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Crews who had been obliged to abandon their Tanks either got out their machine-guns and continued fighting or helped the wounded.
III
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The battle had been essentially experimental. What opinion had been formed of the Tanks?
We now know what was the opinion of the German infantry. The German High Command seems in public to have ignored the new arm.
In a secret “Instruction” the Chief of the Staff of the 3rd Army Group, however, reminds units that they must “hold ground at whatever cost” and “defend every inch of ground to the last man.”
“The enemy in the latest fighting have employed new engines of war as cruel as effective.”
THE ORIGINAL THIEPVAL MARK I. TANK WITH ANTI-BOMB ROOF AND “TAIL”
FIELD CAMOUFLAGE
Every possible counter-measure is to be used against these “monstrous engines,” which will probably be adopted on an extensive scale by the British.
To our own infantry the Tank appeared as a lusty friend, who had at last found a convenient way of dealing with the hitherto deadly partnership of wire and machine-gun—a friend, too, who had a grotesqueness of gait and appearance which was intrinsically endearing.