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246-643: The Schneider CA 1 (originally named the Schneider CA ) was the first French tank , developed during the First World War . The Schneider was inspired by the need to overcome the stalemate of trench warfare which on the Western Front prevailed during most of the Great War . It was designed specifically to open passages for the infantry through barbed wire and then to suppress German machine gun nests . After

492-471: A tank . The vehicle was considered a very imperfect design, because of a poor layout, insufficient fire-power, a cramped interior and inferior mobility due to an overhanging nose section, which had been designed to crush through the belts of barbed wire but in practice caused the tank to get stuck. Improved designs were almost immediately initiated but the production of these, the Schneider CA 2, CA 3 and CA 4,

738-491: A 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against him were demonstrated to be baseless, and in 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and re-instated as a major in the French Army. From 1894 to 1906, the scandal divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: the pro-Army "anti-Dreyfusards" composed of conservatives, Catholic traditionalists and monarchists who generally lost

984-537: A 120° traverse. To deploy tanks, it was first needed to train crews and create tank units. On 14 July 1916 Estienne started to set up a training base at the Fort du Trou-d'Enfer , a fortress at Marly-le-Roi , west of Paris. For reasons of secrecy this location was officially attached to the 81st Heavy Artillery Regiment, a depot unit. On 15 August the camp was formally established and quickly filled with recruits, most of them young volunteers from various French armies. At Marly

1230-475: A 205 mm (8.1 in)/75 calibre weapon. However, with the war ending before the gun was ready, this weapon was soon scrapped. Development continued during the inter-war era, although at a more limited pace as aircraft were expected to take over in the long-range bombardment role. Nevertheless, the Germans built a handful of powerful Krupp K5s and the largest artillery pieces (by caliber) ever used in combat:

1476-566: A 50 lb (23 kg) ball, for example, could be reduced from 28 to 18 cm (11.0 to 7.1 in) when using an iron projectile instead. Thus, as early as the second half of the 15th century, further development in siege technology concentrated on the Hauptbüchse , and bombards largely disappeared from the leading artillery arsenal of the dukes of Burgundy . At about the same time super-sized bombards were phased out in Western Europe,

1722-425: A French credit merchant, had served up to three million customers and was affiliated with La Samaritaine , a large French department store established in 1870 by a former Bon Marché executive. The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores. The great writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) set his novel Au Bonheur des Dames (1882–83) in the typical department store. Zola represented it as

1968-505: A bore diameter of 211 mm (8.3 in) and a barrel length of 34 metres (112 ft). It was fired from concealed fixed positions in the forest of Coucy . The British attempted to develop weapons to counter the Paris Gun, but none was ready for testing until after the Armistice . A 16 in (410 mm) gun under development by Vickers for a class of never-built Russian battleships

2214-511: A certain Lieutenant Saar submitted drawings showing a vehicle on which the 75 mm cannon had been replaced by a 47 mm gun turret, the number of machine guns was raised to six, the number of vision slits to eleven and the engine was located in the middle of the hull. On 28 and 29 December 1916 the Schneider company considered moving the 75 mm gun to the nose of the vehicle and give it

2460-471: A changing battlefield situation. Also it was decided the design was too poorly protected. In response to the first use of British Mark I tanks on 15 September 1916, the Germans had begun to introduce anti-tank weapons and tactics. One of the measures taken by them was the issuing of the Kerngeschoss or " K-bullet ", a hardened steel core round capable of piercing the thin armour of tanks. To defeat it, from

2706-427: A commanding officer who was also the driver; an NCO who was the gunner, two machine gunners, a loader who assisted both the cannon and the machine guns and a mechanic who doubled as a machine gun loader. Four of these six men had, at their assigned position, to crouch inside a 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) high space between the roof and the tank's floor. They then had to stand within two narrow troughs, one, behind

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2952-489: A completely new design. The Schneider company would subsequently refuse to make any vehicles available and the project was continued based on the Saint-Chamond hull. Even before the end of the war, on 6 October 1918 Estienne had proposed to phase out all Schneider tanks from operational units, remove their armament and deploy them as instruction and recovery vehicles. These should be distinguished from those vehicles that from

3198-433: A consumer version of the public square. It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity, not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, just as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city. Like the bourgeois stores, it helped transform consumption from a business transaction into a direct relationship between consumer and sought-after goods. Its advertisements promised

3444-466: A cylindrical turret, intended to be armed with a 47 mm gun and a machine-gun, close to the rear of the hull. The hull was further diminished in size and weight by a considerable narrowing, and closing of the roofed skylight slit, which lowered its height. As a result, the type weighed only eight tonnes. During the testing the vehicle, though no longer getting itself stuck on an overhanging nose, still proved unable to climb out of muddy shell craters. It

3690-479: A daily circulation of about 100,000 and Le Petit Meridional had about 70,000. Advertising only filled 20% or so of the pages. The Roman Catholic Assumptionist order revolutionized pressure group media by its national newspaper La Croix . It vigorously advocated for traditional Catholicism while at the same time innovating with the most modern technology and distribution systems, with regional editions tailored to local taste. Secularists and Republicans recognized

3936-562: A decisive defeat for the Boulangists. They were defeated by the changes in the electoral laws that prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies; by the government's aggressive opposition; and by the absence of the general himself, in self-imposed exile with his mistress. The fall of Boulanger severely undermined the conservative and royalist elements within France; they would not recover until 1940. Revisionist scholars have argued that

4182-399: A demand by Estienne on 30 January 1917 to agree on a standardised terminology. General Mourret then proposed to use the official designations Schneider Modèle 1916 and Saint-Chamond Modèle 1916 . The Schneider is effectively an armoured steel box on top of a caterpillar tractor. It has no turret; the main armament is a 75 mm Blockhaus Schneider "fortification gun" in a barbette in

4428-454: A driveshaft and a primary clutch . A secondary clutch is coupled to each sprocket and can be decoupled for a tight turn. The main clutch and the main brakes can be engaged by pedals, the throttle by a handle. By means of a reverse device the three gears can also be applied to drive backwards. Steering was generally very tiring and there was a tendency to jump out of gear when the clutch was engaged too forcefully. The tank's official top speed

4674-611: A failed attempt to build the Panama Canal . Plagued by disease, death, inefficiency, and widespread corruption, and its troubles covered up by bribed French officials, the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt. Its stock became worthless, and ordinary investors lost close to a billion francs. France lagged behind Bismarckian Germany, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, in developing a welfare state with public health, unemployment insurance and national old age pension plans. There

4920-459: A few months, as radicals, socialists, liberals, conservatives, republicans and monarchists all fought for control. Some historians argue that the collapses were not important because they reflected minor changes in coalitions of many parties that routinely lost and gained a few allies. Consequently, the change of governments could be seen as little more than a series of ministerial reshuffles, with many individuals carrying forward from one government to

5166-516: A field of fire of about 180°. The fuel reservoirs would be inside the hull. No production resulted. In February 1917, Schneider proposed to build a variant with a thirty-two centimetres wider hull fitted in the front with a 47 mm gun and two machine-gun turrets placed diagonally behind the driver position, while the engine was relocated to the rear of the vehicle. On 2 April 1917 the Ministry of Armament asked Schneider to design two improved versions of

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5412-572: A first concept by Jacques Quellennec devised in November 1914, the type was developed from May 1915 onwards by engineer Eugène Brillié , paralleling British development of tanks the same year. Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne in December 1915 began to urge for the formation of French armoured units, leading to an order in February 1916 for four hundred Schneider CA tanks, which were manufactured by SOMUA ,

5658-554: A grandson of King Louis Philippe I , who replaced his cousin Charles X in 1830. The Bonapartists lost legitimacy due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of the Bonaparte family . Legitimists and Orléanists eventually agreed on the childless Comte de Chambord as king, with the Comte de Paris as his heir. This was the expected line of succession for

5904-530: A greater tactical flexibility. The first Schneider CA units were formed from 17 November 1916 onwards. Six AS were raised until the end of January 1917, three more in February and March each and again two in April and May each for a total of seventeen operational Groupes , numbered AS 1–17. Three more had been created by 2 June 1917, AS 18, 19 and 20, but were almost immediately dissolved, their personnel retrained to form Saint Chamond units. Between 1 March and 1 May 1917

6150-436: A halt, both because of a loss of interest in the type and to maintain a sufficient supply of spare parts. The total reached 340 on 30 September, 370 on 1 December and 372 on 19 December. The full order would not be completed until August 1918. The ultimate costs of the project were about fifty million French francs. Official factory deliveries were fifty in 1916, 326 in 1917 and twenty-four in 1918. Of these 397 were transferred to

6396-422: A hinged metal shield was attached to the rear of the hull skylight roof. Its back was painted in a conspicuous horizontal tricolour red-white-red scheme. When lifted by means of a steel cable operable from the inside via a grooved small vertical plate located on the front of the skylight roof, it indicated the position of the tank to friendly observers from behind. Several versions of this system existed, differing in

6642-561: A hostile manner toward the State ('Nobilissima Gallorum Gens' ). In 1892, he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics ('Au milieu des sollicitudes' ). The Liberal Action was founded in 1901 by Jacques Piou and Albert de Mun , former monarchists who switched to republicanism at the request of Pope Leo XIII . From

6888-429: A length of just 9.5 calibres. It fired the standard French HE Model 1915 75 mm shell but with a reduced propelling charge, shortening the overall length of the round from 350 mm (14 in) to 241 mm (9.5 in), allowing for a muzzle velocity of only 200 m/s (660 ft/s). The maximum range of the gun was 2,200 m (7,200 ft) metres, the practical range was 600 m (2,000 ft) and

7134-623: A maximum speed of nine kilometres per hour and a low speed of three. The vehicle should be able to cross a two metres wide trench and tow a seven tonne armoured sled holding twenty men with arms and equipment. Its armament should consist of two machine guns and a 37 mm gun, able to pierce the armour shields of enemy machine guns. The crew would total four men. On 20 December Estienne, on leave in Paris, together with Ferrus visited Louis Renault in Boulogne-Billancourt , in vain trying to convince

7380-472: A memorandum to the General Headquarters outlining his thoughts about a possible command tank. Considering that tank units would not only attack static enemy positions but also had to manoeuvre on the battlefield against moving hostile troops, he foresaw that their commanders would need more agile vehicles with armament and armour concentrated in the front, to lead a pursuit or cover a retreat. Therefore,

7626-558: A month to work as a trainee at the SOMUA factory. New vehicles would normally be first delivered at Cercottes. In 1917 the Cercottes base grew to a strength of about five thousand men, many of them sent there from units trying to get rid of undesirable elements, forcing the base command to reduce manpower by again removing them. On 28 September 1916 a large instruction centre was established at Champlieu , south of Compiègne . This location, close to

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7872-450: A newspaper would blackmail a business by threatening to publish unfavorable information unless the business immediately started advertising in the paper. Foreign governments, especially Russia and Turkey, secretly paid the press hundreds of thousands of francs a year to guarantee favourable coverage of the bonds it was selling in Paris. When the real news was bad about Russia, as during its 1905 Revolution or during its war with Japan, it raised

8118-453: A paper design ready; on 17 October the order was confirmed by Mourret. Towards the end of 1916 a "mock-up" was ready under the designation of Schneider CA2. On 26 and 27 March 1917 a prototype made of boiler-plate, perhaps identical to the "mock-up", was tested at Marly. It had the standard suspension of the Schneider CA but its hull was significantly shortened so that the overhanging nose had disappeared. The 75 mm cannon had been replaced by

8364-655: A possible success in an offensive by the Third Army, that however had to be cancelled because of the strategic German retreat to the Hindenburg Line . Eventually, the tank units were to support the attack by the Fifth Army at the Aisne and were concentrated in a nine kilometres wide sector south of Juvincourt-et-Damary , chosen for its firm ground. The Germans had created a strong defensive belt in this area, held by four divisions of

8610-573: A price however: thirty-five Schneiders were lost. In the west of the salient on 9 July a small local counterattack took place named after the Porte and Des Loges farms, which was supported by about fifteen Schneider tanks of AS 16 and AS 17. On 15 July the Germans began their last large 1918 offensive, attacking Rheims in the Second Battle of the Marne . Soon their advance faltered and they found themselves in

8856-412: A protective wooden frame. From the spring of 1917 onwards about seven vehicles were used for this goal. For unit training and live fire exercises, which required much larger manoeuvre grounds, on 30 August 1916 a camp was established at Cercottes . It received its first training vehicles on 17 November 1916. To get better acquainted with the mechanical side of the tanks, most crew members left Cercottes for

9102-560: A provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president. This first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris (19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871). As Paris was cut off from the rest of unoccupied France, the Minister of War Léon Gambetta succeeded in leaving Paris in a hot air balloon , and established

9348-562: A provisional government, ("head of the executive branch of the Republic pending a decision on the institutions of France"). The new government negotiated a peace settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire : the Treaty of Frankfurt signed on 10 May 1871. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of financial laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities , to pay reparations. In Paris, resentment built against

9594-399: A public health law which began in the 1880s as a campaign to reorganize the nation's health services, to require the registration of infectious diseases, to mandate quarantines, and to improve the deficient health and housing legislation of 1850. However, the reformers met opposition from bureaucrats, politicians, and physicians. Because it was so threatening to so many interests, the proposal

9840-654: A quarter of the Parisian market and forced the rest to lower their prices. The main dailies employed their own journalists who competed for news flashes. All newspapers relied upon the Agence Havas (now Agence France-Presse ), a telegraphic news service with a network of reporters and contracts with Reuters to provide world service. The staid old papers retained their loyal clientele because of their concentration on serious political issues. While papers usually gave false circulation figures, Le Petit Provençal in 1913 probably had

10086-567: A railway bridge in Belgium). All of the major powers involved employed such weapons in limited numbers, typically between 280 and 305 mm (11 to 12 inches) although some larger weapons were also used. The longest-ranged and longest-barreled of the heavy guns deployed in World War I was the Paris Gun , which was used to bombard Paris from a distance of over 130 kilometres (81 mi). The gun had

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10332-573: A reasonably smaller caliber (in German Hauptbüchse ) could be produced whose firepower was enough to shatter any medieval wall, in particular when it was concentrated in a battery . Due to their less bulky dimensions and higher rate of fire, these artillery pieces could be more flexibly deployed and caused more destruction in any given length of time. Furthermore, the transition from stone to smaller, but much more devastating iron balls meant that super-sized bores became unnecessary. The caliber of

10578-458: A safer position under armour though still outside the hull, in vertical rectangular steel boxes to the left and right of the rear door. This necessitated the construction of an additional safer exit, at the left side of the vehicle. On 8 September 1917 only twelve tanks had been changed to this new configuration. As of 21 March 1918 about 245 vehicles featured all three of these major improvements. Numerous smaller modifications were introduced during

10824-576: A series of elections in which he would resign his seat in the Chamber of Deputies and run again in another district. At the apogee of his popularity in January 1889, he posed the threat of a coup d'état and the establishment of a dictatorship. With his base of support in the working districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists, he promoted an aggressive nationalism aimed against Germany. The elections of September 1889 marked

11070-582: A steady financial basis for publishing, but it did not cover all of the costs involved and had to be supplemented by secret subsidies from commercial interests that wanted favourable reporting. A new liberal press law of 1881 abandoned the restrictive practices that had been typical for a century. High-speed rotary Hoe presses , introduced in the 1860s, facilitated quick turnaround time and cheaper publication. New types of popular newspapers, especially Le Petit Journal , reached an audience more interested in diverse entertainment and gossip than hard news. It captured

11316-620: A strong League of Nations after the war, and the maintenance of peace through compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, economic sanctions, and perhaps an international military force. Followers of Léon Gambetta , such as Raymond Poincaré , who would become President of the Council in the 1920s, created the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), which became the main center-right party after World War I. Governing coalitions collapsed with regularity, rarely lasting more than

11562-406: A subsidiary of Schneider located in a suburb of Paris, between September 1916 and August 1918. Like most early tanks , the Schneider was built like a simple armoured box, without compartmentalisation of the inner space. It lacked a turret, with the main armament, a short 75 mm cannon, in a sponson on the right side. By later standards it would therefore have been an assault gun instead of

11808-454: A supply and recovery unit or Section de Réparations et de Ravitaillement which besides two unarmed Saint-Chamonds and some Baby Holt tractors was equipped with two unarmed Schneider CA tanks, towing Troy trailers with fuel, bringing the total at 132 Schneider vehicles, at that date the largest tank force ever deployed. On 13 April the tank units concentrated behind the frontline. There they were joined by supporting infantry companies: five from

12054-421: A symbol of the new technology that was both improving society and devouring it. The novel describes merchandising, management techniques, marketing, and consumerism. The Grands Magasins Dufayel was a huge department store with inexpensive prices built in 1890 in the northern part of Paris, where it reached a very large new customer base in the working class . In a neighbourhood with few public spaces, it provided

12300-417: A total of 4,800 rounds. Another unusual feature is the slanted overhang of the frontal part of the chassis which has the form of a pointed nose, ending in a high obliquely protruding steel spur. It had been designed for cutting through and crushing down German barbed wire , thus opening passages for following French infantry, originally seen as the primary function of the system. This long overhang could cause

12546-428: A total of eight road wheels. The new suspension system was not based on exact blueprints but improvised by private Pierre Lescudé. On 17 February the eight-wheeled system, which prototype was later designated L'appareil n° 1 Type A ("Device Number 1 Type A") was tested at Vincennes, easily crossing trenches up to 1.75 metres wide and overcoming barbed wire obstacles. On 21 February successful tests were held at Vincennes,

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12792-401: A variant was needed fitted with a turret featuring a 37 mm gun and one or two machine-guns in the front instead of the sides, protected by 15 mm front armour, with a crew of four and with a top speed of at least 10 km/h. Fifty such vehicles should be constructed. On 2 October, Joffre demanded the production of fifty voitures cuirassées de commandement . On 13 October Schneider had

13038-412: A vehicle that would be long enough to cross wide trenches and yet sufficiently flexible to maintain mobility. Older literature sometimes suggested that he actually coupled two Schneiders rear to rear to research this concept. In fact, this was on 8 May 1917 merely advised by the committee judging the merits of the proposal, as a lighter alternative for Boirault's original plans which envisaged three hulls of

13284-463: A very vulnerable situation, with overextended supply lines and exhausted troops lacking well-entrenched positions. On 18 July French and American divisions, cooperating with a large number of tanks, started a major offensive, the Battle of Soissons , in which for the first time since 1914 Entente forces on the Western Front succeeded in making substantial progress, reducing the entire German salient created in

13530-399: Is however fixed in relation to the hull. It has a somewhat larger diameter than the idler, causing the upper track profile to slope slightly downwards to the front. The track consists of thirty-three flat links with a width of thirty-six centimetres. The ground pressure is about 0.75 kg/cm. As the traverse of the main gun was limited, it had first to be pointed in the general direction of

13776-551: Is impossible to determine to what extent this was done. The same day new tests were held with the Baby Holt tractor at Vincennes; the next day Estienne further elaborated his proposal at the GHQ. The prototype was fitted with extensions at the front and rear end to improve its trench-crossing capacity and successfully tested on 5 January 1916. Estienne's plan met with approbation from Commander-in-chief Joffre , who on 7 January 1916 proposed

14022-430: Is only 8.1 km/h (5.0 mph); practical speed was 2 to 4 km/h (1.2 to 2.5 mph). At 1,000 engine rpm, the first gear equalled a speed of 2 km/h, the second 3.95 km/h, the third 6.75 km/h. At 2 km/h (1.2 mph) the Schneider could climb a slope of 55%. The capacity to overcome obstacles, limited to a parapet of about eighty centimetres, is improved by two short climbing tails, fitted to

14268-745: The Action française , the movement declined from 1908, when it lost the support of Rome. Nevertheless, the ALP remained until 1914 the most important party on the right. Heavy artillery Historically, large-calibre weapons have included bombards and siege guns . In the context of late medieval siege warfare the term superguns applies to stone-firing bombards with a ball diameter of more than 50 cm (20 in). These superguns were either manufactured by forging together longitudinal iron bars, held in place by iron rings, or cast in bronze with techniques generally similar to bell-founding. Known examples include

14514-467: The 154e R.I. of the 165e D.I. for Groupement Bossut and three of the 76e R.I. of the 125e D.I. for Groupement Chaubès . During the early morning of 16 April 1917 the Nivelle Offensive was launched. In the sector where the tanks operated the initial waves of French infantry succeeded in taking the first and second German trenches as planned, but with very heavy losses. The French artillery

14760-517: The Battle of Zonchio in 1499. In India, a large forge-welded iron cannon was built during the reign of Raghunatha Nayak (1600–1645), and was then one of the largest cannons in the world. Artillery was used by Indian armies predominantly for defending against besieging armies. With the new metallurgical methods and precision engineering of the Industrial Revolution , a revolution in armaments, including artillery took place. In

15006-512: The Bavarian Army , with a depth of nine kilometres and divided into four main trench systems. The plan was for the French infantry to take the first and second trench within about four hours, advancing behind the "creeping barrage", after which the tanks would immediately exploit this success and maintain the momentum of the offensive by quickly progressing towards the third trench, directly followed by

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15252-520: The First Battle of the Marne and was then severely wounded at the end of October. While recovering, he devised plans for an armoured tractor armed with a machine-gun and capable of destroying German machine-gun nests. Many in this period had comparable ideas but contrary to most, Quellennec had excellent contacts. Fouché had become a second lieutenant with the Grand Parc Automobile de Réserve of

15498-580: The German spring offensive , a massive infantry onslaught made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk allowing Germany to shift the bulk of its forces to the Western Front. In April there were minor counterattacks at the Somme by a small number of Schneider tanks: five vehicles on the 5th at Sauvillers-Mongival , six on the 7th at Grivesnes , and twelve on the 18th at the Bois de Sénécat , west of Castel . On 28 May, also at

15744-564: The Jesuits and Assumptionists —indoctrinated anti-republicanism into children. Determined to root this out, republicans insisted they needed control of the schools for France to achieve economic and militaristic progress. (Republicans felt one of the primary reasons for the German victory in 1870 was their superior education system.) The early anti-Catholic laws were largely the work of republican Jules Ferry in 1882. Religious instruction in all schools

15990-753: The Musée des Blindés in Saumur , is also the world's oldest tank in full running condition. It was donated at the end of the war by the French government to the United States of America , was preserved in the Aberdeen Proving Ground Ordnance Museum in Maryland, USA and in 1985 again donated to France for restoration. The tank's original four cylinder Schneider gasoline engine and the original transmissions were fully restored to original working condition by

16236-568: The President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré , leading to the order of six, later expanded to ten, armoured tracked vehicles for further testing. The type was since July called a machine offensive à chenilles ("tracked offensive machine") and was based on the Baby Holt with a suspension that was to be thirty centimetres lengthened. In August drawings were made of what was now designated

16482-466: The Pumhart von Steyr , Dulle Griet and Mons Meg (all iron) as well as the cast-bronze Faule Mette , Faule Grete and Dardanelles Gun . At the beginning of the development of superguns was the desire to increase the effect of the projectiles. To this end, master gunners first simply used larger powder loads. These, however, exerted larger pressure on the existing cannon and could make it burst, causing

16728-539: The Sacré-Cœur at Montmartre , received a direct heavy artillery hit, incinerating most of the crew and blowing Bossut himself from the rear entrance from which he had been directing the battle, killed by a shell splinter through the heart. Nevertheless, the Schneiders continued their progress, advancing several miles in a narrow penetration through a shallow valley towards the third German trench. The weakened infantry though,

16974-466: The Scramble for Africa , all of them acquired during the last two decades of the 19th century. The early years of the 20th century were dominated by the Democratic Republican Alliance , which was originally conceived as a centre-left political alliance, but over time became the main centre-right party. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, between

17220-564: The Service Automobile in the project. On 10 September, new experiments were made for Commandant L. Ferrus, an officer who had been involved in the study (and ultimate rejection) of the Levavasseur tank project in 1908. On 9 December 1915 in the Souain experiment , a Schneider prototype armoured tank, a Baby Holt chassis with boiler-plate armour, was demonstrated to the French Army. Among

17466-583: The Service Automobile , the Army branch responsible for motorisation, and Brillié was chief designer with one of France's main arms manufacturers. Early December, Quellennec met Fouché in Paris and both then went to Brillié to present drawings of a tracked armoured fighting vehicle. During a second visit Quellennec urged Brillié to bring over two Holt Model 75 tractors, at that time present in Tunisia, to France in order to perform

17712-642: The Third Battle of the Aisne . The German advance threatened the Champlieu base, which was abandoned, severely disrupting repair and maintenance. Early June the offensives had created a large French salient around Compiègne and Erich Ludendorff decided to reduce it in Operation Gneisenau . Soon for the French the situation became critical as a German success would open the way to Paris . On 11 June, tanks were for

17958-532: The anti-clerical middle class, who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The republicans detested the Church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the Church represented the Ancien Régime , a time in French history most republicans hoped was long behind them. The republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken

18204-458: The constitutional laws of the new republic . At its head was a President of the Republic. A two-chamber parliament consisting of a directly elected Chamber of Deputies and an indirectly elected Senate was created, along with a ministry under the President of the council ( prime minister ), who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and the legislature. Throughout the 1870s,

18450-503: The tracteur blindé et armé ("armoured and armed tractor"). In September 1915 the Schneider programme was combined with an official one for the development of an armoured barbed wire cutter by engineer and Member of Parliament Jules-Louis Breton , the Breton-Prétot machine . Ten of the fifteen available Baby Holt vehicles were to be armoured and fitted with the wire cutter of which ten systems had been ordered on 7 August. This involved

18696-450: The 128 combat tanks engaged had been lost. Many of these had burnt: 57 in total, 31 with Groupement Bossut and 26 with Groupement Chaubès . Most had been set on fire by German artillery: twenty-three vehicles of Groupement Chaubès had been hit by indirect fire and fifteen of Groupement Bossut ; this latter unit had fourteen tanks hit by direct fire. Investigations showed that most vehicles had carried additional fire-hazards: to compensate

18942-657: The 1860s, the industrialist Sir William Armstrong , who had already built one of the first breech-loading rifled artillery pieces, constructed a 600-pounder 'monster gun' of then extraordinary size at the Elswick Ordnance Company in Newcastle . The gun was a rifled muzzle-loader of 22,000 kg (49,000 lb) that fired shells of up to 600 pounds (270 kg) and could pierce 4.5 inches (11.4 cm) of iron armour. Armstrong identified them as "shunt" guns, but they were soon popularly known as "monster" guns. By

19188-561: The 1870s "the form of government that divides France least"; however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood reformist France, heir to the French Revolution . On the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Catholic Church , and the army. In spite of France's sharply divided electorate and persistent attempts to overthrow it, the Third Republic endured for 70 years, which makes it

19434-511: The 1880s he had built guns of over 40 feet (12 m) in length that could fire 1,800 pound (810 kg) shells and punch through an incredible 30 inches (76 cm) of iron at a range of 8 mi (13 km). The gun was exhibited at the Royal Mining Engineering Jubilee Exhibition held at Newcastle in 1887 for Queen Victoria 's golden jubilee. Prior to World War I , the German military was especially interested in

19680-459: The 210th vehicle onwards the Schneider tank was fitted with extra 5.4 mm thick armour plates on the sides and front with a space of four centimetres between the main armour and these appliqué plates. Even without the spaced armour , the front plates would have been immune against K-bullet fire from a distance of two hundred metres, because they were angled at 60°, providing an effective line-of-sight thickness of 22.8 mm (0.90 in). During

19926-448: The 32nd and 5th Army Corps respectively and would engage on the first day. Groupement Bossut consisted of five groupes : AS 2, 4, 5, 6 and 9, thus fielding eighty tanks, as the AS in this phase of the war operated at full strength with four batteries of four tanks. Groupement Chaubès , created on 8 March, included AS 3, 7 and 8, with about forty-eight tanks. Each Groupement was reinforced by

20172-407: The 720 crew members, and 40% of the supporting infantry had become casualties. On a positive note, twenty broken-down tanks had been salvaged from the battlefield, all enemy infantry assaults had failed, and the spaced armour proved to be very resistant, beyond expectations, against small-arms fire and shell splinters. The main technical complaint was that visibility from within the vehicle was poor for

20418-470: The 800 mm (31.5 in.) Schwerer Gustav and Dora . The latter had been designed specifically to defeat the Maginot Line , firing a 7,000 kg (15,000 lb) shell to a range of 37 km (23 mi). Although their original role proved unnecessary, Gustav was used successfully to destroy Soviet heavy fortifications, most notably those at Sevastopol . Dora was readied for combat at Stalingrad , but

20664-619: The AS were combined into five larger units, called Groupements , with a variable strength. In May 1918, three of the surviving four Groupements , I, II and IV, were each attached to three light tank Renault FT battalions to form larger Régiments de Artillerie Spéciale , the 501e, 502e and 504e RAS respectively. Estienne had hoped to create a powerful and large striking force before committing his tanks to battle. He had strongly disapproved of the, in his eyes premature, British use of tanks in September 1916, just two months after first deliveries of

20910-553: The American Holt Company , at that time participating in a test programme at Aldershot in England. On his return, Brillié, who had earlier been involved in designing armoured cars for Spain, apparently without mentioning being influenced in this by Quellennec, convinced the company management to initiate studies on the development of an armoured fighting vehicle, based on the Baby Holt chassis, two of which were ordered. The type

21156-464: The Americans and the tanks"). However, remaining purely inactive would undermine the morale; to bolster it a series of meticulously prepared small-scale offensives were undertaken in which success was guaranteed by deploying an overwhelming numerical superiority, especially in artillery, to conquer a limited objective. On 23 October 1917 Pétain in one blow took the notorious Chemin-des-Dames crest, including

21402-575: The Americans with about twenty-two tanks, and Groupements I and III supported the French Fourth Army with thirty-four vehicles. During October most Schneider units were recuperating and German intelligence assumed the type had now been completely phased out, replaced by the newer and more effective Renault FT tanks, but in fact it was planned to again deploy about fifty Schneiders in a large offensive in Lorraine to begin on 11 November. That day however,

21648-399: The Army brought up additional charges against Dreyfus based on false documents. Word of the military court's attempts to frame Dreyfus began to spread, chiefly owing to the polemic J'accuse , a vehement open letter published on the liberal newspaper L'Aurore in January 1898 by the notable writer Émile Zola . Activists put pressure on the government to re-open the case. In 1899, Dreyfus

21894-589: The Artillery Arm and other branches of the army often called "artillery grey". It was a rather light pearl grey shade. At first, by the Section Camouflage in the field a specially designed complex striped flame pattern was added consisting of narrow vertical red brown, dark green and yellow ochre patches, delineated in black. This was intended to break the contours of the vehicles. To some observers, it made them seem strikingly colourful. The original grey paint

22140-486: The Baby Holt however appeared to be too short to bridge German trenches, justifying the development of longer caterpillar tracks for the French tank project. For Estienne the vehicle shown embodied concepts about armoured fighting vehicles which he had been advocating since August 1914. Already on 1 December Estienne had proposed to the French GHQ the use of tracked armoured tractors to move infantry, equipment and cannon over

22386-506: The Boulangist movement more often represented elements of the radical left rather than the extreme right. Their work is part of an emerging consensus that France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men who had been Boulangist partisans of the radical left a decade earlier. The Panama scandals of 1892, regarded as the largest financial fraud of the 19th century, involved

22632-461: The British Mark V* type. Some of the still serviceable Schneiders were rebuilt as recovery vehicles and tank transporters serving with Renault FT units. In 1928 a project was presented for a Schneider CA Modèle 1928 recovery tank with the upper hull replaced by a motorised crane, that could be stabilised by a large jack at the rear of the vehicle. The only surviving exemplar of the Schneider CA, at

22878-506: The CA suffix was merely a Schneider product code similar to those used by Renault . At the end of 1916, the type was called Schneider CA 1 to make a distinction with a derived tank project, the Schneider CA 2 . In 1917 the Schneider CA 1 is also called the Schneider 1916 to distinguish it from the Schneider 1917 , another name for the next tank project, the Schneider CA 3 . This had its origin in

23124-675: The CA3 type. These had to be delivered from May 1918 onwards. A prototype was ordered of each version — the mechanical parts in May and the armour hulls in July — but the company itself limited its construction activities to the one with the gun in the hull, probably because a cannon turret was judged to be "absurd" given the lack of enemy tanks and a machine gun turret was seen as necessary for close defence against infantry assault. Later that year, in an official answer to an inquiry by parliamentarian Paul Doumer regarding

23370-628: The Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and boards of charity; in 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals; in 1882, the Ferry school laws were passed. Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 continued in operation, but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked. Republicans feared that religious orders in control of schools—especially

23616-516: The Chamber and called for a new general election to be held the following October. He was subsequently accused by Republicans and their sympathizers of attempting a constitutional coup d'état, which he denied. The October elections again brought a Republican majority to the Chamber of Deputies, reiterating public opinion. The Republicans would go on to gain a majority in the Senate by January 1879, establishing dominance in both houses and effectively ending

23862-465: The Church's perspective, its mission was to express the political ideals and new social doctrines embodied in Leo's 1891 encyclical " Rerum Novarum ". Action libérale was the parliamentary group from which the ALP political party emerged, adding the word populaire ("popular") to signify this expansion. Membership was open to everyone, not just Catholics. It sought to gather all the "honest people" and to be

24108-488: The Commune, was later elected President of the Republic in May 1873 and would hold the office until January 1879. A staunch Catholic conservative with Legitimist sympathies and a noted mistrust of secularists, de MacMahon grew to be increasingly at odds with the French parliament as liberal and secular republicans gained a legislative majority during his presidency. In February 1875, a series of parliamentary acts established

24354-560: The Comte de Chambord based on France's traditional rule of agnatic primogeniture if the renunciation of the Spanish Bourbons in the Peace of Utrecht was recognised. Consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the restored monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution (most famously including the tricolore ) , to restore unity between

24600-526: The Democratic Republican Alliance and the Radicals . The government fell less than a year after the outbreak of World War II, when Nazi forces occupied much of France , and was replaced by the rival governments of Charles de Gaulle 's Free France ( La France libre ) and Philippe Pétain 's French State ( L'État français ). During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire

24846-512: The First World War ended as the Armistice with Germany was concluded. During the 1918 battles, Schneider tanks engaged 473 enemy targets. In the war, in total 121 Schneider tanks had been lost, 86 in 1917 and 35 in 1918: 114 by enemy artillery fire, three by mines, three by antitank rifle fire and one by unknown causes. The first projects to create new variants were based on the original Schneider CA design. On 27 September 1916 Estienne wrote

25092-676: The French Army. Early in 1917 one vehicle was delivered to Italy. It had been ordered by the Italians after Captain Alfredo Bennicelli had observed the first French Army testing in September 1916; the single vehicle was tested in 1917 and deployed on the Kras front. It made a favourable impression and in the Autumn of 1917 the Italian High Command desired either the purchase of twenty Schneiders or

25338-526: The French State, were during two weeks from 2 February onwards in an army workshop combined into a single elongated vehicle, a caterpillar offensif allongé , by Lieutenant Charles Fouché, assisted by a small team of mechanics. The workshop was in the Farman factory at Billancourt appropriated from the l'Automobilette company. It was again about a foot longer than the Schneider type, and featured three bogies with

25584-471: The French Third Republic, originally envisioned as a provisional government , instead became the permanent form of government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic. It consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. Calls for the re-establishment of

25830-643: The German saillant east of Laffaux where the Hindenburg Line hinged on the Chemin-des-Dames, named after the hillock of the Moulin-de-Laffaux . This attack was to be supported by Groupement Lefebvre . To improve the cooperation with the infantry, the Groupement was reinforced by an infantry battalion specially trained in combined arms tactics , the 17e Bataillon de Chasseurs à Pied . Coordination with

26076-608: The German Embassy in Paris and sent to the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana (nicknamed la guillotine sèche , the dry guillotine), where he spent almost five years. Two years later, evidence came to light that identified a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real spy. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy. In response,

26322-472: The High Command, represented by General Maurice Janin , a plan to form an armoured force equipped with tracked vehicles. In it he formulated some specifications. The machines should be twelve tonnes in weight, protected by fifteen to twenty millimetres of armour. The dimensions of the vehicles were indicated as four metres long, 2.6 metres wide and 1.6 metres high. An engine of eighty horsepower should allow for

26568-526: The Interministerial Press Commission to supervise the press closely. A separate agency imposed tight censorship that led to blank spaces where news reports or editorials were disallowed. The dailies sometimes were limited to only two pages instead of the usual four, leading one satirical paper to try to report the war news in the same spirit: Regional newspapers flourished after 1900. However the Parisian newspapers were largely stagnant after

26814-553: The Mark I. However, political circumstances would compel him to deploy the Artillerie Spéciale before it was at full strength or adequately trained. In December 1916 Robert Nivelle had been appointed supreme French commander on the promise that his tactical innovation of the " rolling barrage " would ensure a quick collapse of the German front. Not favourably inclined towards the independent mass deployment of armour, Nivelle hoped that

27060-400: The Republic was finally governed by Moderate Republicans (pejoratively labelled "Opportunist Republicans" by Radical Republicans ) who supported moderate social and political changes to nurture the new regime, such as a purge of the civil service . The Jules Ferry laws making public education free, mandatory, and secular ( laїque ), were voted in 1881 and 1882, one of the first signs of

27306-597: The Republicans' rising popularity and limit their political influence through a series of actions known as le seize Mai . On 16 May 1877, de MacMahon forced the resignation of Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon and appointed the Orléanist Albert de Broglie to the office. The Chamber of Deputies declared the appointment illegitimate, exceeding the president's powers, and refused to cooperate with either de MacMahon or de Broglie. De MacMahon then dissolved

27552-499: The Schneider CA: one with a gun turret, the calibre not surpassing 47 mm if it were a long gun; the other with a long 75 mm gun in the front of the hull. After the failure of the Nivelle Offensive , Schneider understood that more capable designs had to be manufactured if the tank were to remain a viable weapon system. On 1 May 1917 it discussed a range of possible options, numbered one to five. All had in common that basically

27798-506: The Schneider company providing a non-elongated Baby Holt chassis for comparison. From this it was concluded that the tank was sufficiently developed to justify a production order. On 25 February 1916 the War Ministry secretly ordered the production of four hundred tracteurs-chenilles type Schneider & Cie blindés ("tracked and armoured tractors of the Schneider type"), at a price of 56,000 French francs per vehicle. For security reasons it

28044-654: The Schneider tank was replaced in November 1918 with a FIAT 2000 . French Third Republic The French Third Republic ( French : Troisième République , sometimes written as La III République ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War , until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to

28290-450: The Schneider tank. In the Spring of 1916, for reasons that are not entirely clear, there was a fundamental falling-out between the French Army and Schneider Cie. The latter company would develop and produce its Schneider tank on the basis of its seven-wheeled chassis, which had been patented on 17 January; the Army would develop the eight-wheeled system into the Saint-Chamond heavy tank. Whereas

28536-503: The Schneider vehicle produced in mass has earned him a traditional position in history as the creator of the first French tank. This is put into perspective by his limited involvement in its technical design; as early as January 1916 the actual completion was entrusted to a ministerial bureau headed by General Léon Augustin Jean Marie Mourret, director of the Army automobile service. Mourret did not closely cooperate with Estienne, who

28782-503: The Schneiders never again equalled the numbers reached in July. On 16 August three groups with thirty-two tanks attacked near Tilloloy ; on 20 August one group of twelve participated in actions near Nampcel . On 12 September Groupement IV could muster twenty-four tanks to support the Americans in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel . From 26 September during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive Groupement IV continued to support

29028-521: The Somme, twelve vehicles (AS 5) supported an American Expeditionary Forces attack in the Battle of Cantigny , the first time in history American troops cooperated with tanks. At first the German offensive was largely directed against the British Expeditionary Force but when this ultimately failed to produce the desired decisive breakthrough, late May the Germans turned in force on the French in

29274-470: The Third Battle of the Aisne. In the operation three Schneider Groupements (I, III and IV) participated with 123 vehicles, the second largest deployment of the type during the war. The battle was a strategic disaster for the Germans, leading to the disintegration of a large part of their forces and initiating a period of almost continuous retreats. Although now at last the conditions were favourable to fulfil

29520-465: The Versailles government, marched on Paris and succeeded in dismantling the Commune during what would become known as The Bloody Week . The term ordre moral ("moral order") subsequently came to be applied to the budding Third Republic due to the perceived restoration of conservative policies and values following the suppression of the Commune. De MacMahon, his popularity bolstered by his victory over

29766-645: The aftermath when the regime of Napoleon III collapsed, resulted in a monarchist majority in the French National Assembly that favoured a peace agreement with Prussia. Planning to restore the monarchy, the " Legitimists " in the National Assembly supported the candidacy of Henri, Comte de Chambord , alias "Henry V," grandson of King Charles X , the last king from the senior line of the Bourbon dynasty . The Orléanists supported Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris

30012-461: The ante to millions. During the World War, newspapers became more of a propaganda agency on behalf of the war effort and avoided critical commentary. They seldom reported the achievements of the Allies, crediting all the good news to the French army. In a sentence, the newspapers were not independent champions of the truth, but secretly paid advertisements for banking. The World War ended a golden era for

30258-428: The anticipated improvement in penetrating power, other factors such as prestige and a potential deterrent effect also played an important role. For all their manufacturing quality the superguns were only moderately successful. Their military effectiveness turned out to be out of all proportion to their overwhelming logistical demands and financial costs. For the cost of a single supergun, two or three large bombards with

30504-417: The artillery was improved by attaching a special observation plane, protected by six SPAD VII fighters, that had to identify German antitank-batteries and have them destroyed by counterbattery fire; it also had to report the position of the tanks to higher command levels. The more general offensive was launched on 5 May. Whereas most infantry attacks along the Chemin-des-Dames were bloody failures that day,

30750-505: The authority of Versailles, responding with the foundation of the Paris Commune in March. The principles underpinning the Commune were viewed as morally degenerate by French conservatives at large while the government at Versailles sought to maintain the tenuous post-war stability which it had established. In May, the regular French Armed Forces , under the command of Patrice de MacMahon and

30996-402: The battlefield, having performed some trials with British caterpillar tractors. On 11 December Estienne let a certain lieutenant Thibier draw a sketch of two conceptions: the one of a Baby Holt chassis fitted at the front and the back with auxiliary rollers, to improve the trench-crossing capacity; the other of an elongated suspension protected by side armour. On 12 December Estienne presented to

31242-451: The capacity to manufacture in total three hundred to four hundred units in 1916. At this point the Schneider project envisioned a ten tonne vehicle, armed by a 75 mm gun, protected by 10 mm chrome steel and powered by a specially developed 50 HP engine allowing for a top speed of 7 km/h. On the 27th, the paper design was adapted to incorporate some of Estienne's ideas; because the original drawings have not been rediscovered, it

31488-413: The car producer to get involved in the production of the new weapon system. Later the same day they received Brillié who disclosed the amount of work already done by Schneider on its project. The August order of ten vehicles had been confirmed on 7 December; on the 15th the official contract was signed. On 22 December, the Schneider company began to prepare for armoured vehicle production. It indicated it had

31734-432: The carbon monoxide, but this was rejected in view of the fire hazard. The first testing to equip a French tank with a radio set was carried out in the summer of 1917 with a Schneider CA, using a twelve-metre wire antenna with a range of 8.5 km (5.3 mi). A second test with a fourteen-metre antenna on 18 August 1917 established that contact could be made with an aircraft within a distance of two kilometres provided that

31980-501: The crews numbered fifty-five, three of them fatal. In the wake of the mutinies Philippe Pétain was appointed supreme commander. He tried to restore confidence by abstaining from overambitious offensive plans. Only in 1918 when the influx of American troops and new armoured vehicles would tip the balance in favour of the Entente, could decisive attacks be considered. His motto was therefore: J'attends les Américains et les chars ("I wait for

32226-400: The crews received their first instruction consisting of the basics of maintenance and a lot of driver training with an emphasis on crossing trenches, avoiding shell craters and running down trees and walls. Because no actual Schneider vehicles were available at first, Holt tractors were used instead; later boiler plate training chassis were employed with the superstructure removed and replaced by

32472-512: The day, especially striking young people in their twenties. Germany set up vigorous measures of public hygiene and public sanatoria, but France let private physicians handle the problem. The French medical profession guarded its prerogatives, and public health activists were not as well organized or as influential as in Germany, Britain or the United States. For example, there was a long battle over

32718-486: The death of the irreplaceable gunner with his crew (and even kings ). In addition, it was observed that, due to their higher velocity, stone balls were shattered by the impact on the walls rather than smashing them. Thus, the mass of the cannon balls and, consequently, of the ordnance too continually increased, finally culminating in giant cannon like the Pumhart von Steyr which fired a 690 kg (1,520 lb) ball. Apart from

32964-585: The development of superweapons due to the need for the Schlieffen plan to march past a line of Belgian fortifications constructed specifically to stop such an invasion route. During the opening phases of the war, the Germans employed a 420 mm (17 in) Krupp howitzer (the Big Bertha ) and two 305 mm (12.0 in) Skoda Mörser M. 11 mortars to reduce the famous fortresses of Liège and Namur . Their low overland mobility made them arrive later than

33210-660: The development of the Grand Slam bomb . It was used from March 1943 through February 1945. Canadian engineer Gerald Bull became interested in the possibility of using 'superguns' in place of rockets to insert payloads into orbit. He lobbied for the start of Project HARP to investigate this concept in the 1960s, using paired ex-US Navy 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun barrels welded end-to-end. Three of these 16"/50 (406 mm) guns were emplaced, one in Quebec , Canada, another in Barbados , and

33456-526: The driver as well as the gunners. Tactical lessons drawn were that tanks should spread out more to avoid artillery fire and had to cooperate more closely with the infantry. Groupement III , commanded by Captain Henri Lefebvre, was intended to assist an attack by the Fourth Army on 17 April at Moronvilliers . It consisted of two Schneider groups, AS 1 and AS 10, reinforced by some Saint-Chamond tanks. When

33702-438: The driver's seat, used by the gunner and a second square one more to the back, between the suspension elements, used by the cannon loader and the two machine gunners. Most of the space however, had a height of just three feet between the roof and the covering of transmission and suspension: to load the right machine gun, the mechanic had to lie on his belly. Each Schneider tank team included three riflemen who in battle accompanied

33948-416: The east, north of Berry-au-Bac after which village later the entire tank action would be named, Groupement Bossut proved more successful. It managed to cross the various trench lines losing only a few vehicles and in the late morning concentrated to carry on the offensive. However, around 11:00 the tank of Bossut, Trompe-la-Mort ("Dare-devil") leading the advance, carrying a tricolour fanion blessed in

34194-503: The efficacy of the tanks seemed proven, justifying the planned expansion of the tank force. During the three 1917 battles, Schneider tanks engaged 175 enemy targets. Eighty-six vehicles were lost that year. French command considered to launch large-scale summer offensives in 1918, benefiting from a grown number of AFVs. At this point of the war, less than a year after their first employment, the Schneider tanks were already considered obsolete. They nevertheless still formed an essential part of

34440-645: The end of September 1918, less than two months before the Armistice of 11 November 1918 , their numbers having dropped considerably due to attrition. After the war the surviving tanks were mostly rebuilt as utility vehicles but six Schneider tanks were deployed by Spain in the Rif War in Morocco and the type saw its last action in the beginning of the Spanish Civil War . Before the First World War, mechanic Charles Marius Fouché cooperated with engineer Édouard Quellennec and

34686-529: The end, it recruited mostly among the liberal-Catholics ( Jacques Piou ) and the Social Catholics ( Albert de Mun ). The ALP was drawn into battle from its very beginnings (its first steps coincided with the beginning of the Combes ministry and its anticlerical combat policy), as religious matters were at the heart of its preoccupations. It defended the Church in the name of liberty and common law. Fiercely fought by

34932-425: The enemy. Small rectangular hatches, fitted with a vision slit, are further present to the front of each machine-gun. The main ventilation is provided by a large skylight slit running along the midline of the hull. It is doubly roofed with the lower roof having a second slit in its top, while the higher roof has open lower sides, creating oblique oblong ventilation channels through which fresh air can be sucked in from

35178-531: The exciting complex interactions with the newest and most fashionable merchandise and upscale customers. Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic (1870–1940), there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church in France among the republicans, monarchists and the authoritarians (such as the Napoleonists). The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in

35424-549: The expanding civic powers of the Republic. From that time onward, the Catholic clergy lost control of public education. To discourage the monarchists, the French Crown Jewels were broken up and sold in 1885. Only a few crowns were kept, their precious gems replaced by coloured glass. In 1889, the Republic was rocked by a sudden political crisis precipitated by General Georges Boulanger . An enormously popular general, he won

35670-492: The first order spoke of tracteurs Estienne , the factory designation of the tank was Schneider CA . The meaning of "CA" is uncertain. Later it was usually understood to mean Char d'Assaut , literally "chariot" and today the full French word for "tank". However, the "CA" part first surfaces in a Tracteur CA , as a next development step in 1916 after the Tracteur A (the lengthened Army prototype or L'appareil n° 1 Type A ), Tracteur B and Tracteur C . The term char d'assaut in

35916-402: The first time used in mass for a mobile counterattack in the Battle of Matz . Although most of the vehicles involved were of the Saint-Chamond type, two Schneider Groupements (II and III) also participated with seventy-five tanks. The French armour concentration, hitting the flank of the enemy penetration, succeeded in halting the German advance and Gneisenau was cancelled. The success came at

36162-518: The first trials. Brillié showed himself less than enthusiastic about the idea, objecting there would be not enough room on a tractor for both crew and armament. In February 1915, Quellennec was sent to an air force training base and tasked Fouché with trying to convince Brillié, without much apparent success. Meanwhile, the Schneider company had been given the order to develop heavy artillery tractors in January 1915. On 30 January it sent out its chief designer, Brillié, to investigate tracked tractors from

36408-436: The formation of the Vichy government . The French Third Republic was a parliamentary republic . The early days of the French Third Republic were dominated by political disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the French Third Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Social upheaval and the Paris Commune preceded the final defeat. The German Empire , proclaimed by

36654-441: The fortress of La Malmaison . The attack was supported by Groupement Chaubès , at the time consisting of AS 8, 11 and 12. Due to the losses in April, each AS now deployed twelve tanks. Including the supply vehicles the Schneider total numbered forty-one. The command vehicles of AS 11 and AS 12 were that day the first French tanks ever to use radio equipment in battle. The tanks did not play a decisive role in this action. Because of

36900-527: The fourth battery was normally a depot unit, intended to provide replacement vehicles and crews for the other three batteries. It had an official allotment of three tanks and the total matériel strength of an AS was thus fifteen. Actual operational strength varied wildly, due to frequent breakdowns. The personnel strength consisted of twelve officers — each commanding a tank of the three regular batteries — sixteen NCOs and 110 men of lower rank. In practice often four batteries of three tanks were fielded, to allow for

37146-439: The frontline and officially part of the warzone, could serve for final training and sending out battle-ready units to those armies needing them. The tank workshops were also located there, repairing and updating existing vehicles. The bases at Cercottes and Champlieu used about sixty-four tanks purely for training purposes, to limit the wear on the combat vehicles. The French Army did not intend to create an independent tank force;

37392-458: The frontline in the early afternoon, it had to assist the infantry in clearing the second trench of the last German remnants. These did not panic at the sight of the French tanks but had been trained to hide from them, leaving their cover to engage the French infantry when the armoured vehicles had moved on. At the end of the day, the French infantry proved unable to continue the offensive and the last surviving French tanks had to be withdrawn. More to

37638-411: The government from late March through May 1871. Paris workers and National Guards revolted and took power as the Paris Commune , which maintained a radical left-wing regime for two months until the Thiers government bloodily suppressed it in May 1871. The ensuing repression of the communards had disastrous consequences for the labour movement . The French legislative election of 1871 , held in

37884-433: The government which would come to evolve into the Third Republic. These representatives – predominantly conservative republicans – enacted a series of legislation which prompted resistance and outcry from radical and leftist elements of the republican movement. In Paris, a series of public altercations broke out between the Versailles-aligned Parisian government and the city's radical socialists. The radicals ultimately rejected

38130-506: The huge weapons were thwarted by massive Royal Air Force bombing raids, which made further attempts futile. Two smaller prototype versions of the gun were used during the Battle of the Bulge . During World War II, the British developed an experimental 13.5/8 inch hypervelocity gun named Bruce, which was deployed near St Margaret's in Kent among their cross-Channel guns . It was intended only for stratospheric experiments, primarily with smoke shells. These experiments were important in

38376-411: The hull and a single machine-gun turret; No 4 differed in having two machine-gun turrets and No 5 in having the gun moved to a turret. During discussions about these proposals, Estienne pointed out that the intended long 47 mm gun had not entered production yet and that no high performance explosive charge was available to give it a sufficient effect on soft targets. Therefore, he insisted on fitting

38622-457: The hull. Estienne had misgivings about this project, questioning its trench-crossing capacity and predicting engine power would be insufficient, given a weight that had by now reached 16.6 tonnes. Also he demanded a gun sight allowing some fire-on-the-move capability. Nevertheless, on 24 July the Consultative Committee of the Artillerie Spéciale decided that the four hundred vehicles of the Schneider Modèle 1917 ordered on 10 May 1917, were to be of

38868-404: The immediate left of the driver. The four cylinder, 135×170 9,753 cc, engine was specially built for the Schneider CA. It delivered a maximum output of 60 hp (45 kW) at 1,000 rpm . The three forward speed gearbox, as well as the differentials, which can be engaged by brakes on the half shafts to steer the tank, are all located on the rear axle. They are linked to the engine in the front by

39114-423: The immediate need for command vehicles was met by fitting two standard Schneider CAs with radio sets. On 29 December 1916 it was proposed to develop from the Schneider CA2 two light tank prototypes. Early 1917 it was suggested to construct some vehicles as flamethrower tanks by installing a flamethrowing device in two armoured turrets, one at the left front corner and the other at the right rear corner, each having

39360-412: The individual tanks within a training unit. Early 1917 the combat units used small inconspicuous playing-card symbols, each symbol indicating one of four batteries within a groupe . These were sprayed in white on the tank side, often combined with an individual tank number, depending on the style each groupe preferred. The tank number could also be indicated on the tank spur, by horizontal stripes. In

39606-517: The infantry at Liège, so several infantry assaults were made with heavy loss of life and generally little success. The guns arrived a few days later and reduced the forts at Liège one-by-one over a short period of a few days. Larger artillery after this opening period was generally limited to railway guns , which had much greater mobility, or naval monitors (two of the British Lord Clive class monitors were fitted with an 18-inch (457 mm) gun, and HMS General Wolfe fired 33 km (21 mi) at

39852-431: The infantry; together they would conquer the third and fourth trenches. The "strategic rupture" resulting from this and many adjoining attacks was to be exploited through deep penetrations by large reserve infantry armies, outflanking the Hindenburg Line from the south. Three Groupements were committed to the offensive. Two of these, named after their commanders Louis Bossut and Louis Léonard Chaubès, were attached to

40098-430: The initial infantry attacks largely failed, the tank attack was cancelled, also in view of the events the previous day. Despite the general failure of the Nivelle Offensive and the ensuing mutinies, French High Command in May 1917 tried to make use of the force concentration at the Aisne by at least conquering the notorious Chemin-des-Dames positions. Part of the plan was a limited but strategically important objective:

40344-519: The initiative to the anti-clerical, pro-republican "Dreyfusards", with strong support from intellectuals and teachers. It embittered French politics and facilitated the increasing influence of radical politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. The democratic political structure was supported by the proliferation of politicized newspapers. The circulation of the daily press in Paris went from 1 million in 1870 to 5 million in 1910; it later reached 6 million in 1939. Advertising grew rapidly, providing

40590-413: The inner space was compartmentalised, with an engine room, protruding behind the sprocket, at the back and the driver in front. The armour base was about sixteen to twenty millimetres. The first two proposals were probably identical to the April 1917 projects and discarded by the company as inferior. The last three, favoured by Schneider itself, were all turreted vehicles: design No 3 had a 47 mm gun in

40836-421: The invaders in Palace of Versailles , annexed the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort ) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle ). The early governments of the French Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occupant of the throne could not be resolved. Consequently,

41082-424: The issue of whether a monarchy should replace or oversee the republic dominated public debate. The elections of 1876 demonstrated strong public support for the increasingly anti-monarchist republican movement. A decisive Republican majority was elected to the Chamber of Deputies while the monarchist majority in the Senate was maintained by only one seat. President de MacMahon responded in May 1877, attempting to quell

41328-441: The latter's son Jacques Quellennec to adapt existing caterpillar tractors to the conditions of Egyptian and French farming, among them the Holt Model 75. In this context in 1914 contacts were made with engineer Eugène Brillié of Schneider & Co. to adapt the Castéran Flexible Track Tractor. When that year war broke out, Jacques Quellennec was drafted as an infantry sergeant, witnessed most men of his unit being slaughtered during

41574-409: The left and right of the lower hull rear. The lower profile of the tails is curved, allowing the vehicle to gradually raise itself above a trench floor, until its centre of gravity shifts over the edge causing its hull to suddenly tumble forward. The trench-crossing capacity is about 175 centimetres. The wading capacity is eighty centimetres. Two fuel gravity-feed reservoirs placed above the engine below

41820-486: The left and the right, each sprung by a vertical coil of narrow diameter, are connected to each other by means of a yoke-like transverse beam, itself attached to the hull bottom by two wide vertical coils springs, diminishing rolling and tilt when crossing rough terrain. Ground clearance is forty-one centimetres. There are five small return rollers. The six-spoked idler is attached to the front bogie and can thus move vertically to some degree. The sprocket, having twenty teeth,

42066-418: The limited range two fifty litre cans of petrol had been attached to the rear and some crews had even stowed a third one inside; sometimes explosive charges had been stowed outside; each tank had a bottle of ether to mix with the petrol to boost the engine and to enhance the fighting spirit three litres of strong liquor had been provided at the start of the battle. Also the personnel losses had been high: 180 of

42312-437: The longest-lasting system of government in France since the collapse of the Ancien Régime in 1789. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France and the overthrow of Emperor Napoleon III and his Second French Empire . After Napoleon's capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan (1 September 1870), Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as

42558-434: The meaning of "tank" was first applied by Estienne in October 1916. Sometimes a reversed order was used: Schneider AC. The combination with "char" was typically in the form of Char Schneider . A gun-towing tractor ( remorqueur ), based on the CA chassis and produced in 1918, was designated Schneider CD, and a prototype porteur variant of it, intended to carry a heavy artillery piece, the CD3. This would seem to indicate that

42804-419: The melting pot sought by Leo XIII where Catholics and moderate Republicans would unite to support a policy of tolerance and social progress. Its motto summarized its program: "Liberty for all; equality before the law; better conditions for the workers." However, the "old republicans" were few, and it did not manage to regroup all Catholics, as it was shunned by monarchists, Christian democrats, and Integrists . In

43050-425: The monarchy and the nation. Compromise on this was impossible, Chambord believed, if the nation were to be made whole again. The general population, however, was unwilling to abandon the Tricolour flag. Monarchists therefore resigned themselves to delay the monarchy until the death of the ageing, childless Chambord, then to offer the throne to his more liberal heir, the Comte de Paris. A "temporary" republican government

43296-492: The monarchy dominated the tenures of the first two presidents, Adolphe Thiers and Patrice de MacMahon , but growing support for the republican form of government among the French populace and a series of republican presidents in the 1880s gradually quashed prospects of a monarchical restoration. The Third Republic established many French colonial possessions , including French Indochina , French Madagascar , French Polynesia , and large territories in West Africa during

43542-445: The new Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle , ordered that priority should be given to the manufacture of the Schneider CD towing tractor. As a result, production fell from seventy tanks between 28 January and 27 February to sixty between the latter date and 28 March and only twenty additional vehicles were manufactured up to 12 April. By 15 March the Army had accepted 150 tanks; by 1 April 208, by 1 June 322. Then production almost came to

43788-477: The newspaper as their greatest enemy, especially when it took the lead in attacking Dreyfus as a traitor and stirring up anti-Semitism. After Dreyfus was pardoned, the Radical government closed down the entire Assumptionist order and its newspaper in 1900. Banks secretly paid certain newspapers to promote particular financial interests and hide or cover up misbehaviour. They also took payments for favourable notices in news articles of commercial products. Sometimes,

44034-432: The next, often in the same posts. The Dreyfus affair was a major political scandal that convulsed France from 1894 until its resolution in 1906, and then had reverberations for decades more. The conduct of the affair has become a modern and universal symbol of injustice. It remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice in which a central role was played by the press and public opinion. At issue

44280-531: The offensive role for which they had been created, the Schneider tanks could not be of much assistance to the itself also decimated French infantry. By 1 August 1918 the number of operational Schneider CA tanks had dropped to fifty. As production was halted that month, losses could not be replaced, whereas the intensified fighting resulted in a much-increased wear. As a consequence, effective levels remained low: forty vehicles on 1 September, sixty on 1 October, fifty-one on 1 November. Accordingly, in subsequent operations

44526-505: The older tanks had at this point yet received the new starter engine, this part of the improvement process would take until the end of the summer. The first combat actions showed that the fuel reservoirs were prone to explode when the vehicle was hit by an artillery round. To remedy this the reservoirs were replaced by fuel tanks with a double wall, using a felt filler layer to absorb gasoline leakages. Furthermore, these fuel tanks, each containing 80 L (21 US gal), were moved to

44772-414: The onlookers were General Philippe Pétain , and Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne — an artillery man and engineer held in very high regard throughout the army for his unmatched technological and tactical expertise. The results of the prototype tank were, at least according to Estienne, excellent, displaying remarkable mobility in the difficult terrain of the former battlefield of Souain . The length of

45018-431: The opportunity to participate in the newest, most fashionable consumerism at reasonable cost. The latest technology was featured, such as cinemas and exhibits of inventions like X-ray machines (that could be used to fit shoes) and the gramophone . Increasingly after 1870, the stores' work force became feminized , opening up prestigious job opportunities for young women. Despite the low pay and long hours, they enjoyed

45264-478: The order for the Schneider CA4 prototype was annulled. The new medium tank project had already been started on 15 August 1917 and strived for a technically advanced seventeen tonne vehicle armed with a shortened 75 mm gun and benefiting from a much improved mobility. It remained a paper project. Sometimes projects of a more general investigative nature considered to employ Schneider CA hulls. In January 1917, engineer Louis Boirault proposed an articulated tank,

45510-429: The original contract of 25 February 1916 it had been stipulated that all four hundred units would be delivered that same year: the first hundred by 25 August and the last by 25 November, completing the full order in nine months. Because Schneider had no experience in tracked armoured fighting vehicle production and a true pilot model was lacking, this was highly optimistic. Schneider company had expected to be able to employ

45756-402: The other major French arms producer, the Forges et Aciéries de la Marine et d'Homécourt , as a subcontractor but they had developed a heavier tank design, the Saint-Chamond tank. As a result, the first prototype could only be presented to the Ministry of Armament on 4 August. The Schneider subsidiary Société d'outillage mécanique et d'usinage d'artillerie (SOMUA) at Saint Ouen near Paris

46002-400: The outside. The top roof is the highest element of the vehicle. With later production vehicles, polluted air is removed through a broad ventilation grid in the nose, having a recessed armour plate below it. To the left and the right of the skylight roof rectangular escape hatches are present in the hull top. The vehicles were delivered by the factory painted in the standard grey colour used by

46248-468: The potential for a monarchist restoration. De MacMahon himself resigned on 30 January 1879 to be succeeded by the moderate Republican Jules Grévy . He promised that he would not use his presidential power of dissolution, and therefore lost his control over the legislature, effectively creating a parliamentary system that would be maintained until the end of the Third Republic. Following the 16 May crisis in 1877, Legitimists were pushed out of power, and

46494-430: The precise location of the shield and its shape. It was especially intended to signal to the infantry that it was safe to advance after the tank had neutralised all enemy machine-gun positions. Some improvements were studied but not applied. Simple ones included the introduction of track shoes with a chevron profile to improve grip. Also it was originally considered to use blocks of sodium peroxide ("oxylithe") to remove

46740-452: The press. Their younger staff members were drafted, and male replacements could not be found (female journalists were not considered suitable). Rail transportation was rationed and less paper and ink came in, and fewer copies could be shipped out. Inflation raised the price of newsprint, which was always in short supply. The cover price went up, circulation fell and many of the 242 dailies published outside Paris closed down. The government set up

46986-414: The production of an "offensive engine" to Minister of Armaments Albert Thomas . On the 18th Estienne was received by Joffre personally to clarify his ideas. In a letter to the ministry dated 31 January 1916 Joffre desired the production of four hundred tanks of the type suggested by Estienne. Although there had been a long prior development phase with the Schneider company, Estienne's decisive role in getting

47232-438: The progress achieved within French tank development, the designation "Schneider CA4" is used to indicate a design studied within the context of a larger order for two prototypes, weighing twenty tonnes and fitted with a cannon turret armed with the shortened 75 mm gun, and of which Schneider is unable to predict when the single prototype to be constructed would be finished, though deliveries could start in April 1918. A mock-up

47478-407: The provisional republican government in the city of Tours on the Loire river. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, and national elections were called to elect a new French government. French territories occupied by Prussia at the time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers head of

47724-451: The repair teams at the Musée des Blindés . This particular vehicle had been fitted with later upgrades, such as the fuel reservoirs located at its rear. The last surviving example of the artillery tractor variant of this vehicle is currently in the possession of the France 40 Association . Italy in the summer of 1918 formed its first tank unit, the Reparto speciale di marcia carri d'assalto , with one Schneider and three Renault FT tanks;

47970-416: The right front corner of the tank. The right side had been chosen because the gunner had to stand to the left of the barrel to operate the gun. The cannon type was developed from a 75 mm trench mortar that had been adapted to fire from a fixed fortification position by adding a recoil compensator and a gun shield; in this configuration it weighed 210 kg (460 lb). This short-barrelled cannon had

48216-423: The right front roof and nose plate, have a total capacity of 145 litres, and allow for a practical range of about fifty kilometres, though the official range is eighty kilometres. The suspension consists of seven double road wheels attached to two bogies , the one in front carrying three, the other four. The rear bogie is sprung by two vertical coil springs, the front one larger than the rear one. The front bogies of

48462-418: The roles of railroads, republican schools, and universal military conscription . He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military service documents and economic trends. Weber argued that until 1900 or so a sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas. Weber's scholarship

48708-416: The same mechanical components were used as with the Schneider CA, though often improved, and that the suspension was only partially changed: elongated by the addition of an eighth road wheel and using thirty-five instead of thirty-three wider, forty-five centimetres broad, track links. However, all were also significantly modernised: the hull overhang had disappeared, the hull front formed as a sloped wedge, and

48954-457: The sides of the tank in large hemispherical ballmounts, and resting on pintles . The right machine gun is, because of the room needed for the main gun, positioned more to the rear than the left one. The machine guns have a traverse of 106°, a depression of -45° and an elevation of 20°. A bin, in the extreme left corner, was for four thousand rounds of 8 mm ammunition. In 1918, in practice fifty belts, each of ninety-six rounds, were carried for

49200-410: The spring of 1917 existing vehicles were uparmoured (creating a surblindé version) by the army workshop at Champlieu . Some of these, such as a vehicle with series number 61213, were fitted with additional armour plates on the vertical front surfaces, including an extra rectangular shield around the gun barrel. On 1 April 1917 of the 208 tanks available only about a hundred had been retrofitted. None of

49446-406: The standard 75 mm field gun, even if this would raise weight to 14.5 tonnes. A week later Schneider presented proposal No 6, which envisaged a vehicle weighing fourteen tonnes and having a shortened 75 mm gun in the turret. On 5 July 1917 drawings were ready of the type, which was now called the Schneider CA3. However, these included an alternative version with a shortened 75 mm gun in

49692-483: The surface of the in itself firm chalkstone of the area very slippery and the terrain was rough, dotted with ruins and intersected by ravines and quarries. The majority of the vehicles were repaired during the night, but the soil had so deteriorated that only a single battery of four was deployed on the sixth. Nevertheless, the Schneiders had made a good account of themselves. Of thirty-three tanks engaged only five had been destroyed, three of them Schneiders. Casualties among

49938-458: The tank attack on the Moulin-de-Laffaux largely attained its objectives. The Schneiders, advancing not in column but "line abreast", exploited the initial infantry conquest of the first trench by crossing the second and then assisted the foot soldiers in heavy and fluid battles with counterattacking German reserves. Eventually most tanks broke down and had to be left behind by the advancing infantry. Salvaging them proved difficult as thunderstorms made

50184-458: The tank force: a successor medium tank type, the Schneider Modèle 1917, had been cancelled; the light Renault FT had not been produced in sufficient numbers yet, especially the 75 mm cannon version; and the Saint-Chamond was of limited utility, so the Schneiders had to provide the necessary fire-power. Their continued importance became obvious when the French plans were on 21 March, at which date 245 Schneider tanks were operational, disrupted by

50430-446: The tank needed to close within 200 m (660 ft) of a target for precision shooting. In its mounting the gun had a traverse of 60°, a depression of -10° and an elevation of 30°. The tank carried ninety rounds for the gun stowed vertically in bins to the right of the cannon (20), extreme right rear corner (14), left of the engine (32) and left rear corner (24). Secondary armement was two 8 mm Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns in

50676-422: The tank to ditch itself readily. The tank is 6.32 m (20 ft 9 in) long by 2.05 m (6 ft 9 in) wide and 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) high. There was no separation of the crew from the engine and transmission. The room available to the crew, illuminated by three small electric lights, is entered through a double door in the back of the tank and is extremely cramped. The crew consisted of

50922-403: The tank units would be part of the Artillery Arm, which was reflected in the organisational terminology. The basic units were officially called Groupes , but had the designation "AS", for Artillerie Spéciale . Each group consisted of four batteries, each battery again of four tanks. This would have resulted in a total of sixteen tanks and indeed this was the official organic strength of an AS, but

51168-431: The tank was not moving, and it was decided to equip the command tanks of two units, AS 11 and AS 12, with an Émitteur 10 ter radio set. Much more far-reaching were early proposals to fundamentally change the design, to be implemented during the production run. These were inspired by the awkward layout; in order to limit the width of the tank, the main armament had been placed in an inconvenient position. On 1 December 1916

51414-407: The tank. All-around protection was 11.4 mm (0.45 in) thick steel plate, later improved by a spaced armour of 5.4/5.5 mm, raising the weight from 12.5 to 13.5 tonnes. The roof was 5.5 mm (0.22 in) armour. The plates are partly riveted; the superstructure is largely bolted. The 60 hp Schneider gasoline engine and its radiator are located in the front part of the tank, to

51660-436: The tanks conquered a sector of the third trench, marking the high tide of the French progress during the entire Second Battle of the Aisne . The Schneiders then withdrew, again suffering losses by artillery fire. The Nivelle Offensive was a grave disappointment, demoralising the French troops and leading to the French Army Mutinies . The sense of failure extended to the Schneider tanks. Their losses had indeed been heavy: 76 of

51906-458: The tanks produced could be made of some use by letting them assist his planned offensive. Ultimately, the Germans learned of the French intentions so that strategic surprise was lost, allowing them to reinforce the threatened front sectors; nor was there a tactical surprise, as it had become known that French tanks existed and were about to be introduced. Three AS first assembled at the frontline near Beuvraignes in late March 1917, hoping to exploit

52152-458: The target by the driver-commander swivelling the entire vehicle. To facilitate this, a small rectangular frame is fitted on the right side of the nose of the tank. Looking through it, the driver had a sightline parallel to that of the cannon in a neutral position. In practice, the commander had too limited view of his surroundings through the small hatches to his left, front and right and had to put his head out of his rectangular top hatch to observe

52398-418: The technology was transmitted to the Ottoman army by one Orban , a Hungarian gunfounder, on the occasion of the Siege of Constantinople in 1453. The extant Dardanelles Gun, cast by the Ottoman gunfounder Ali several years later, is assumed to have followed closely the outline of Orban's guns. A similar super-sized bombard was employed by the Ottoman navy aboard a carrack of possibly Venetian design at

52644-553: The testing phase and the production run. The first included an improved cooling system and better ventilation to prevent and remove carbon monoxide fumes which otherwise threatened to asphyxiate the crew within an hour. To prevent dirt entering the chassis near the crank, at the bottom of the vehicle an armour plate was added. Later additions were a periscope sight, an exhaust pipe, and speaking tubes for internal communications. In 1917, to provide some modicum of communication with higher command levels and accompanying tanks or infantry,

52890-413: The third near Yuma, Arizona . HARP was later cancelled, and Bull turned to military designs, eventually developing the GC-45 howitzer . Some years later, Bull interested Saddam Hussein in funding Project Babylon . The objective of this project is not certain, but one possibility is that it was intended to develop a gun capable of firing an object into orbit , whence it could then drop onto any place on

53136-439: The tooling capable of producing them. This plan was abandoned after the heavy defeat of the Italian Army at the Battle of Caporetto . Its High Command now envisaged a far larger number of tanks, demanding the import or manufacture of about 1,500 Schneiders. After it had become clear that the French industry did not have the spare capacity to meet those demands and that they far out-reached the possibilities of domestic production, it

53382-562: The traffic jam, many were unable to even leave their own lines; many others broke down or got stuck in a marsh before reaching the enemy. Those that managed to engage however, effectively cooperated with the infantry. A ground fog largely hid the vehicles from enemy artillery and the spaced armour defeated German machine-gun Kerngeschoss -rounds. Losses were therefore low, with two tanks burnt and less than 10% personnel casualties. Six vehicles that had in May been abandoned at Moulin-de-Laffaux, could now be salvaged. Despite their modest contribution,

53628-457: The type could probably not be delivered before August 1918 anyway, too late for the summer offensives of that year, and that an improved medium tank design should be taken into development instead. The ultimate decision not to produce the Schneider CA3 was only taken in February 1918. On 19 January 1918 it was proposed that the preproduced CA3 components would be used to construct a further two hundred Schneider artillery tractors. On 3 November 1917

53874-505: The very beginning had been used as supply tanks, with the cannon removed and the hole plated over. Indeed, by the end of 1918, all surviving Schneider tanks had been given the destination of utility vehicles, although it is unknown to what extent and at what rate any rebuilding took place. On 1 December 1918 Groupements I and IV fused with Renault FT units and Groupement II and III, together with AS 9 from Groupement I , reformed into three new Groupements Lourds (I, II and III) equipped with

54120-457: The vision slits. To confuse them, in the summer of 1917 a cross-hatched scheme of narrow vertical and horizontal dark grey stripes was applied on top of the original patches. The stripes continued over the side machine gun ball mounts but a round area remained untouched to suggest a false position. The individual Schneider CA tanks had serial numbers ranging from 61001 to 61399. The first tactical markings consisted of simple numbers, to distinguish

54366-469: The war. The major postwar success story was Paris Soir , which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix of sensational reporting to aid circulation and serious articles to build prestige. By 1939, its circulation was over 1.7 million, double that of its nearest rival the tabloid Le Petit Parisien . In addition to its daily paper, Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire . Another magazine, Match ,

54612-405: Was an accident insurance law for workers in 1898, and in 1910, France created a national pension plan. Unlike Germany or Britain, the programs were much smaller – for example, pensions were a voluntary plan. Historian Timothy Smith finds French fears of national public assistance programs were grounded in a widespread disdain for the English Poor Law . Tuberculosis was the most dreaded disease of

54858-477: Was blatant anti-Semitism as practised by the French Army and defended by conservatives and Catholic traditionalists against secular centre-left, left and republican forces, including most Jews. In the end, the latter triumphed. The affair began in November 1894 with the conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus , a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent . He was sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to

55104-418: Was built of the Schneider CA3, and on 24 October the chassis was tested at SOMUA. During the summer however, Estienne and Pétain had become worried that the medium tank production might become an obstacle to the planned light tank mass production of the Renault FT . On 27 October the committee advised that the construction of the Schneider CA3 would be suspended in favour of light tank production. It argued that

55350-404: Was concluded that the suspension should be lengthened by the equivalence of three track links, about forty centimetres, and on 13 April 1917 a quick commencement of production was envisaged. In reality Estienne had already on 22 March decided to discontinue this project in favour of a Renault FT command ( signal ) version. The CA2 prototype was subsequently used as a training and test bed vehicle and

55596-413: Was converted and lined down to 205 mm (8.1 in), with the designation "8-inch sub-calibre Mark I". The barrel was 120 calibres long. Testing commenced in February 1919, but after only six rounds were fired a crack was discovered, and the gun was scrapped in 1928. A weapon of similar concept, the "8-inch sub-calibre Mark II", was converted from a 12-inch gun (either Mark XI, XI*, or XII), producing

55842-431: Was debated and postponed for 20 years before becoming law in 1902. Implementation finally came when the government realized that contagious diseases had a national security impact in weakening military recruits, and keeping the population growth rate well below Germany's. There is no evidence to suggest than French life expectancy was lower than that of Germany. The most important party of the early 20th century in France

56088-407: Was decided to produce the smaller, cheaper and more modern FIAT 3000 (a copy of the Renault FT) instead, three of which had been received in May 1918. During production, the type was gradually improved, which caused further delays. From the 245th vehicle onwards an automatic starter was installed, engaged by a handle, as the original manual system did not allow for a sufficiently quick response to

56334-411: Was essentially excluded from decisions of a technical nature. In January it was decided to manufacture a longer suspension. Schneider had, already before 9 December 1915, devised a system thirty centimetres longer with seven road wheels instead of five. Mourret ordered to build an alternative system. Two Baby Holt tractors, part of the order of fifteen by Schneider on 21 September 1915, and property of

56580-428: Was eventually cancelled. The Schneider CA 1 tanks were widely used in combat during the last war years. Their first action on 16 April 1917 was largely a failure, the tank units suffering heavy losses, but later engagements were more successful. In 1918 the Schneider tanks played an important role in halting the German spring offensive and breaking the German front in the French summer offensives. They were active until

56826-491: Was forbidden, and religious orders were forbidden to teach in them. Funds were appropriated from religious schools to build more state schools. Later in the century, other laws passed by Ferry's successors further weakened the Church's position in French society. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced, and chaplains were removed from the army. When Leo XIII became pope in 1878, he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884, he told French bishops not to act in

57072-414: Was insufficient in number to simultaneously sustain the creeping barrage and suppress the numerous German artillery batteries. This was aggravated by the German air superiority which allowed artillery observation planes to precisely direct German interdiction fire on the advancing French columns. Groupement Chaubès suffered many losses before it was even able to leave the French lines. When arriving at

57318-505: Was intended to be sold to the French Cavalry. Experiments on the Holt caterpillar tracks started in May 1915 at the Schneider plant with a 75 hp wheel-directed model and the 45 hp integral caterpillar Baby Holt , showing the superiority of the latter. The Castéran and the Killen-Strait Tractor were also tested but rejected. Work was now begun on an auto-mitrailleuse blindée à chenilles ("tracked armoured self-propelled machine gun"). On 16 June, new experiments followed in front of

57564-444: Was modelled on the photojournalism of the American magazine Life. France was a rural nation, and the peasant farmer was the typical French citizen. In his seminal book Peasants into Frenchmen (1976), historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern with a sense of national identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He emphasized

57810-541: Was only able to finish the first vehicle chassis on 5 September, which was delivered at the training centre at Marly on 8 September with the first Army tests carried out on 12 September. By the original deadline of 25 November just eight vehicles had been delivered; on 4 January 1917 thirty-two were present. To aggravate matters, these were training vehicles, not fitted with hardened armour but ordinary boiler plate. Late January production picked up, reaching three or four units per day. However, it soon slowed down again because

58056-451: Was perhaps only partly covered, including it in the ensemble; an alternative interpretation of the lightest patches seen in black-and-white photographs is that it represents a light green hue. Later, when the appliqué armour was added a much simpler scheme was used where the same hues were shown in large irregular areas, again demarcated in black. In the first combat actions, it became clear that German machine gunners concentrated their fire on

58302-420: Was pretended these were simple towing vehicles, tracteurs Estienne . The earlier order of 15 December for ten vehicles was hereby replaced. Fouché was ordered to improve the prototype, which resulted in a slightly changed L'appareil n° 1 Type B , tested on 2 March. Further changes, now including improvised side armour extending to the front in a bow, created the L'appareil n° 1 Type C or Machine Profilée which

58548-458: Was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Anatole France , Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau , and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont , the director and publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole . The new trial resulted in another conviction and

58794-408: Was stability. The workers' demands for strikes threatened such stability and pushed many Radicals toward conservatism. It opposed women's suffrage for fear that women would vote for its opponents or for candidates endorsed by the Catholic Church. It favoured a progressive income tax, economic equality, expanded educational opportunities and cooperatives in domestic policy. In foreign policy, it favoured

59040-412: Was tested on 17 March. On 27 February, Schneider had been asked to provide a first armoured superstructure made of boiler steel, which was late March placed on the eight-wheeled chassis. Pictures of this vehicle have often been presented in books as showing the "first Schneider CA prototype". However, this entire development line, even though its official order had been based on it, would not be ancestral to

59286-512: Was the Radical Party , founded in 1901 as the "Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party" ("Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste"). It was classically liberal in political orientation and opposed the monarchists and clerical elements on the one hand, and the Socialists on the other. Many members had been recruited by the Freemasons. The Radicals were split between activists who called for state intervention to achieve economic and social equality and conservatives whose first priority

59532-429: Was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire ; it extended over 13,500,000 km (5,200,000 sq mi) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. In terms of population however, on the eve of World War II, France and its colonial possessions totaled only 150 million inhabitants, compared with 330 million for British India alone. Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in

59778-498: Was therefore established. Chambord lived on until 1883, but by that time, enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded, and the Comte de Paris was never offered the French throne. Following the French surrender to Prussia in January 1871, concluding the Franco-Prussian War , the transitional Government of National Defence established a new seat of government at Versailles due to the encirclement of Paris by Prussian forces. New representatives were elected in February of that year, constituting

60024-436: Was unable to follow, forcing the tanks to wait for the arrival of reserve units. For several hours the tanks moved up and down the conquered terrain to avoid presenting static targets for the German artillery. Despite this many vehicles were hit, as they were in plain sight of German batteries on the surrounding hills. Flank assaults by Bavarian stormtroopers were repulsed. In the early evening, fresh infantry units together with

60270-408: Was widely praised, but was criticized by some who argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before 1870. Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in Paris in 1838, and by 1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments inside one building." Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees that allowed exchanges and refunds. By the end of the 19th century, Georges Dufayel ,

60516-409: Was withdrawn before it could be used. Development might have continued but for the ever-increasing Allied air power, which limited Hitler 's options in terms of re-opening bombing attacks on London . This led to the development of the V-3 "London Gun" or " Hochdruckpumpe ", fired from Mimoyecques in the Pas de Calais , about 95 miles (153 km) away. Two attempts to build underground bunkers for

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