In this context in 1914 contacts were made with engineer Eugène Brillié of Schneider & Co. to adapt the Castéran Flexible Track Tractor. When that year war broke out, Jacques Quellennec was drafted as an infantry sergeant, witnessed most men of his unit being slaughtered during the First Battle of the Marne and was then severely wounded at the end of October. While recovering, he devised plans for an armoured tractor armed with a machine-gun and capable of destroying German machine-gun nests. Many in this period had comparable ideas but contrary to most, Quellennec had excellent contacts. Fouché had become a second lieutenant with the "Grand Parc Automobile de Réserve" of the "Service Automobile", the Army branch responsible for motorisation, and Brillié was chief designer with one of France's main arms manufacturers. Early December, Quellennec met Fouché in Paris and both then went to Brillié to present drawings of a tracked armoured fighting vehicle. During a second visit Quellennec urged Brillié to bring over two Holt Model 75 tractors, at that time present in Tunisia, to France in order to perform the first trials. Brillié showed himself less than enthusiastic about the idea, objecting there would be not enough room on a tractor for both crew and armament. In February 1915, Quellennec was sent to an air force training base and tasked Fouché with trying to convince Brillié, without much apparent success. Meanwhile, the Schneider company had been given the order to develop heavy artillery tractors in January 1915. On 30 January it sent out its chief designer, Brillié, to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Company, at that time participating in a test programme at Aldershot in England. On his return, Brillié, who had earlier been involved in designing armoured cars for Spain, apparently without mentioning being influenced in this by Quellennec, convinced the company management to initiate studies on the development of an armoured fighting vehicle, based on the "Baby Holt" chassis, two of which were ordered. The type was intended to be sold to the French Cavalry. Experiments on the Holt caterpillar tracks started in May 1915 at the Schneider plant with a 75 hp wheel-directed model and the 45 hp integral caterpillar Baby Holt, showing the superiority of the latter. The Castéran and the Killen-Strait Tractor were also tested but rejected. Work was now begun on an "auto-mitrailleuse blindée à chenilles" ("tracked armoured self-propelled machine gun").