The Churchill Series - Feb. 17, 2006

(One of a series of daily posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill)

Reader's Note: Beginning Monday, Feb. 19, the Churchill Series will post only on weekdays. The reason for that is my work load is heavy. With that and other blogging duties, including signing on as a regular contributor to Newsbusters, I can't give a seven-day series necessary attention.

My hope is I can maintain a five-day a week series with a satisfactory level of accuracy and informativeness.

I want the Churchill posts to be two things. First, true to the facts and character of his life; and, second, provide you with vignettes, documentary information, etc. that will usually inform and interest you.

John
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On Jan. 5, 1915, with stalemate and trench warfare dominating the Western front, Churchill sent PM Asquith a memorandum.

It would be simple, Churchill said, to "fit up a number of steam tractors with small armored shelters, in which men and machine guns could be placed, which would be bullet-proof. (A) caterpillar system would enable trenches to be crossed quite easily, and the weight of the machine would destroy all wire entanglements."

The army was not interested but Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, got permission to press ahead with designs and prototypes of the new contraptions which he called "land ships."

The project was secret so the Germens wouldn't learn of it. For the few people working on the project, a cover story was developed. They were designing a new kind of vehicle that would operate in Russia, bringing water up to the Czars troops at the front.

The water, of course, would be in the tanks.
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William Manchester, The Last Lion: Visions of Glory. (p. 510)