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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that examines notable events that happened years ago.

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Speaker 1: Today I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: development of an experimental weapon that would forever change the

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Speaker 1: shape of modern warfare. You know, once all the bugs

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Speaker 1: were worked out. The day was September nineteen sixteen. The

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Speaker 1: first tanks were deployed at Fleur Corselette during the Battle

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Speaker 1: of the Psalmme in France. The model used the British

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Speaker 1: Mark one, had been designed a year earlier as a

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Speaker 1: way to end the stalemate of trench warfare that had

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Speaker 1: developed on the Western Front in World War One. These

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Speaker 1: early tanks weren't very reliable and had been sent into

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Speaker 1: combat without much training on how to use them effectively. Still,

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Speaker 1: the intimidating vehicles shook German combatants to their core and

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Speaker 1: ultimately gave rise to a new era of mechanized warfare.

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Speaker 1: The need for armor plated defensive vehicles arose naturally during

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Speaker 1: the early days of the First World War. By the

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Speaker 1: fall of nineteen fourteen, the fighting in the Psalm River

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Speaker 1: region of France had taken an unexpected turn. British generals

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Speaker 1: had expected to clear a path by shelling German positions,

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Speaker 1: but when the bombardments failed to destroy the enemy's heavy artillery,

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Speaker 1: the British soldiers found themselves with no way forward. In time,

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Speaker 1: both sides settled into a network of trenches all along

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Speaker 1: the four hundred plus mile stretch of land nicknamed the

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Speaker 1: Western Front. This arrangement made it nearly impossible for the

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Speaker 1: Allied forces to advance through the German occupied territory. Every

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Speaker 1: time the soldiers tried to make a move, thousands were

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Speaker 1: got down by machine gun and rifle fire from the

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Speaker 1: defending German trenches. In fact, the advances were so ineffectual

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Speaker 1: that it's estimated more than one thousand Allied soldiers were

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Speaker 1: killed for every one hundred yards gained against the Germans.

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Speaker 1: It was with this grim situation in mind that an

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Speaker 1: officer of the Royal Engineers made a suggestion to General Headquarters.

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Speaker 1: His name was Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Dunlop Swinton, and he

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Speaker 1: believed that with a new piece of equipment, the British

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Speaker 1: Army would be able to break the stalemate and finally

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Speaker 1: crossed to the other side. Of no man's land. His

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Speaker 1: proposal was to build a fleet of heavily armored vehicles

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Speaker 1: that could push their way forward even through harsh terrain

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Speaker 1: and unrelenting enemy fire. What Swinton described a self propelled

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Speaker 1: artillery vehicle had never been attempted before. In fact, a

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Speaker 1: vehicle like that was only possible thanks to recent innovations,

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Speaker 1: namely the internal combustion engine and continuous tracks or tread.

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Speaker 1: With a gas powered engine, the vehicle originally described as

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Speaker 1: a land ship would be able to propel itself forward

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Speaker 1: even with the added bulk of steel, armor plating and

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Speaker 1: mounted machine guns, and with continuous tracks instead of wheels,

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Speaker 1: it could travel over rough terrain and across barbed wire

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Speaker 1: with ease. Swinton's idea quickly earned the backing of Winston Churchill,

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Speaker 1: the first Lord of the Admiralty a k a. The

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Speaker 1: government's top advisor on all naval affairs. And if you're

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Speaker 1: wondering how the development of tanks qualified as a naval affair,

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Speaker 1: remember they weren't tanks yet they were ships of the land.

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Speaker 1: In early nineteen fifteen, Churchill established the land Ship's Committee,

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Speaker 1: which set to work building a prototype. The project was

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Speaker 1: conducted in great secrecy to ensure the element of surprise

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Speaker 1: on the battlefield. Even the workers were kept in the

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Speaker 1: dark about what they were really building. They were told

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Speaker 1: that the vehicles were a new way to transport water

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Speaker 1: for the troops, a kind of mobile water tank. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: the workers started calling the machines water tanks, or just

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Speaker 1: tanks for short. They eventually learned the truth, as did

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Speaker 1: the Germans and the rest of Europe, but the name

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Speaker 1: tank persisted anyway. An initial batch of fifty tanks was

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Speaker 1: delivered to France in August of nineteen sixteen, just ahead

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Speaker 1: of the next major attack along the River Psalm. Each

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Speaker 1: tank was assigned an eight person crew for men to

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Speaker 1: navigate and work the controls, and for to fire the

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Speaker 1: tank's artillery. Unlike modern tanks, which feature a single central

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Speaker 1: turret on top, all of the weapons on the British

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Speaker 1: Mark one were mounted on the sides. Unfortunately, some of

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Speaker 1: the first fifty tanks had been damaged in transit and

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Speaker 1: were no longer operational when they arrived. As a result,

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Speaker 1: only thirty six actually made it to the battlefield in

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Speaker 1: time for the attack on September and if that weren't

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Speaker 1: bad enough, when the order to advance was given. Only

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Speaker 1: twenty five tanks were actually able to move forward. The

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Speaker 1: rest broke down right there on the virtual starting line.

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Speaker 1: Despite these mechanical setbacks, the tank force still left a

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Speaker 1: strong impression on the Germans on the front line that day.

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Speaker 1: Many of them simply ran away in terror, with one

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Speaker 1: survivor later saying that he was prepared to retreat all

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Speaker 1: the way back to Berlin if necessary. The tanks were

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Speaker 1: also a shocking sight for British troops, with most having

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Speaker 1: never seen one until the machines arrived behind British lines.

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Speaker 1: One such soldier, Reginald Grant, recorded his initial reaction. He wrote, quote,

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Speaker 1: I looked in the direction of the sound, and presently

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Speaker 1: there heaved in sight a colossal something of behemoth proportions,

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Speaker 1: something the like of which I had never seen or

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Speaker 1: heard of in all my life. And I was stricken,

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Speaker 1: dumb with amazement. A monstrous monstrosity climbed its way without

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Speaker 1: let or hindrance, up over, along, and across every obstacle

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Speaker 1: in its path. Presently it reached the top of Posier Ridge.

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Speaker 1: Every man who could see at his eyes glued on it.

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Speaker 1: Soldiers on both sides may have been taken aback by

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Speaker 1: the hulking machines, but the men inside the tanks were

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Speaker 1: feeling overwhelmed in a different way. Most of them were

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Speaker 1: regular infantry soldiers with no background and engineering or mechanics.

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Speaker 1: They were expected to turn the tide of the whole war,

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Speaker 1: but the tools they'd been given for the job were

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Speaker 1: hastily designed, unintuitive, and prone to malfunctions. The vehicle interiors

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Speaker 1: didn't make the crew's task any easier. The cramped chambers

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Speaker 1: inside the tanks were intensely hot, and an ever present

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Speaker 1: cloud of exhaust fumes made it difficult to breathe. Yet,

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Speaker 1: even with all those disadvantages, the first group of tanks

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Speaker 1: still managed to advance several miles through two of the

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Speaker 1: three German lines. They inflicted heavy casualties along the way,

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Speaker 1: and in their wake trailed a steady stream of British infantry.

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Speaker 1: The tank force could have pressed on even further, but

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Speaker 1: since there were no radios on the field, there was

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Speaker 1: no way to coordinate an extended attack. In October, heavy

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Speaker 1: rains turned the battlefield to mud, and by mid November

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Speaker 1: the advancement had ground to a halt. The commander of

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Speaker 1: the Allied forces at the Psalm. General Douglas Haig had

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Speaker 1: no choice but to abort the Psalm offensive. Over the

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Speaker 1: course of four months, they had advanced just five miles

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Speaker 1: and had lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the process.

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Speaker 1: The tank's debut wasn't the turning point the war department

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Speaker 1: had hoped for, but General Douglas Haig still believed the

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Speaker 1: new weapons showed promise. He ordered the production of hundreds

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Speaker 1: more tanks, and as their reliability improved, he was able

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Speaker 1: to deploy them to much greater effect. By the summer

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Speaker 1: of nineteen eighteen, nearly three thousand British tanks had been produced.

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Speaker 1: They were no long or an oddity on the battlefield.

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Speaker 1: They'd become an accepted and highly potent weapon in the

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Speaker 1: British arsenal. By that point, the Germans had developed armor

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Speaker 1: piercing rounds to combat the tanks, and while that tactic

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Speaker 1: did prove effective, it wasn't enough to stop the onslaught.

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Speaker 1: Once the tanks had been deployed on mass After sustained

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Speaker 1: pressure from the Allies, including the British Tank Force, Germany

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Speaker 1: finally surrendered on November eleventh, nineteen eighteen. Although they had

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Speaker 1: started as a British invention. The utility of tanks wasn't

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Speaker 1: lost on England's allies or its enemies. France quickly rolled

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Speaker 1: out its own take on the machines, the Renault FT,

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Speaker 1: the first tank with the distinctive feature of a rotating

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Speaker 1: turret on top. As for the Germans, they never got

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Speaker 1: the hang of tank production during World War One, only

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Speaker 1: managing to build about twenty of their own clunky design. However,

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Speaker 1: they eventually made up for lost time during the interwar years,

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Speaker 1: and by the time of World War Two, German tanks

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Speaker 1: were a fearsome force on the battlefield. The genie of

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Speaker 1: mechanized warfare was well and truly out of the bottle

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Speaker 1: in the world, for better or worse, would never be

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Speaker 1: the same. I'm Gay Blusier and hopefully you now know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, consider following us on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: send them my way at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history class,