As a weapon the tank has many antecedents: the war chariots of the Hyksos (a nomadic people who conquered and ruled Egypt, ca. 1700-1580 B.C.) and of other ancient armies; the elephants used by Darius III against Alexander the Great (and later by the Carthaginians against the Romans); and, as well, the cavalry of armies that fought into the twentieth century. The principal role of such forces was to break up enemy infantry formations and to overrun communications and supply centres behind enemy lines. Nevertheless, disciplined infantry with proper weapons and tactics could defeat such attacks, as occurred at the Battle of Zama (202 B.C.), CrΘcy (1346), and Waterloo (1815). The machine gun, combined with entrenchments, eliminated cavalry as a major factor on the Western Front during the First World War.
The antidote to machine guns appeared virtually as these new weapons were driving cavalry from the battlefield. Armoured cars had been introduced into all the major armies as early as 1914, but the British went a step further and combined armour, the internal combustion engine, machine guns, and the caterpillar tread. At the experimental stage the vehicles were called "landships", but the word "tank" was adopted to mask their true nature. The first tanks went into action at Flers-Courcellette on 15 September, 1916. At that time they were not particularly successful owing to inexperienced crews, mechanical problems, and inappropriate tactics. Enemy troops were still shocked, however, and for the remainder of the war they were unable to adjust to tank warfare. Ultimately tanks played a major role in the Allied victory; at the outset of the Battle of Amiens (August 1918) a total of 604 tanks were deployed by the French and British.
William Thurston Topham (1888-1966) was born in England but migrated to Canada in 1911. Early in the First World War he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, arriving in France with the 1st Siege Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery in June 1916. Within two months he had witnessed the opening stages of the Battle of the Somme and had been gassed. Health problems kept him out of the line for the remainder of the war.
Most of Topham's sketches and watercolours were done in the short time he was in France; later they were brought to the attention of the Canadian War Memorials Fund which acquired them. His works document conditions in the trenches and the complexities of operating heavy artillery. In this watercolour (25.3 x 35.1 cm) the artist recorded a tank which he undoubtedly saw at the Battle of Flers-Courcellette; Montauban was on the southern flank of the action. This particular model was referred to as a "Male" Mark I and was armed with six-pounder guns to destroy enemy machine gun posts. The "Female" version carried only machine guns for attacking infantry. One can imagine the effect these clanking, twenty-eight-ton monsters would have had upon soldiers unaccustomed to such weapons.
Courtesy: Canadian War Museum, National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (8891)
