The tanks that first saw action at the Somme in September 1916 had, to a remarkable extent, been engineered out of the cultural imagination. September 15, 1916: First tank attack in history during the Battle of the Somme at the village of Flers. Churchill, quoted in Colin Coote, ed., Maxims and Reflections, 1949 He did not inform either the War Office or the Treasury–an almost unprecedented and certainly unconstitutional reticence, dictated by fear that conventional minds might stifle a great idea. Churchill who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, gave the first order for eighteen tanks, or “landships” as they were then called, on March 26, 1915. Jean-Baptiste Eugène Estienne, 23 August 1914 Sirs, the victory in this war will belong to which of the two belligerents which will be the first to place a gun of 75 on a vehicle able to be driven on all terrain. Later centuries had seen attempts to create wind-powered “landships” and various steam-powered contraptions. Covered war carts had been used by the Scots against the English in the mid-15th century, and Leonardo da Vinci had sketched his famous “tank” design in the 1480s.

First tank battle ww1