He recorded his thoughts in December 1918 on the effectiveness of the infantry, artillery and cavalry based on his experiences with operations like the Somme, Cambrai and Hamel. In the years following World War I, the British army remained steadfastly devoted to the infantry and cavalry as its primary battlefield combat branches, due in no small part to the opinion of senior military leaders like GEN Sir Douglas Haig.
As subsequent events showed, few British military professionals during the interwar period wanted to replace either the infantry or cavalry with a mechanical innovation. The British maintained the philosophy that the tank was auxiliary to both the infantry and the cavalry, useful for penetrating defensive belts but incapable of assuming the role of a primary combat arm. Once the breakthrough occurred, then “and only then,” Orgill said, “might the cavalry come into its own.” 2 But by the end of 1918, the British Expeditionary Force viewed the tank not as a substitute for cavalry but as a wrecker of infantry morale. Appearing simultaneously with this attitude was the need to provide what had been lacking in previous operations, namely “an effective reserve for the second, third, fourth and fifth days of the battle so a breakthrough could be made through the whole depth of the front.” 1
By using tanks massed in formations of hundreds, the British hoped to overcome the effects of the battlefield stalemate on wide fronts. In his book, The Tank, Douglas Orgill stated that operations between July 1916 and August 1918 focused the British General Staff on the value of tanks in the offensive.
The study of mechanized doctrine development during 1919-1939 is valuable for several reasons: it can provide historical perspective concerning the development of our branch, and it can reassure us the argument against the retention of a heavy tank force is neither new nor well founded. The British army – successful in developing, fielding and employing armored vehicles during World War I – turned its back on mechanized doctrine during the interwar years and paid the price for its narrow-minded outlook on the future of warfare. These critics state that Operation Desert Storm was the last large-scale requirement for massed formations of armored vehicles and that future conflicts will not need the services of our branch as it exists today. Republished from ARMOR, March-April 1997 editionĪs the armor force prepares to enter the 21st Century, some claim there is no longer a need for a standing force of main battle tanks.
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