Transcriber’s Note
This book uses footnote anchors at the beginningof some quoted text to refer to footnotes creditingthe sources of those quotes. It also usesmid-paragraph footnote anchors to refer toother kinds of footnotes.
THE TANK CORPS
MAJOR-GENERAL HUGH ELLES, C. B., D. S. O.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY SIR WILLIAM ORPEN, A. R. A.
THE TANK CORPS
BY
Major CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS, M.C.
AND
A. WILLIAMS-ELLIS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
Major-General H. J. ELLES, C.B., D.S.O.
COMMANDER OF THE TANK CORPS
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
5
INTRODUCTION
My dear Williams-Ellis,
You ask me for a foreword to your history, andinvite me, too, to agree to, criticise, or even refute theconclusions of your Epilogue.
The first task I undertake with pleasure, though I feelit would be more justly and more skilfully done eitherby one of the pioneers who sowed that we might reap,or by the rare thinker who in our own time has contributedso much to keep us on the lines of clear understandingand progress.
As to the second task I must decline a direct reply,and for many reasons I can no more than touch generallyupon the questions you have dealt with in so interestinga way. I find them, however, not yet sufficientlyremote in time, either to be clear themselves, orto be distinctly placed in a picture itself still obscure.
Of the early days of the Tanks, and of the earlystruggles, difficulties and hopes of the pioneers, I haveno first-hand knowledge—to comment at any lengthupon them would be out of place. They do, however,represent a remarkable effort of persistent and courageousfaith, of determination to succeed in the face oflukewarmness and even scepticism, of the overcomingof many practical difficulties. Above all, they presenta great clearness of vision on the part of three men inparticular—Swinton, Stern and d’Eyncourt.
It is remarkable that one of the first official paperson the tactical use of Tanks, written by GeneralSwinton early in 1915, should have b