The French Army's Tank Force and Armoured Warfare in the Great War

摘要

This excellent volume in the 'Ashgate Studies in First World War History' series examines the introduction of new technology in war. While the development of the British tank force in the Great War is among the best-known stories of brilliant innovators using technology to solve tactical problems, the contemporaneous French programme has left little mark in Anglophone literature and, it would appear, not much more in French. The inspiration for the tank was shared: trench warfare with barbed wire and machine guns made offensive operations almost impossible. Both British and French designers identified the track-laying vehicle as the best system for crossing shell-torn battlefields, and armour plate as the key to survival. They developed tanks entirely independently.