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We had not got quite a complete result in this direction, but we were getting near it, and perhaps our co-operation of the back and the front was as nearly a microcosm of an ideal national co-operation in war as has been achieved. We aimed at Team Work.

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You who have coped in a short compass with the whole story of Tanks can well realise the difficulties of dealing concisely, even by comment, with the kaleidoscopic events of two and a half crowded years—with the questions of organisation, training, personnel, design, supply, fighting, reorganisation, workshops, experiments, salvage, transportation, maintenance.

I shall attempt no more than to supplement your admirably drawn narrative as to one or two points which appear to me to be of major importance or interest.

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The employment of Tanks in the field was one long conflict between policy and expediency. Policy seemed always to demand that we should wait until all was prepared, until sufficient masses of machines should be ready to use in one great attack that would break the German defensive system. Expediency necessitated the employment of all available forces at dates predetermined, and in localities fixed for reasons other than their suitability as Tank country. Battles are not won with Tanks alone, and in early 1917, for example, the Tank was still a comparatively untested machine. Indeed, the later issues of the Mark I. developed weaknesses in detail so alarming as to preclude anything more than a short-lived effort in battle.