Tommy (58 page)

From April to December 1917 the Special Brigade executed 348 operations, with almost 12,000 cylinders and 100,000 projectors and another 120,000 Stokes mortar bombs delivering about 2,050 tons of gas.
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Foulkes still hoped to do better: in the last year of the war he experimented with ‘gas beam attack', with railway trucks packed with gas cylinders trundled parallel with the German lines when the wind was right: in ten beam attacks Foulkes's men discharged more than 27,000 cylinders of gas.

The German scientist and ardent patriot Fritz Haber played a leading part in the development of the German chemical weapons programme, and his son Ludwig wrote
The Poisonous Cloud
(1986), one of the best works on gas in the First World War.
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His last chapter, ‘Was Gas a Failure?', demands the unequivocal response that it was. Its effects were never decisive: indeed, Fritz Haber himself admitted that once the British had developed a box respirator, gas ‘was a waste of time'. It caused far fewer casualties than shells and mortar bombs, machine guns and rifles, and of the men it injured fewer (3–4 percent) actually died than was the case with most other weapons, where deaths ran at about 25 percent of all casualties.

But it made the lives of all combatants significantly more difficult: the invisible threat of a ghastly death struck at the very heart of men's ability to cope with battle. Norman Gladden reflected that gas ‘inspired a fear that was out of all proportion to the damage done'. Lord Moran thought that it was a major cause of psychiatric casualties, for it exposed a man's natural unfitness for war, although he believed that most of those affected by gas were more frightened than hurt. Alan Hanbury Sparrow called gas ‘the Devil's Breath'.

Even soldiers who had seen many dreadful things found that it was the sight of gas casualties that froze their marrow years afterwards. Bernard Martin heard the gas-gong sound at Ypres in 1916 when the sentry spotted a cloud of gas moving towards the British lines.

Albert Bullock was moving up to the attack through a gas cloud with his company on 4 October 1918 and: ‘met Griffiths crying because he had just found one of the goggles of his gas mask broken and didn't know what to do. Last I saw of him.'
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And for James Dunn there was something almost wordlessly terrible about the effects of the gas that passed low through a Flanders farmyard:

B
y 1918 gas, indecisive and ghastly though it was, was firmly woven into the combined arms battle, as part of the preparatory bombardment, tucked into the creeping barrage, or to blanket areas to which the enemy was to be denied free access. Smoke, too, was widely used, delivered by shells, mortar bombs, hand-held smoke candles, smoke generators or even smoke grenades.
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But far more portentous was the fact that this battle now contained a weapon which was beginning its ascent to the pinnacle which it was not to scale for another generation: the tank.

The Tank Corps, created by Royal Warrant on 27 July 1917, had evolved from the Machine Gun Corps (Heavy), with a strength of just 133 officers and 1,069 men in May 1916, to reach 2,801 officers and 25,498 men at the war's end. By that time it had almost exactly the same number of officers and men in France as the cavalry – 13,984 mounted troops to 13,594 members of the Tank Corps. Of the three most important types of tank, 1,015 Mark IVs, over 400 Mk Vs, and 700 Mk V* tanks had been built by the end of 1918. The story of the Tank Corps is one of remarkable expansion for an arm which did not exist when war broke out, and if the British may be blamed for losing their lead in armoured warfare in the inter-war years, they rarely receive the credit they deserve for winning the race during the First World War. Ludendorff cited Allied tank superiority as one of the main reasons for German defeat in 1918. He was being less than honest, for the history of the last Hundred Days shows that tanks were still only useful for set-piece battles, and were not yet able to achieve and maintain the sort of operational tempo which they displayed in some Second World War campaigns. They were not battle-winners on their own, but they had already shown themselves to be worthy members of the combined arms team into which the British army had so painfully evolved.

The heavy tank was debuted by the British on the Somme on 15 September 1916. Bernard Martin, hearing the noise of a nearby engine, went over to investigate and found:

Tanks were used again, still in small numbers, at Arras and Third Ypres the following year. On neither occasion was the ground firm enough to give the tanks much prospect of success, as Second Lieutenant Gerry Brooks, commanding the tank ‘Fay' on 2 August, discovered all too well.

‘Fay' became bogged down and had to be abandoned shortly afterwards. One crew member was killed as they bailed out, but Brooks managed to make his way back to British lines.
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The injuries caused by rivets, pieces of armour plate and bullet fragments were so characteristic of tank warfare that crewmen wore leather goggles with metal grilles over their eyes and a chainmail curtain covering their face. Sapper officer Lieutenant V. F. Eberle thought that it was a hopeless venture from the start. ‘I believe the number I counted was fourteen within my view from one point,' he wrote. ‘In this particular area they had an almost impossible task, becoming sitting targets once they were held fast in the gluey mud.'
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That November tanks were used on a much larger scale at Cambrai, where the firm downland offered better going. One driver of G Battalion recalled: ‘What a joy it was to be driving on good, dry ground without having to crawl in bottom gear with mud up to your sponsons.' Brigadier General Hugh Elles, commander of the Tank Corps, led the attack in the heavy Mark IV tank ‘Hilda', commanded by Lieutenant T. H. de B. Leach. ‘Hilda' flew the flag of the Tank Corps, its dark green, dark red and brown stripes symbolising the tanks' progression through mud, through blood, to the green fields beyond.
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The surrounding tanks were ‘Harvester', ‘Harrier' and ‘Huntress', for this was ? Battalion, and the names of individual tanks took their initial letters of their names from that of the battalion.

The leading tanks carried a bundle of fascines – tightly-bound stout brushwood – to drop into German trenches to make them easier to cross. Operating in sections of three, No. 1 tank dropped its fascine into the front-line trench, crossed and turned left, shooting up the trench garrison as it did so. The remaining two tanks made for the second trench, where No. 2 repeated the crossing process, leaving the remaining tank free to proceed to the third trench. The infantry followed up, moving through gaps ripped in the wire and capitalising on the ‘tank fright' generated by the weapons already christened ‘the Devil's Chariots' by a German journalist.

There was a hold-up on 51st Highland Division's front, for which Major General Harper is generally blamed. However, the best modern research suggests that it was less the fault of infantry-tank co-operation than the inevitable consequence of the vulnerability of tanks in this sector as they breasted a rise only to be confronted by German field gunners who had been well trained in anti-tank tactics. Lieutenant General von Watter, commanding the German 54th Division, had a brother who had encountered British tanks on the Somme, and they had debated the best way of dealing with them. German gunners hauled their 77-mms out of their gunpits and fought them in the open, quickly traversing to take on the tanks as they nosed over the ridge.

The incident spawned the legend of ‘the Gunner of Flesquières'. Haig's Cambrai dispatch spoke of many tanks being destroyed by ‘a German artillery officer who, remaining alone at his battery, served a field-gun single handed until killed at his gun. The great bravery of this officer aroused the admiration of all ranks.'
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A footnote to the bound version of the dispatches added that the German officer was not identified. Efforts were certainly made at the time to find his body, which would not have been the case had the incident been simply an ex-post facto invention of Haig's to excuse the temporary setback. Yet there seems no factual basis for the incident as described, although both Lieutenant Müller and Sergeant Major Kruger of 108th Field Artillery Regiment merited the gratitude of their countrymen for their bravery that day. Had Cambrai stopped after two days, as was originally Haig's wish, it would now be remembered as a fine example of excellent co-operation between artillery (the swift and accurate bombardment which accompanied the assault was a key ingredient of the success achieved on the first day), tanks and infantry. But the cavalry exploitation did not materialise, and the battle subsequently bogged down into an attritional struggle for Bourlon Wood which left the British poorly balanced to face a deftly-judged German counterattack.

British tanks played an undistinguished part in resisting the German spring offensives of 1918, although the Germans put tanks captured at Cambrai (prominently marked with large iron crosses) to good effect alongside a few of their large and cumbersome A7V tanks in these attacks. The first ever tank-versus-tank action took place near Villers-Bretonneux on 24 April 1918 when Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell's Mark IV tank engaged a German A7V
Sturmpanzerwagen.
Some of Mitchell's crew had been so badly mustard-gassed that they had been evacuated, and the eyes of the survivors were all smarting. Mitchell spotted the German tank:

Mitchell's tank was ‘male' (that is, armed with cannon) Mk IV, with a 6-pounder gun in a sponson on each side. The ‘female' was equipped with two machine guns but no cannon, and there were, predictably enough, ‘hermaphrodites' with one of each. The tank was pitching sharply as it crossed the shell-torn ground, and Mitchell's right-hand gunner missed with his first two shots. The Germans replied with armour-piercing machine gun fire which ‘filled the interior with myriads of sparks and flying splinters. The crew flung themselves flat on the floor. The driver ducked his head and drove straight on.' Mitchell manoeuvred so as to give his left-hand gunner, Sergeant J. R. McKenzie, a shot. McKenzie had been blinded in his right eye and was manning his gun single-handed, as his loader had already been evacuated. He missed with his first round, and Mitchell then decided to stop to allow for steadier shooting.

Although there remains uncertainly as to whether Mitchell's opponent was actually knocked out, or fell over while turning sharply to take evasive action, the significance of the clash is clear enough.
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At Amiens on 8 August 1918 – what would become known as ‘the black day of the German army' – Rawlinson's 4th Army deployed 534 tanks, 342 of the new Mark Vs, 72 whippets, and 120 supply tanks. Captain Henry Smeddle commanded a section of three Mark V* tanks in the battle. A public schoolboy from Dulwich College, he had enlisted into the Army Service Corps in 1915 and had reached the rank of lance corporal before being commissioned into the Machine Gun Corps (Heavy) in June 1917. By now very careful attention was paid to co-operation between tanks and infantry, and Smeddle spent the days before the battle being briefed on the plan and passing the information on to his men, ‘excepting the actual date, time, and location, which would only be given at the last moment'. Surprise was crucial: ‘There was to be no smoking, or flashing of electric torches, and no shouting, whistling, or unnecessary noise during the march. Only tank commanders would be allowed to smoke; the glow of their cigarettes was to be the method by which they would guide their tanks whilst walking in front without undue attention.' Smeddle's tanks moved into position along guide-tapes at a slow walking pace, and he waited for zero hour in a silence that seemed like the quiet before the storm.

The barrage ‘broke the silence with a terrific crashing roar … It was still dark, but the flashes of the guns gave out sufficient light to distinguish the forms of the gunners and guns, the nearest of which was twenty-five yards from where I was standing, and so quietly had everything been prepared that I was not aware of its presence until it started firing.' He led his section forward, using his pocket compass to keep direction through the thick mist, crossing the first-line trenches, now empty of infantry, and meeting wounded and German prisoners on their way back. He lost a man to a strafing attack by low-flying German aircraft, and found himself being filmed by ‘the official cinema operators' as he reached his first objective. Smeddle's tanks were in the second wave, but they now took the lead, and Smeddle was narrowly missed by the nosecap from a shell which hit the tank two feet from his face. It was now clear just how well things were going.

The development of the tank marked another step in the soldier's gradual evolution from warrior to servant of machinery. The daily intimacy of their life bound tank crewmen with a peculiar intensity. In October 1916 tank gunner Victor Archard lamented the loss of a chum, posted as missing: ‘Poor Jim was my most intimate friend; he was one of God's good men and I still hope for him. I will never give a German any quarter after this, if I am not prevented by orders.'
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Crewmen were cooped up in a hot, rattling metal box, filled with the fumes of an unreliable engine fuelled by all too easily-ignited petrol. A direct hit from a field gun might mean instant oblivion: Edwin Campion Vaughan saw a tank supporting his attack on the ‘Springfield' pillbox at Passchendaele converted to ‘a crumpled heap of iron' by a single heavy shell

Armour-piercing bullets, shell-splinters, or rivets dislodged by hits sped around inside the armoured carapace, and the special goggles issued to crewmen did not always prevent their blinding. Lieutenant Basil Henriques commanded a tank on the Somme in September 1916.