part0018

THE foundations of the success or non-success of a battle rest on its organisation, that is, on the preparations made for it. This is the duty of the General and Administrative Staffs of an Army or Formation and usually entails an immense amount of careful work. The fact that success depends as much, if not more, on organisation (brain power) as on valour (nerve power) is not generally recognised, and many an officer and man in the firing line is, through ignorance of the causes and effects which are operating behind, only too prone to forget what the staff is doing, and, never more so, what the staff has done than after a really great victory has been gained.

The more scientific weapons become the more will good staff work decide whether their use is going to lead to victory or defeat. This was very early realised in the Tank Corps, and every endeavour was made by its commander and his subordinate leaders to select only the most capable officers for their respective staffs; this resulted in ability more often than seniority deciding the filling of an appointment.

The work of the Staff of the Tank Corps was often considerably complicated by the fact that, the tank being a novel weapon of war, it was little understood, not only by the other arms, but by many members of the Tank Corps itself. This resulted in a great deal of educational work being required before many measures, very obvious to the Staff itself, were accepted by others. In the early days of the Corps the tank was generally placed by the other arms under one of two categories—a miracle or a joke, and this did not tend to facilitate or expedite preparations.

The main duty of the General Staff is to foresee by thinking ahead, of the Administrative Staff to prepare, of the Commander to decide, and of his troops to act. These four links go to build up a battle, and if any one of them is defective, the whole chain is weak. On the power of thinking ahead, that is, foreseeing conditions and events, will depend all preparations. Decisions cannot with safety be simply based on former experiences, codified and printed rules and regulations; if this were possible every intelligent subaltern with a good memory or a big pocket could become a Napoleon {22} in six weeks. Decisions must be based on weapons and men moved in accordance with the principles of war as governed by conditions existing and possible. Possible conditions cannot be guessed at; if they could the planchet board and not the baton would be the emblem of a field-marshal’s worth. Possible conditions can only be guarded against or converted into allies by being prepared to meet all eventualities, and these preparations in a formation such as the Tank Corps were at first prodigious. Little by little, however, the knack of mechanical warfare was cultivated, and then what had at first appeared a mountain eventually turned out to be a molehill—a good sprinkling of molehills, and not a few mountains, however, remained over even to the last.

In the training schemes carried out before the battle of Arras, as mentioned in Chapter VII, no fewer than 132 headings of various measures, all relative to the preparations requisite for an offensive with tanks, were laid down. After this battle this number was considerably increased and continued to grow as each engagement added new experiences to the old ones. The main preparations required for an offensive are the following: (1) Movements, (2) Reconnaissances, (3) Secrecy, (4) Supply, (5) Communication, (6) Assembly, (7) Tactics, (8) Reorganisation.

Tank movements generally fall under the headings of rail movements and cross-country movements. As regards the former it must be remembered that the tank cannot at present move over lengthy distances under its own power. A Mark I tank on good going could not be relied on to run more than 12 miles on a fill of petrol, and after it had completed about 70 miles it had to be overhauled and many of its parts renewed. Rail movements require special trucks, and, in the early days of the Corps, special sidings and entraining ramps. As regards the latter, cross-country routes should be reconnoitred beforehand. It will be remembered how on the night of April 8-9, the night previous to the first day of the battle of Arras, six tanks became ditched at Achicourt on account of a bog existing under the hard surface of the ground. Had the officer reconnoitring this route tested the ground along the valley by pushing a stick into it, this accident would not have occurred, for the stick would have penetrated the crust and informed him of the nature of the soil below it.

Before any move takes place from the position of assembly, near railhead, to the starting-points, the points whence the tanks will proceed into battle, the following are a few of the subjects that a Tank Unit Commander will have to consider:—Objectives; strong-points; machine-gun emplacements; batteries; trenches; wire; infantry lines of advance; minimum number of tanks required for the main objectives; minimum of tanks required for subsidiary objectives; nature of ground and its probable condition at zero hour; where ground, soil, natural features and hostile batteries will chiefly impede tank movements; the lines of least resistance for tanks through the enemy’s lines to the main objectives and the points of greatest resistance to the infantry advance; landmarks; starting points with reference to lines of least resistance; positions of deployment with reference to starting-points; tank routes from positions of assembly to the positions of deployment and thence to the starting-points; any places on these tank routes where delays are likely to occur; rallying points; supply dumps; communication, etc., etc.

So in turn must each move or preparatory measure be dealt with, reconnaissance playing an all-important part, not only before the battle, but during it, and immediately after it, and if the system of communication during the battle is not efficient the work of the reconnaissance officer will frequently be wasted, so we find one preparation depending for its worth on another until the whole forms a complete and somewhat intricate chain.

Imagine now, when this chain is nearing completion what it means to it if some new plan be evolved, or a change be introduced or forced on to a scheme of operations—its effect will frequently have to be carried right down the chain, and this will not only mean new work being done, but old work being undone. Take the following as an example: a battalion of tanks is to detrain at A, a few days later it is ordered to detrain at B instead; this will probably entail shifting 20,000 gallons of petrol, 12,000 6-pounder shells, 300,000 rounds of S.A.A., and countless other stores. It is these changes in operations which a good Staff guards its troops against by foresight; this being so, the efficiency of a Staff may usually be gauged by’ the number of amendments a Commander issues to his orders.

Another important duty of the Staff is to assist the troops when the period of preparation ends and action begins, and further still to watch closely every action so that changes may be foreseen and preparations may be improved on the next occasion. These duties are called “Battle Liaison,” a duty which was impressed upon every General Staff Officer in the Tank Corps as the most important he would be called upon to carry out. At every battle from that of the Ancre onwards, the majority of the headquarters’ General Staff Officers were present on the battlefield itself, not after the fight had swept on but before it opened and whilst it lasted.

Each night these officers would report to their headquarters not only what they had heard but what they had seen, a much more reliable source of evidence. The result of this system was that when the crash came on March 21, 1918, though the Tank Corps was split up over a front of 60 miles, and in many places complete confusion followed the German attack, not once from that day on to the end of the battle did the headquarters of the Tank Corps lack information regarding the position of all its units. This may be chronicled as a notable “feat of staff work,” and certainly as useful as many a much more spectacular “feat of arms.” It is for this type of staff work that Staff Officers are sometimes rewarded.