The story of the great war . must be able to climb through trenches or over them;it must be able to walk on barbed wire entanglements. The British now put armor on the car, mounted guns in it,and thus created a land battleship which was impervious to smallartillery fire. The purpose was to tramp down the barbed wireentanglements, which hindered the infantry, to hunt down theGerman machine gun nests, walk right up to them and clean themout. It had been proved that artillery fire could not wipe out theunderground dugouts. At Verdun there was under one of thehills a dugout, called the Crown Princ
The story of the great war . must be able to climb through trenches or over them;it must be able to walk on barbed wire entanglements. The British now put armor on the car, mounted guns in it,and thus created a land battleship which was impervious to smallartillery fire. The purpose was to tramp down the barbed wireentanglements, which hindered the infantry, to hunt down theGerman machine gun nests, walk right up to them and clean themout. It had been proved that artillery fire could not wipe out theunderground dugouts. At Verdun there was under one of thehills a dugout, called the Crown Prince, eight hundred feet longand twelve feet high, in which a whole regiment might take refuge,and from which it could pour out when the defense was needed. 256 THE BATTLE OF THE TANKS 257 The first time the tanks went into action the Germans wereastonished and the British troops were so delighted that they werehardly able to stand from laughter and joy. One of the cor-respondents thus described one of the first engagements. A. French Pictorial Service French Troops Charging Protected by Large French Tank, men are lying down, not running. Note tank had been coming along slowly in a lumbering way, crawlingover the interminable succession of shell craters, lurching overand down and into and out of old German trenches, nosing heavilyinto soft earth, and grunting up again, and sitting poised on brokenparapets as though quite winded by this exercise, and then wad-dling forward in the wake of the infantry. It faced the ruins of 258 THE STOUY OF THE GREAT WAR the chateau and stared at them very steadily for quite a long time,as though wondering whether it should eat them or crush men were hiding behind ridges of shell craters, keeping lowfrom the swish of the machine gun bullets and imploring the tankto get on with it. Then it moved forward in a monstrous way,heaving itself on jerkily like a dragon with indigestion, but veryfierce. Fire leaped from its nostrils. The Ger
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
