
The introduction of rifled breech-loading firearms did not force into use any system of man-borne or horse-borne protection, notwithstanding that the range, volume and accuracy of all kinds of fire was immensely increased and its effect rendered correspondingly more deadly. For, it was less possible than it had been to produce shields or body armour which were capable of resisting the greater penetration of the rifle bullet and yet light enough to be carried; whilst no practical method of mechanical propulsion across country of the heavy weights involved in collective protection had been discovered. And yet, as time passed, the need for some more intimate form of help for the infantry soldier than that afforded by artillery grew more insistent. It was accentuated by the invention of the machine-gun and of the magazine and the automatic rifle, and by every successive improvement in small arms or artillery. In point of fact, however, the mechanical difficulties had been overcome some years before 1914. The "caterpillar," or "track," or "endless band" system of propulsion, by which weight is distributed by the increase of the surface bearing on the earth, instead of being concentrated, as with a wheel, and a better tractive effect obtained, which had been known, and in the United States largely employed, for some years, had furnished the key to cross-country mobility; and the perfecting of the internal combustion engine had subsequently given to the world compact power with light weight.
The principle of the "footed wheel," "caterpillar," or "track" system of propulsion appears to have originated in the patent of Richard Lovell Edgeworth in 1770 for a device whereby a portable railway could be attached to a wheeled carriage.[2] This employed the basic principle of all subsequent track-driven machines. Then followed patents for tracks of different natures, by Thomas German in 1801, William Palmer in 1812, John Richard Barry in 1821. In 1846 there was the Boydell engine, with footed wheels, improved upon by Andrew Dunlop in 1861; whilst in 1882 Guillaume Fender and John Newburn designed modifications of tracks. In the following year the actual use of tank-like engines for war was predicted by M. Albert Robeida in La Caricature.[3] In 1886 there came the Applegarth tractor, and the Batter tractor was patented in the United States two years later. The latter anticipated the tank in many details. All the above machines were steam propelled. In America steam locomotives with caterpillar tracks, some furnished with sleds or runners, had for years before the war been applied to haulage in lumber camps. After the appearance of the petrol engine Frank Bramond patented in 1900 a special form of track for pneumatic tired wheels. In 1907 a Rochet-Schneider car fitted with a chain track was tried for military traction purposes, and in 1908 a 70 H.P. Hornsby-Ackroyd chain track tractor took part in a review at Aldershot, and Hornsby also demonstrated a 75 H.P. Mercedes motor car fitted with tracks, a speed of 20 m. an hour being attained on sand. Another British tractor, of the footed wheel type, was the Diplock Pedrail. In America petrol-driven caterpillar tractors had before the war become quite common for agricultural purposes, amongst them being the Bullock, Killen Strait and Holt tractors.
While experiments in petrol-driven caterpillar-track tractors for military use had been carried out by the British authorities before the war, there had been no serious investigation or proposal by any nation to develop the caterpillar principle for fighting as opposed to transport purposes. In 1903 Mr. H. G. Wells had in fiction anticipated the intervention in battle of fighting machines which amounted to large-size tanks. Five years later Capt. T. G. Tulloch had suggested a scheme for a steam-driven pedrail armed and armoured trench-crossing machine, and in 1911 had put forward a proposal to use armed and armoured linked Hornsby-Ackroyd tractors with a crew of a hundred men. And in 1912 Mr. L. E. de Mole, an Australian, actually placed before the War Office a design, followed in 1916 by a model, for a climbing, fighting track-driven machine. This was the real prototype of the tank; and in some particulars, especially its pivoted ends and flexible chain tracks for steering a curved course, it seems to have been superior to the machine actually produced. Unfortunately, whatever may have been official opinions or intentions in regard to this scheme, no action was taken.[4] In Dec. 1915 a caterpillar-track wire-cutter, invented by M. J. L. Breton, the French deputy, and called the Tracteur-porte-cisaille, or Tracteur Breton, was tried, and orders were given for a few, which, however, were not constructed. The Boirault cross-country motor, which consisted of an articulated polygon, was also tried, but was found impracticable owing to lack of steering power.
In the years preceding 1914, military opinion generally inclined to the belief that in any future struggle open warfare, or a "war of movement," alone was probable; that in such a campaign mobility was the essential; and that there would not be many occasions when a sheer unassisted frontal attack would have to be pressed to the end against carefully prepared positions held by unshaken defenders. It was appreciated that such operations if attempted would be costly to the infantry, though how costly was not realized. And it was thought that they could usually be avoided by manoeuvre, or, if they had to be carried out, would be assisted by envelopment or flank action which would relieve the task of the infantry by weakening the power or determination of the defence to fight to the end, or by operating at night or by surprise. The other, local, measures for assisting the infantry consisted of the bombardment and supporting fire of the attacking artillery up to the moment of actual assault, and the covering rifle fire from stationary infantry to cover those who could not use their rifles whilst actually moving forward, both of which were intended to keep down the defenders' fire. Great and, as it proved, undue reliance was placed on this concentration of the fire-power of the attack both from artillery and from small arms. It was hoped that by the continual cumulative reinforcement of the firing line until it had arrived at assaulting distance, and possibly dug itself in, a superiority of fire over the defenders would be gained sufficient to permit of the delivery helped by artillery till the last moment of the final assault with the bayonet. To enable the firing line to improvise some sort of protection when it could no longer move forward and was "frozen" to the ground, the infantry of all armies were equipped with a portable entrenching tool. The blade of this instrument, it was thought, also, might in some cases serve as a species of shield. Except by the Ger-
- ↑ The greater part of this historical summary is taken from Tanks in the Great War by Brvt.-Col. J. F. C. Fuller, and The Forerunner of the Tank by H. M. Manchester, The American Mechanist, Vol. xlix. No. 15.
- ↑ The Engineer, Aug. 10 1917 and following issues.
- ↑ Strand Magazine, June 1917.
- ↑ Mr. de Mole's ideas had no influence on the evolution of the tank, for the originators of the latter were ignorant of his project, which only became generally known after the war, in Oct. 1919, some four years after the Mark I. tank was designed, when the subject came up before the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors.
