“At the precise moment when the bombardment stopped, the Germans had the surprise of seeing advance in front of the waves of assaulting troops, enormous steel monsters from which spurted a continuous fire of great violence. One would have described them as gigantic infernal machines. Their front, which was shaped like a ram, smashed down every obstacle. The heavy automobiles bounded across the overturned and uneven ground, breaking through the barbed wire and jumping the trenches. In the German ranks there was a really mad terror. A prey to panic, the soldiers of the German Emperor fell back in haste, abandoning their arms, ammunition and equipment.” And how did the Tank personnel itself view the events of the day? Half choked with the engine fumes, boxed up for many hours without respite in the intolerable clamour and shaking of their machines, or, worse, having wrestled for hours under heavy shelling with a broken-down Tank, they were inclined to see the exasperations of the battle rather than its successes. It is indeed curious to note the difference in tone between the accounts of those who saw the Tanks dispassionately from without and those who had weltered within, between those who saw what the Tanks did and those whose view of achievement was obscured by a knowledge of what might have been. The Tank Corps was too keen to be in the least satisfied by the measure of success which it had achieved. Only the Press and the Germans perceived that a new “Excalibur” had been forged in England. “Out of the mouths....” IV After the battle, such of the Tanks as could go under their own power rallied, and steps were at once taken to salve as many as possible of those which had become incapacitated. From this point, till all available Tanks had been used up and till the ground became finally impossible in mid-November, Tanks were to be constantly employed in insignificant numbers in a series of small experimental actions. This method of fighting by twos and threes against special strong points was afterwards discarded, as it proved unsatisfactory. Several of these small actions were nevertheless very successful, and showed in miniature some special purpose which Tanks could serve, or illustrated the importance of some special Tank organisation. For example, Thiepval showed how Tanks could be used without artillery preparation, and Beaumont-Hamel showed the importance of a good Reconnaissance Branch. These small actions were therefore important, not in themselves, but because they were microcosms. In one or two unsuccessful actions it was rather the state of the ground which spoiled the battle than mistaken tactics.