By A Web Design - Published on Sunday, 07 August 2011 20:05 The
stalemate on the Western Front in 1915 led some Brits to
thinking that things weren't working out. Non-bullet proof men
charging over hundreds of yards of No Man's Land against machine
guns was not fulfilling the top brass's ambitions, but they were
still notoriously inflexible when it came to new technologies.
The guy responsible for getting tanks into warfare was then
Major Ernest Swinton, later to become Major General, a military
reporter on the Western Front. He saw how the Holt gun tractor
was about the only machine capable of moving around the mud and
carrying heavy loads, and realized suddenly that an armored and
armed gun tractor could be of use. Lord Kitchner refused to
entertain the idea, but Winston Churchill got wind of it, and as
First Lord of the Admiralty went behind the army's back and
formed the Landships Committee to see what could come of the
idea. In an odd twist, the Royal Navy was about the only service
with experience in ar