THEMANWHOTHOUGHT ABOUT THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 49, 21 November 1917, Page 6

THEMANWHOTHOUGHT ABOUT THE WAR

CELEBRATED MILITARY WRITER'S "TANK"

SKETCH OF COLONEL SWINTON

(From the New York "Evening Post.")

To the initiated Colonel Sainton's name was familiar long before it was announced in London during the fall of 19U that he was the official Eye-AVilness whose periodic descriptions of the fighting in France and Flanders had attracted the attention of the world by their conoise clarity and vigorous descriptive power. A few years after the end of the South African War—to be exact, about ten years ago—soldiens in tin's country and abroad were surprised by an unusual serifts of stories which appeared serially in a leading English magazine.

Romance as Text Book. One of (hem, "Tho Defewo of Duffer's Drift," is used as a text book at AVest Point, and the entire first collection, which was published under tho title of "The Green Curve," may be found in tho library of almost every military student. A later series, "The Great Tab Dope," is nearly as well known. If you care to look up the books, you will find that they contain forecasts of a number of the original problems developed in this war, although you will not find in them a prophecy of the tanks. Colonel Swinton frankly admits that the fictional forefather of his uncouth steel beasts was H. G. Wfllls, whoso gift for exploiting the psoudo-scieutific in fiction has Ijwn Ion? established. Both "The Green Curve" and "The Great Tab Dope" have been published in this country, but until Colonel Swinton'e name began to be heard in connection with the reports of the official EyeWitness, their uncanny perception of the possibilities inherent in application of scientific methods of destruction to warfare remained known to few outside mih-

tary circles. As an instance of his previsioning power, in one of these stores, "The Chink in tho Armour," which was written in 1907, tho destructive effect of aircraft on lines of communications was described with the faithfulness of one of the official accounts of last week's bombing raids on the German railways in Belgium. "Just before I wrote that story," explained Col. Svanton when it was' draw;, to his attention, "I had received confidential information that the Wright brothers hKd succeeded in flying in a heav-iar-thar.-niv machine. That; wa<j enough inspiration for me. I saw then what could bo done by tho legitimate nso of aircraft in war. Given a machine which could remain aloft a sufficient len»th of time and which possessed ill* ability to carry a quantity of explosives, it was obvious that objectives hi behind the enemy's lines, well outeido tho range of tho most powerful nrtilitry, could be reached and destroyed. That was the theory I sot out to derndustrUe in "The Chime in the Armour."

"The Chink in the Armour" narrates how the one irenk spot i;t an ar.emy's strategy, a vital bridge on his lines'of cwnimißication, was reached and destroyed, by means of aircraft. It is interesting to know (hut in writing the story Colonel Swinton hod in mind • a real bridge and tho actual terrain of the surrounding country. "That was the bridge at Norval's Port that we built in tho South African War," he said. "By we I mean tho Knilway Pioneer Battalion, in which 1 served. That battalion, by the way, was raised by an American, Major L. I. Seymour, ono of the best mechanical engineers in South Africa, who was killed in action June 14, 1900. He was a very fine fellow."

Colonel Swinton began to think about tanks several years before Austria sent her ultimatum to Serbia, but he is scrupulously careful to say that many men were thinking move or less vaguely along the same lines at the same time. Indeed, the proposal of the tank as an engine for neutralising the effect of ma-chine-gun fire was actually made by two Bets of men, ono to tho War Office and ono to the Admiralty, and neither group was aware that the other was working along the same lines.' Still, we may beliove unprejudiced testimony which gives to Colonel Siviuton the principal credit for convincing the higher authorities in London that mobile land-forte were practicable.

"In July, 1914, I heard that Mr. Benjamin Holt, of Pcoria, 111., had invented r. tractor which possessed the ability to make its way across rugged and uneven ground," he stated. "But several years before that a plan for a military engino practically identioal with , tho tank had been sketched upon paper, when a tractor of another mako was tried out in England. That first plan came to nothing. We weren't ready for it .then. 'I'lifc reports of the Holt tractor served to stimulate my interest in the idea all (ner again, and when I went to France with Lord French in August, 1911. and lira what modern warfare was like, I became convinced that an armoured car capable of being independent of roads and of traversing any terrain to_ attack fortified positions, was a necessity for the- offensive, You know, when we, with the French, started our offensive in Northern Prance, after the battle of the Marne, we smashed ourselves against fhi) German machine-guns. Th» Germans had foreseen the enormous de6trnctiveness of machine-sjuns, and they had massed thousands of these weapons in preparation for thc war. Every subsequent battle on the Western front showed th" need for doveloping some weapon which would offset the deadly mechanical ceriainty of tho machine-gun in the trenches."

Maxim v. Holt. Colonel Swinton' twisted his moustache and swung round in his chair with a quizzical expression. "And right here," he pursued, "let me interpolate a remark which should be of interest to you Americans. The principal German weapon of slaughter was, and is, tho Maxim gup, invented by Hiram Maxim, an American by birth, although he later became a British subject. And the weapon wo Britishers devised to counteract the murderous efficiency of your American Maxim gun was based upon the ingenious invention of another American, the Holt tractor, I don't meant to say that the Holt tractor is the tank, by any manner of means. It is not. But without f .he Holt tractor there very probably wonld not have been anv tanks.

"To get back to my story By October, 19H, I had a fair conception of the kind of engine which -might be relied upon to neutralise the growing German power in machine-guns, combined with the most elaborate fortifications ever built on a grand scale. You see. their fire ascendency in the meantime had enabled them to dig in with their usual thoroughness. In October I returned to Fingland to try to interest the authorities n( the Wnr Office iu my idea. I had my troubles, but T did not have as many troubles as 1 might likvc had, because other men of their own accord were working along the enme lines.

"You must get this very straight, mind. Whatever credit there may be for inventing the tanks belongs not to any one man, but to many men—exactly hoiv many nobody knows. It is even rather unfair to mention any names, my own as well as those of others. For, besides thoso men who actually worked to perfect the tanks, there were others who had conceived very similar ideas.

"Still another proof" of the plurality of tonic inventors is the fact that while one. group of ns were endeavouring to interest Hip War Office in fho idea, another group of men, entirely ignorant of what we were doing, vnro to get the Admiralty to take, up a similar line of experimentation. And it.is no more than fair to point out that the first money provided for experimentation with lnmlships, as we called them, came from Winston Ppwor f'hnrehill. then First Lord of the Admiralty. But he was only one nf a number of men who played parts in l.lie development ol the finished ensn'no. For example, there were two' men in parliculor who worked out the mechanical problems. I wish T could give yon (heir names, but T cannot."

Ancestors of the Tank. "It's rnllier remarkable that so many people were thinking along the same lino at tho same time," was suggested. "Not at all," returned Colonel Swinton promptly. "Not when you consid«

the situation. The tank, after all, is merely an elaboration, the laet word, of military devices as old as tile history of military engineering. Its ancestors were the armoured automobile, tne belfry or B>ege-tower on wheels of tut, Middle Ages, and the Woman tentudo. The need for tlio tank became apparent to many who studied the military problems demonstrated on the "Western front. That is often bo m the history of inventions, you know. A given problem occupies many minds simultaneously, and generally several reach a solution about the Z ! lf e, ev f. n thou B h I'whnpe ono reI) lit t^, cred i t ior the invention above all ( tho others. i«" You . s^ oke abo,lt " l 0 mechanical problems of the tanks? What were thev?" ■n. n „ i r yo ," lu ' e Setting wr delicate Ef. a '» Slad to tell you all I can about the tanks, hut I oau't describe tbem-not beyond a certain point, that a. 1 will say just this—the peculiar original feature of thorn, upon which their efficiency most depends, in the construction of their trackage It: is the feature winch cables them, not only to negotiate rough and broken ground, but to surmount obstacles and knock down trees and houses. But the full description ot the tanlw cannot be written nnM ( .ifrer the war." "Have tliny reached Iheir limit of development?" "Not by any mean';. Of course, they have very delinitp limits to their developincut. We might, for instiviice, build miich larger tanks, but if we did the difficulties of transporting the!" would become insuperable. Tt is feasible to build them no hri«T ilvnii they are nt present. J,ar??r faults would have to be taken apart Wore- (l-.fv could be trimspovtttl by rnii, o.m\ would al» present fliflinulties for travel by rond. Bi? as they are, the tanks are rather delicate contrivance. , !, and they can stand only so much wear and tear. The friction on their trnctor parts is enormous, and these parts do not last, very long."

Tanks' First Appearance. Colonel Swinton described the upronrious mirth of the British infantry on that morning a year ago when they liad their lirsi; sight of the unwieldy tanks vlambering over trenches, hillsj email forests, and housee, spitting flames as they rolled, lolloping forward likfl Tinge armoured monsters of the pro-historic pa«t. "It gave our men quite a moral lift," lie said. "They fOTgot their troubles, But they fioou came to see that the tanks were more than funny, for wherever the tanks attacked the infantry had comparative immunity from machinegun fire, and it is tlio German machinepun fire which always has been the principal otetaclfl for our troops. The Germans at first wots paralysed with fear of the tanks. They got over their fear in. time, but fhoy hvtn never developed acv posittve means of noinbitiiiß tanks." • The name tank. Colonel Swinton also explained, oriptlnally was a bit. of camouflage, designed to cover t'.ie real piirnose of Hie new engines. They were variously described by people wlio saw them in wni?a* of erection ps snowpioiiglis f.ir work nn the Russian front nnd mobile watertiinks to accompany the • British armies in Palestine, E-;yvt, and Mesopotamia. Botb views were encouraged, and the name tank, snsirestrd by the latter story, wae employed in tclframs and verbal description?. After the tanks were exhibited in llirir true characters, however, to tlio surprise of their sponsors tlio incongruous name clunsf to them, and ranks they became, remained in thi , vocabularies of the Tommy, the poiln, and tlin oivilinii. Tt. may not be qenerallr known, either, thnt these extrnordinorv beasts arc divided into two "sraes. JI

Two "Sexes" of Tanks, "Sonic- tanks arc armed with' small guus liring shells," said Colonel Strinton. "These are used especially against manests. 'l'hey are popularly knowu in the tank unit ivs make. Otiiev tanks carry machine-guns ana are intended primarily lbr use- against enemy iuinntyy. They are the fen ales. There is no difference in the construction of the sexes."

I'rom tanks the conversation turned s lo the uu-allied arts of literature and scientific slaughter. "No," Baid Colonel Swinton, whimsically, "wrSine , fiction doesn't get a chap anywhere with his superiors in my profession. And when I say 'my profession* I mean soldiering, for I am a professional soldier. I hnv» written'stories because —well, because there wrs something I wanted to say that way. But in tho Army they are inclined to bo distrustful of soldiers who write. 'These writing ohape, you know! Not very practical I' ,,

"But how about yours°lf? Hasn't writing fiction stimulated your imagination and increased your military perception ?"

"Yes, I daresay that's true," ho admitted. "In fact, it is. I believe I have benefited myself. Imagination is a factor of value in military work."

"Pardon the suggestion," remarked the American cross-examiner, "but your conntrymen popularly are supposed to be rather deficient in that quality." "For hearen's pake, now, my dpnr fellow, don't quote me as denying tho British iningination," exclaimed Colonel Swinton, a humorous twinkle in his eyo vyin> with tho expostulation in his'voice. "I say. you kno-w, you'll bo getting me in awfully hot water. If you want iny real opinion. T'll ,»iva it to you confidentially." And he did After all, if it hadn't been for a few men with imagination, the t,vit« would never have been built. Sometimes there is not n great deal of difference between imagination and forctliong-ht. The result of each may bo the same