Note 6 — Chapter III · THE SOMME BATTLES.

The tactical recommendations set out in this document were disregarded completely by the general staff until the compulsion of events enforced their adoption. Colonel Swinton insisted on the necessity of tanks leading the attack in masses, and pointed out that, to ensure the rapid exploitation of any opening they should make, a very large force of infantry must be launched at once behind them. “Not only,” he says, “does it seem that the tanks will confer the power to force successive complete and unbattered defence lines, but, as has been explained, the more speedy and uninterrupted their advance, the greater the chance of their surviving sufficiently long to do this. It is possible, therefore, that an effort to break right through the enemy’s defensive zone in one day may now be contemplated as a feasible proposition.” Cambrai, notwithstanding the half-hearted support afforded, proved absolutely the justice of these contentions; and in 1918 they were accepted as a matter of course—without, however, any acknowledgment of their origin. Colonel Swinton also pointed out that field artillery was the tank’s chief danger, and one which could be countered only by the help of other arms. Numerous minor recommendations, such as the use of case-shot, smoke, and wireless, the necessity of intelligent co-operation by infantry and artillery, and questions of administration, supply, and transport in the field, were either turned down at once by the general staff or were disregarded; yet every one of them subsequently had to be adopted.