Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/721

Rh

The Germans used their tanks on nine occasions in 1918, commencing with their advance on March 21, the most success- ful action being when they captured Villers-Bretonneaux on April 24, 12 German machines coming into action on this occa- sion. The result of the appearance against the British of hostile tanks, especially on this date and later, on Oct. 8 in the Cambrai sector, when 15 captured British machines were used, was suffi- cient to confirm their great moral effect and the feeling of help- lessness engendered in infantry by them. It showed that it was not only the Germans who could not stand up against the attack of these machines, for the British infantry fell back on the report of the appearance of German tanks as did the German troops at each appearance of the Allied machines, when the Allies were pressing forward. The German tank tactics do not appear to have been very thoroughly thought out, and consisted mostly of " mopping up." This is probably due to the smallness of the number possessed by them and the improvised nature of the arm. Moreover, the belief in their own powers of the members of the tank units must have been somewhat shaken by the official propaganda campaign which had been carried out for months by the High Command to discount the effect of the British and French machines.

According to one authority, the reasons that the Germans did not during 1917 whole-heartedly take up the organization of tanks in large numbers for their great effort in the spring of 1918 were that when they first became aware of their existence it was too late to carry out the successive operations of design, experiment and manu- facture in bulk ; and that owing to lack of raw material and shortness of man-power the manufacture of the machines would have entailed the cutting down of the production of other war materiel. There does not seem to be much force in the first argument, if it be remem- bered that 80 British tanks were ready equipped in the field within 13 months of the receipt of the specification by the designers, and this without any existing machines to serve as patterns. All along, the attitude of the German High Command seems to have been that of the staff and not that of the troops; and great endeavours were made to inspire the latter with the official views. Though official disbelief was seriously shaken by the surprise of Cambrai, the success of the German counter-attack 10 days later was used, illogically enough, to discount the effect produced by the previous assault by tanks. There was, however, a general and absolute revulsion of feeling after the great French success on July 18 1918, and the British actions of Aug. 8 and 21, which almost amounted to panic at H.Q., and con- verted both critics and military authorities. There were numerous articles in the German press during Sept. severely censuring the High Command for having neglected to provide tanks for the German forces and to undertake measures against the Allies' machines. Popular opinion became so strong that a stormy debate on the sub- ject took place in the Reichstag in the following month, when the Minister of War made an apology for the neglect to equip the Ger- man troops with this weapon. There is no doubt as to the opinion of the German army and the nation on the subject of tanks from then on to the end of the war. For months after the cessation of hostilities the tank was called " Deulschland' s Tod" "the Death of Germany."

ITALIAN TANKS

A great part of the theatre of war in which the Italians were operating for so long was too mountainous for tank oper- ations, and the question of the organization of a tank arm was not taken up by Italy until 1918. Manufacture of tanks was then started, and by the time the war came to an end one or more Fiat machines were ready to take the field, but none was actually used.

ANTI-TANK DEFENCE

The tanks used by the British and French during the war were designed to be bullet-proof only, not being strictly speaking " armoured," and were vulnerable to gunfire. The best active defence against them since they were moving targets, was the direct fire over the sights of as light a Q.F. piece as could insure penetration. Any field gun in use during the war, or light Q.F. guns of the " Pom-Pom " type, were sufficient. But as the tanks were mobile and could attack at any spot, often by sur- prise, to attempt to meet them with special or stationary guns in position would have entailed the distribution and locking up on the mere chance of attack of a prohibitive amount of artillery. The alternative was the provision of suitable guns themselves protected and capable of movement across country, so that

they could be concentrated speedily when and where required. In other words, the correct reply to the tank was a type of male tank capable of rapid movement. The Germans eventually produced this reply in principle, in their own A.y.V. tanks, and by re-arming the male British Mark IV. machines and those of the French Schneider and St. Chamond (gunned) types which they had captured. This took place, however, too late and on too small a scale to influence the course of operations. Techni- cally, also, the German machines failed in mobility across en- trenched country. In order to effectively attack the German tanks by gunfire armour-piercing shell was required, for they were protected by hardened armour up to 30 mm. (1-2 in.) in thickness.

As the Germans were forced by circumstances to develop anti- tank defence, from which duty the Allies were almost entirely spared, the measures they adopted are here reviewed. Their action, which consisted for a long time largely of injunctions to the infantry not to lose their heads in the event of a tank attack, suffered from the continual inability or unwillingness of the High Command to take this weapon seriously, in spite of the lesson of Cambrai of Nov. 1917, till after the French attack on July 18 1918. In Sept. 1916 the Germans of course had no special means of defence against the tanks, of the existence of which they were ignorant, and these machines had an opportunity on their first appearance never to be repeated. After the Somme battle certain measures of anti-tank defence, seemingly based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the machine, were undertaken, mostly in the direction of obstacles, such as pits, etc., in roads, and indirect artillery fire. After April 1917, it was discovered that neither the British nor French tanks were proof against the " K " armour-piercing bullet with which the troops had been equipped for use against loop-hole shields, and considerable reliance was placed on this fact. But this discovery did not help the Germans much, the tanks (Mark IV.) used in the next action by the British having had this to a great degree remedied. During that year the value of gun defence against tanks was to some extent realized, attention being mostly given to indirect fire which of all kinds is least effective against moving targets. A certain number of special direct-fire, anti-tank guns often in concrete shelters, were emplaced along the front. But not much attention was paid to the use of direct fire from field artillery normally in the sector attacked. This was not so on the occa- sion of the French attack on the Crayonne Plateau on April 1 5 1917, when the guns of the defence of all kinds did great execu- tion among the French machines. At the battle of Cambrai again, some of the German field artillery were most effective against the British machines, one well-concealed gun served by a German major putting 16 tanks out of action.

During the period of preparation for the 1918 offensive the anti- tank rifle, which was a definite step forward, was evolved. This was a heavy, single-loading rifle of 53o-mm. calibre, sJ ft. long, weighing 36 lb., firing armour-piercing pointed bullets. The bullets penetrated the tank plates, though they did not neces- sarily place a tank out of action; but the weight of the weapon and its recoil hampered free employment by the infantry.

It was after July 18 and Aug. 8 1918, that the German High Command awoke to the danger threatening the German defen- sive, and indeed issued almost panic instructions. Special anti- tank defence officers were appointed to the different formations; guns were brought up to the front line and emplaced for action against tanks alone; and sections of reserve batteries were allotted to this duty, whilst all batteries (including howitzers) were to take up positions from which they could engage tanks by direct fire. The most efficacious of these precautions was the employment of the mobile guns of reserve batteries which were not so likely to be knocked out by barrage fire as those in posi- tions closer to the front. Tanks became a bugbear, all sorts of precautions in the way of signals to notify their approach were taken, such as the installation of rockets, syrens, Klaxon horns; and permanent alarm posts were established. The passive forms of defence employed were: obstacles in the roads and entrances to villages, such as steel palisades, concrete blocks set sufficiently