ely associated
with the work are (I quote a reply of Dr. Macnamara's in the House of
Commons) Mr. d'Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction, Mr. W. O.
Tritton, Lieut. Wilson, R.N.A.S., Mr. Bussell, Lieut. Stern, R.N.A.S.,
who is now Colonel Stern, Captain Symes, and Mr. F. Skeens. There are
many other claims too numerous to mention in detail.

But however much the Tanks may disconcert the gallant Colonel Newcomes
who throw an air of restraint over our victorious front, there can be no
doubt that they are an important as well as a novel development of the
modern offensive. Of course neither the Tanks nor their very obvious
next developments going to wrest the decisive pre-eminence from the
aeroplane. The aeroplane remains now more than ever the instrument of
victory upon the western front. Aerial ascendancy, properly utilised, is
victory. But the mobile armoured big gun and the Tank as a machine-gun
silencer must enormously facilitate an advance against the blinded
enemy. Neither of them can advance against properly aimed big gun fire.
That has to be disposed of before they make their entrance. It remains
the function of the aeroplane to locate the hostile big guns and
to direct the _tir de demolition_ upon them before the advance
begins--possibly even to bomb them out. But hitherto, after the
destruction of driving back of the defender's big guns has been
effected, the dug-out and the machine gun have still inflicted heavy
losses upon the advancing infantry until the fight is won. So soon as
the big guns are out, the tanks will advance, destroying machine guns,
completing the destruction of the wire, and holding prisoners immobile.
Then the infantry will follow to gather in the sheaves.
Multitudinously produced and--I write it with a defiant eye on Colonel
Newcome--_properly handled_, these land ironclads are going to do very
great things in shortening the war, in pursuit, in breaking up the
retreating enemy. Given the air ascendancy, and I am utterly unable to
imagine any way of conclusively stopping or even greatly delaying an
offensive thus equipped.

2

The young of even the most horrible beasts have something piquant and
engaging about them, and so I suppose it is in the way of things that
the land ironclad which opens a new and more dreadful and destructive
phase in the human folly of warfare, should appear first as if it were a
joke. Never has any such thing so completely masked its wickedness under
an