of aged and female labour, is
the straight course to failure in this war.

In X, in the forges and machine shops, I saw already too large a
proportion of boys and grey heads.

War is a thing that changes very rapidly, and we have in the Tanks only
the first of a great series of offensive developments. They are bound to
be improved, at a great pace. The method of using them will change very
rapidly. Any added invention will necessitate the scrapping of old types
and the production of the new patterns in quantity. It is of supreme
necessity to the Allies if they are to win this war outright that the
lead in inventions and enterprise which the British have won over the
Germans in this matter should be retained. It is our game now to press
the advantage for all it is worth. We have to keep ahead to win. We
cannot do so unless we have unstinted men and unstinted material to
produce each new development as its use is realised.

Given that much, the Tank will enormously enhance the advantage of the
new offensive method on the French front; the method that is of gun
demolition after aerial photography, followed by an advance; it is a
huge addition to our prospect of decisive victory. What does it do?
It solves two problems. The existing Tank affords a means of advancing
against machine-gun fire and of destroying wire and machine guns without
much risk of loss, so soon as the big guns have done their duty by the
enemy guns. And also behind the Tank itself, it is useless to conceal,
lies the possibility of bringing up big guns and big gun ammunition,
across nearly any sort of country, as fast as the advance can press
forward. Hitherto every advance has paid a heavy toll to the machine
gun, and every advance has had to halt after a couple of miles or so
while the big guns (taking five or six days for the job) toiled up to
the new positions.

4

It is impossible to restrain a note of sharp urgency from what one has
to say about these developments. The Tanks remove the last technical
difficulties in our way to decisive victory and a permanent peace; they
also afford a reason for straining every nerve to bring about a decision
and peace soon. At the risk of seeming an imaginative alarmist I would
like to point out the reasons these things disclose for hurrying this
war to a decision and doing our utmost to arrange the world's affairs
so as to make another war improbable. Already these serio-comic Tanks,
weighing something ove