"Assess the importance of Britain's contribution to the defeat of Germany in WWI"

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“Assess the importance of Britain’s contribution to the defeat of Germany in WWI”

Question 1: Describe the strengths and weaknesses of British tanks in World War On.

        

The origin of tanks in world war one was when British, French and Russian engineers and military personnel experimenting with tanks from 1915. Germany was not interested in tanks in the First World War. Tanks also kept on being developed from 1915 onwards. The first tanks in action were in the Battle of the Somme (nov. 1916) and were used by the British. The main purpose of tanks was to overcome the problems of trench warfare. The British had three thousand two hundred tanks on Armistice Day, showing that the British had faith in this weapon.    

        The main reason for inventing the tank was to overcome stalemate and the features that made the tank able to overcome this issue were that the tank had tracks that would work in any terrain, the people inside were protected by a steel hull which would protect them when they were being shot at when attacking and from machine gun and artillery fire. The main tactics used were to just let the tank roll forward and just surprise the enemy. The psychological impact of the tank was enormous as it shocked the Germans extremely, as they saw these weird armored cars rolling towards them. One of the main strengths of the tank was the great interest the media had in it. Also the government was interested in the tank as it boosted the morale of the people. After the battle stories about the 32 tanks that had fought in the battle. People did not even know what tanks looked like but it boosted the morale as the war was going very poorly for the British, so tanks for them wee a great boost. The battle of the Ancre was filmed and some parts were filmed and this was shown in 1917 and it was a great hit as twenty million British people watched this, nearly most of the British people. There was a great deal of propaganda in the film; they did not tell them that the tanks failed.    

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The tank even being a great weapon for the morale of the British soldiers was not the best weapon but it had many weaknesses. The tanks were first used in the battle of the Somme in 1916. One of the weaknesses of the tank was that in the first battle 49 tanks were supposed to arrive on the battlefield but only 32 made it the rest broke down on the way to the battlefield, the engine was too weak for the weight it had to carry 30 tons and only had a 1000 horse power to do that, the mechanics ...

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