The first tank to be built was the Mark 1 (it was also nicknamed little wille) and was used by Marshall Haig. The Mark 1 weighed eighteen tonnes and had a crew of eight, taking four of the men just to drive. There was no separation between the men and the crew which tended to asphyxiate the crew.
The tanks had a major psychological effect on the Germans they referred to the tanks as “the devils coaches”. The Mark I first took debut on the 15th September 1906. When the tank first surfaced it caused much alarm among the Germans however other than that the tank was more of a weakness than strength during the Battle of the Somme. Highly vulnerable to mechanical breakdowns, fourteen tanks never made it to the starting point and as the day progressed most of the tanks were crippled due to mechanical failures, unsuitable ground and artillery fire. While this initial attack was unsuccessful, the potential of the tank was realized.
The British persisted in continuing to improve the tank with the following models; Mark II, Mark III (heavy tanks) and the Mark IV (the most used). The Mark III was equipped with thicker armour to counter Germany’s development of armour-piercing bullets. The Battle of Cambrai took place on November 1917. This was the first Battle were the tanks succeeded. 400 tanks blasted through the allies’ area with great success, the attack to the Germans by surprise and the British were able to gain 5 miles, with hardly any injuries. However, the tank was maybe a bit too successful the tank blasted through enemy line so quickly that the infantry couldn’t keep up. This gave the Germans time to recover and ended up destroying 65 tanks by enemy shellfire. It was then discovered that by using the tank in large numbers gave better results. The tank weren’t a defence but an attacker. 5 days later all the land that had been gained was recaptured by the Germans. A weakness of the tank was that it could not sustain land that had been gained.
The most important of the war was the Mark VIII. The Anglo-American tank. The Mark VIII kept many of the general features of the Mark I-V series: it had their typical high track run and no revolving turret but two , one on each side of the tank, armed with a . It was big enough to cross German trenches however was unable to turn easily due to its size. During 1916-17 they were not used as military weapons but morale booster.
The most important strength of the tanks was not its performance on the battle field but the reaction it had on the British soldiers and public. The tank was used as a major propaganda impact. The tank was seen as the “people’s weapons”. Propaganda portrayed the tanks as the winning tool. The Daily Mirror paid £1000 to have the first picture of the tank. This shows how glamorous the tank was seen as. There was a massive difference between the perception and reality. It was “tank mania”. War bonds were was one of the ways of paying for the war. By 1917 nobody wanted to put money in due to the lack of enthusiasm. The government managed to encourage people to put their money into tanks banks. It was the most successful tank operation of the entire war. A battered tank named ‘Egbert’ was recovered from the battlefield, shipped to London and installed in Trafalgar Square. People were then invited to buy war bonds and certificates, and to queue up outside this unlikely ‘new god’ so that their bonds could be specially stamped by young women seated inside the tank. Tanks featured in the Lord pageants
