The battle of the Somme 27/40

The battle of the Somme from September 1916

The battle will resume from September 1916 with new means but also new materials. A weapon that had been kept secret until then made its appearance: the tank. It was at the battle of Courcelette-Flers that the tank was used for the first time.

The idea of using the caterpillar track and installing an armoured body armed with a cannon or a machine gun was born on both sides of the Channel, but it was the British who came up with the first equipment, not quite up to scratch yet, by the way; General Haig put pressure on the British Minister of War to hasten the construction of the first equipment.

This first tank (as it is called today) is a 26-ton monster powered by an insufficiently powerful 100 hp engine that takes the machine at less than 1 km/h in all terrain; two versions exist, a male and a female armed respectively with a cannon and machine guns. The crew is made up of 8 men whose life is difficult inside the machine.

On 15 September, Haig had 49 tanks available to go on line, but for many reasons, he could only engage 36 of them; 14 got bogged down, 10 were put out of action by the enemy, 7, more or less damaged, did not take part in the battle.

The Germans were very surprised by these appearances and experienced a moment of disarray, but they quickly pulled themselves together and the result of this first battle did not live up to expectations. This was due to three reasons: the unreliability of the equipment, the difficult terrain after the summer rains and, last but not least, the fact that the engagement was in small groups, which did not allow for the mass effect that the new machines should have provided.

27/40

⏪

⏸

⏩