Fritz: "This is no longer civilized war—they are stronger than we."
Reading edition
Under the title "The Devil's Chariot" the "Düsseldorfer Generalanzeiger's" correspondent on the Western front describes the British "tanks" and their effect on the astonished German soldiers. As the German trench posts came out of their holes in the foggy dawn of September 16 and raised heads again after the heavy iron-blows of the night and looked toward the English, their blood froze in their veins as two mysterious monsters came creeping over the crater fields.
The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it; a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Some one in the trenches cried "the devil comes," and that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out of the armored shine of the iron caterpillar, shells whistled over our heads, and a terrible concert of machine-gun orchestra filled the air. The mysterious creature had surrendered its secret, and sense returned with it, and toughness and defiance, as the English waves of infantry surged up behind the devil's chariot.
Times Special Correspondent, October 24, 1916.
