Charge of the French tanks
On 16 April 1917 the French army made its own tracks in the annals of armoured warfare. Oxford University researcher Jonathan Krause uncovers this forgotten triumph of Gallic ingenuity
Gallic armour also made an impact on the battlefields of WWI, with mixed success
When discussing the Nivelle Offensive it is all too easy to get wrapped up in the big, obvious questions and conundrums surrounding the fateful attack. Why did Nivelle persist when it was clear the plan had been compromised? Why did he continue to push beyond the 48 hours promised? How could an army the size of the French army in 1917 effectively go on strike – and do so without their allies or enemies knowing it? All of these critical questions and many others besides warrant substantial attention and are as penetratingly interesting today as they were a century ago. What gets too often lost, however, is the fact that 16 April 1917 was also the first French deployment of armour (tanks) in history.
As most people with even a passing interest in World War I and military history will tell you, the first use of tanks in combat came during the battle of Flers-courcelette on 15 September 1916. 49 Mk I British tanks were committed to the attack, advancing alongside French and British troops (including my greatgreat uncle, Private Charles Cordwell, Grenadier Guards) at the height of the Somme battle. The shape and history of these tanks remain iconic over a century later, with their body-spanning treads and poor speed and manoeuvrability. French tanks, which had been designed at the same time as their British counterparts, do not share quite the same fame.
On 16 April 1917 there were two designs. The first tank to be conceived and built in France was the Schneider CA, built by Schneider-Creusot, the famous French armaments producer. Its first test run came as early as December 1915, where an early prototype attempted to simply manoeuvre around a mock battlefield. Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, father of the French tank, exclaimed that the tank had performed exemplarily. In reality, however, a tank in this state was not going to be capable of safely traversing the severely broken ground, ever-widening trenches and other defences the Germans were constructing along the Western Front.
Like most tanks of its day, the Schneider was incredibly slow, with its 60-horsepower engine propelling the armoured behemoth at a theoretical top speed of about five miles per hour. In practice it might do half that. The Schneider somewhat made up for its immobility with decent armament, including a modified (shortened) 75mm cannon as its main gun mounted in an awkward fashion off the forward right-hand of the tank, which fired standard 75mm high explosive rounds. It also had a pair of 1914 model Hotchkiss machine guns in ballmounts at the side, giving wide fields of fire.
One problem the Schneider faced was the spare petrol canisters. Placed outside the hull, they very easily ignited during combat, which caused serious problems for the crew, especially if they had to evacuate and get past the dangerously explosive canisters to reach the relative safety outside.
The other design was the St Chamond, itself a testament to poor French oversight and control in weapons design and manufacturing. It was designed separately from the Schneider project, and was the child of the industrial rivalry between Schneider-Creusot and Forges et Aciéries de la Marine et d’homécourt (FAMH), as well as internal rivalry within the French army (the order for the St Chamond tanks was placed via the ‘Service Automobile’, whose commander wanted to expand the SA to control all motorised vehicles in service). This rivalry led to something of an insecure need on the part of the FAMH design team to upstage the Schneider tank.
The St Chamond team was led by Colonel Émile Rimailho, the brilliant mind behind the French army’s most valuable and effective howitzer of the entire war: the 155mm ‘court tir rapide’ (which also bore his name, Rimailho). Instead of the Schneider’s shortened 75mm cannon and two machine guns, the St Chamond would sport a full-size 75mm field gun and four machine guns, one in front, one in the back and one on each side. The engine was a hybrid gasoline-electric design many decades ahead of its time, capable of generating about 90 horsepower. Each tread was powered by a separate, dedicated electric motor – another stroke of design genius.
Despite the massive size and weight of the St Chamond it could, in theory, reach a top speed of about seven miles per hour, but its awkward design (being very long and with small treads in the middle of the carriage) made it extremely susceptible to ditching out in the broken terrain of the Western Front. This ultimately was the Achilles’ heel of the design and the cause for its extremely poor reputation, both at the time and today. The flat roof was also dangerous as grenades thrown by the Germans were easily caught there, and thus liable to do fatal damage to crew members as the explosion loosed shrapnel and armour splinters into the inside of the tank itself. This was later rectified by gently sloping the roofs of later builds.
The entrance to the tank was via a rear door, which some crews painted white on the inside with the hope of using it as a form of rough Morse code, with the door being opened and closed to mimic the electrical impulses one would send in traditional Morse code. It was an inventive idea, but one that does not seem to have been very successful.
Ultimately, the early French tank designs were something of a bust, not entirely unlike their British and German equivalents. Where the French really found success was in lighter tanks later in the war, like the famed Renault FT17. The Renault was beloved by its crews and found use all over the world, ending up fighting in the Russian Civil War and even making it into the hands of a small number of Afghan warlords. At least two Renault FT17S were captured from local warlords by ISAF forces after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. They were still working.
“ONE PROBLEM THE SCHNEIDER FACED WAS THE SPARE PETROL CANISTERS. PLACED OUTSIDE THE HULL, THEY VERY EASILY IGNITED DURING COMBAT”
“LIKE MOST TANKS OF ITS DAY, THE SCHNEIDER WAS INCREDIBLY SLOW WITH ITS 60-HORSEPOWER ENGINE PROPELLING THE ARMOURED BEHEMOTH AT A THEORETICAL TOP SPEED OF ABOUT FIVE MILES PER HOUR. IN PRACTICE IT MIGHT DO HALF THAT”