THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 17 March 1921, Page 2

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

BRITISH ARMY POLICY

BIG FORCE OF TANKS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION

LONDON, March 15

In the House of Commons, Mr Worthington Evans introduced the Army Estimates, lie said the War Office was aiming to have an expeditionary force of six divisions of men. It would include fast and powerful tanks, which would be a substitute for cavalry. Several of\tlie cavalry and yeomanry regiments would accordingly be disbanded. New light tanks, he said, were being developed in order to assist the infantry. There would be fourteen companies of armoured cars. Each would consist of twelve cars or 168 altogether. General Townshend, speaking on the Estimates, appealed, fo the Government to withdraw its enormous force from Mesopotamia. General Townshend declared: “Our present military policy there has been a (diasfly strategical blunder. We ought to hold Mesopotamia with one division.”

He said lie bad recently discussed the question of tanks with Generals.Mangin, Gourand and Castelnau, and all these French Generals thought that the day of the tanks had passed. The Germans at the end of the war, he pointed out, had found an antidote for them by spreading mines in the wav of the tanks’ advance. The vote was passed. '