The intervention of tanks in various offensives gradually enabled the British military staff to codify their use: they were to lead the infantry advance in order to destroy the barbed wire entanglements and protect the soldiers from artillery fire coming from enemy trenches.
The Mark I's baptism of fire came on 15 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, on the occasion of the British offensive at Flers–Courcelette. Caterpillar tracks turning around its rhomboid shape enabled it to pass over trenches. In June 1916 production began of the Mark I, a longer and heavier but also quicker model. Due to its design, it bore far more resemblance to an armoured vehicle than a genuine tank and proved to be incapable of crossing a trench. The first such vehicle, nicknamed " Little Willie", weighed almost fourteen tons and moved at a speed of two miles per hour. Given their shape and composition, they were given the code name "tank". Production of the vehicles began in secret in the summer of 1915. Initial trials showed that it was capable of crossing the densely interwoven lines of barbed wire protecting the trenches and these findings finally convinced both politicians and soldiers to back it. However faced with the deadlock of trench warfare, many officers in the British Army began to champion the potential of the armoured military vehicle.
Field Marshall Horatio Kitchener, who was to be appointed Secretary of State for War in 1914, originally considered the tank to be a " pretty mechanical toy". Initial reaction to this new potential weapon was mitigated. This vehicle was armoured to protect it from bullets and carried two machine guns. Later research, in particular on the combustion engine, led the Daimler firm to develop a "military motor vehicle" in 1899 which it subsequently presented to the British Army.
In fact it was in 1854, during the Crimean War, that a steam tractor running on two caterpillar tracks made its first appearance on the battlefield, the tracks helping it to move forward more easily on damp, muddy ground. Although the First World War contributed to the development and regular use of tanks, it would be a mistake to believe they were an invention of the 20th century.
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