PERCEPTION—THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC’S VIEW
In Australia, the public held an exulted view of the value of the new ‘super weapon’. From its first unveiling in September 1916, the daily newspapers provided seemingly endless promotion—and exaggeration—of the capabilities of the tank.
The first news of the tank was splashed across the pages of Australian newspapers as part of broader reports on the progress of the campaign that commenced in mid-September 1916. Although few Australians were directly involved, the newspapers talked in glowing terms of the ‘new armoured car’. The Adelaide Mail was typical of the Australian newspapers that paraphrased a news piece from the London Times. Under the banner ‘New Armoured Car Nonplussed Germans’, it proclaimed that
... lately there have been persistent rumours current that a new type of armoured car had been constructed Invulnerable to machine-guns, shell splinters and rifle-fire – everything in fact except a direct hit by a heavy projectile. When the secrecy can be lifted it may be possible to imagine the German feelings, when in the uncertain light of dawn, he saw advancing an array of unearthly monsters, steel cased, spitting fire and crawling laboriously and ceaselessly over trenches, barbed wire entanglements, and shell craters.14
The name ‘tank’ took a little time to become the accepted title—in the early stages, these vehicles were almost invariably described as ‘armoured cars’, such as in the Argus report of Wednesday 20 September 1916: ‘The armoured cars gallantly led the action, knocking out enemy machine-guns and inflicting heavy losses by their own machine-gun fire. They enfiladed the German trenches and caused indescribable demoralisation in the enemy’s ranks.’15
Certainly, the perception that the tank could readily break the deadlock of trench warfare was a recurrent theme—and one in which the public was apparently eager to believe. The Launceston Examiner reported on tanks dramatically breaking enemy strongholds too tough for infantry alone. In an article entitled ‘Bring Up The Tanks!’ the advance from Mouquet Farm was described as held up on the left where,
... for a long time it was impossible to get near the chateau, but the cry was raised “Bring up the tanks!” The very idea was a firm tonic to the attackers. Soon a tank lumbered along, lurching over the shell craters and momentarily sitting on broken parapets. Then it waddled forwards toward the infantry, and when it opened fire, it resembled a dragon with indigestion. It got over the enemy’s trench and trudged down the whole length, sweeping it with fire. Soon, the German machine-guns were silenced.16
There were even some reports of Australians manning tanks, one of which claimed to be a first-hand account from the diary of an Australian soldier. While these may have made dramatic newspaper copy, their authenticity is, at the very least, questionable. Nevertheless, for the Australian public, such reports only helped to heighten expectations of battlefield success and a quicker end to the war.
Not content with reporting the Allied view, many papers also reported the German perception of the tank. The Leader, a Melbourne suburban newspaper, ran the headline ‘German View of “Cruel Monsters”’ in its Saturday issue on 23 September 1916, supposedly quoting an ‘official paper found upon a German major who was taken prisoner’ which stated that ‘the cruelty of the new engines equals their efficiency. Steps must be taken to combat the monsters’.17 According to one report the German government proposed to lodge a protest with the International Red Cross in Geneva at the use of tanks which was described as ‘contrary to the recognised methods of civilised warfare’—a curious view given the Germans’ widespread use of poison gas, flamethrowers and the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets by long-range Zeppelins.18 The rumoured German protest even inspired satirical English poetry:
Ach Himmel! England is unfair,
On land, sea and in the air,
She cannot fight us fair and square.
With horrible, illegal “tanks”,
Of which she boasts (and even “swanks”),
She decimates our serried ranks ...19
Tanks certainly fired the imagination of the public, and were even the subject of schoolchildren’s essays. Gerald Acraman, an 11-year-old fifth grader at Port Elliott, South Australia, had his ‘Autobiography of a Tank’ published by the local newspaper:
I am a tank. I was built last year by some clever men. I am a great help in this great war. One day I went right into the German trenches, and the Huns were very much afraid. One of them tried to stick his rifle into me, but I only made a noise, and he broke his rifle. He was soon killed by the deadly fire of the machine guns inside me. About a hundred Germans were killed by me today. I went out again in a week’s time. A lot of Germans saw me coming and hid behind a bush. The men inside me saw them hide luckily, so I went right over them, killing and wounding them all. In a few minutes a shell landed on top of me. It made a terrific noise, but did not do much damage to me. I went back to my base again, and now I am being repaired.20
The description of violent death scribed so nonchalantly by young Gerald—doubtless condoned by his teacher and the local newspaper’s editor—provides an insight into the public’s attitude after more than two years of bloody warfare. The tank, as Gerald so naively believed, was almost impervious to the enemy’s defences. Not only was the tank a ‘super weapon’, it was our super weapon. The public was enthralled.
2. From Brisbane to Hobart, Sydney to Perth, replica tanks capitalised on the public’s enthusiasm, becoming the focal point of many patriotic fundraising events. In Brisbane, Mr Frank Bowcher appeals to the crowd to buy war bonds (AWM H02152).
The poem Tommy’s Tank by Thomas Edwin Holtham was cabled to Australia just after the first use of tanks on the Somme and appeared in several Australian newspapers in late September 1916. The editorial note in the the Shepparton Advertiser boldly states that ‘the full narrative of the achievements of the new British armoured “tanks” shows that they have established one of the most dramatic and gallant records of the war.’21 According to both the poem and the supporting editorial material, the tank was the weapon that would overcome the difficulties of trench warfare and was a uniquely British innovation:
TOMMY’S “TANK.”
By Thomas Edwin Holtham
I.
They call me by different names,
On the fellow it all depends,
Whether its jam or mud he aims,
Just to suit his own private ends.
But I go on my way all the same,
Quite defiant of fence or foe,
For I’m iron encased in frame,
And iron all round and below.
Then ho! and hooray!
-To clearing the way.
For I’m ready to whistle and go.
II.
To Tommy I’m comedy quite,
His giggle expands to a roar;
To the Hun I’m tragedy’s fright,
With devilish thirst for his gore.
And to all I’m the strangest thing
That ever the battlefield knew,
With fire-ball mouth and fiery sting,
In just where the tail should come through.
Then, heigho! my boys,
I’m one of the toys,
Come to put up a flutter for you.
I crawl, but can jump and can dive,
My short legs can instantly grow;
And if Huns won’t come out alive,
I make them all dead men below.
I can crash at the bombers o’er trench
And laugh at their fierce fusillade;
And with bullets their parapets drench,
For my barrels are all British made.
Then ho! and ha-ha!
This new armoured car
Will from them their battlements wrench.
IV.
Monster, dug-out devil, trench hog,
Fiend come from the furnace of hell;
Or dragon born of British bulldog-
Are some names the scooting Huns yell.
No ghost ever people so scared,
Why, they hadn’t a tail left to wag;
No men demented ever so stared
As they came up to show the white flag.
Ha, ha, and heigho!
I laid them out low,
As they thought “Here’s old Nick on his nag.”
V.
But Tommy just calls me a “Tank;”
He thinks it is glorious fun,
That a tank should spank and take rank
As a devil that frightens the Hun.
But he knows I’ve the best of the game,
And that adds fiz to his mirth,
For says he “Why, what’s in a name?”
When British brains have given me birth.
Then ho! and away
For the fray and the day
That’s to bring lasting peace to the earth.
By the beginning of 1918, tanks were being used very successfully overseas as fundraising platforms by governments and charities. The British government’s war bond drive in early 1918 raised millions of pounds, with British tanks and German war trophies as the centrepieces of the displays at major centres across the country. Thousands of citizens from all walks of life flocked to see the ‘Tank Banks’, hear the patriotic speeches and donate money.
It was a lesson not lost on Australian fundraisers. In the absence of a genuine tank and with only the vaguest of dimensions to work with, charitable committees across the nation built their own versions of ‘tanks’. While the designs were many and varied —with some even resembling the real thing—the sentiment was always the same: the tank was a wonderful war machine, impervious to enemy fire and with the ability to overcome his defences; but just a few more pounds were needed for the push to final victory.
3. Many replicas bore only a vague resemblance to the real thing. This juggernaut is supporting Red Cross Day in Hobart, Tasmania (AWM H16150).
The replicas were certainly a successful enterprise, raising many thousands of pounds in donations to patriotic causes and in the sale of government war bonds. Newspapers heralded their arrival at each town and followed them as they toured country centres. Each town’s successful fundraising event was reported in detail, promoting competition between towns, with each vying to raise the largest amount of revenue.
4. In Perth, Western Australia, a ‘low profile’ version is paraded in support of the Sixth War Loan (AWM H16156).
While the public showed its enthusiasm in attending rallies and listening to long patriotic speeches delivered by notable persons from the tops of replica tanks—and giving generously as a result—the poorly constructed models were no substitute for the ‘real thing’.
5. In Sydney, speakers exhort the crowd to buy war bonds from a more compact version of the ‘tank’ (AWM H18494).