Naturally the German Army and the German public had by this time begun to ask why the German Command was not itself better equipped with tanks before the opening of the Allied offensive.  The answer seems to be, first of all, that they were originally thought little of, as “a British idea.”  “The use of 300 British tanks at Cambrai,” says a German document, “was a ‘battle of material.’  The German Higher Command decided from the very outset not to fight a ’battle of material.’” They preferred instead their habitual policy of “massed attack”—­using thereby in the fighting line a number of inferior men, “classified as fit for garrison or labour duties,” but who, if they “can carry a rifle, must fight.”  The German Command were, therefore, “not in a position to find the labour for the construction of new and additional material such as tanks.”  For the initial arrogance, however, which despised the tanks, and for the system which had prevented him from building them in time, when their importance was realised, the enemy was soon plunged in bitter but unavailing regrets.  All he could do was to throw the blame of failure on the Allies’ new weapon, and to issue despairing appeals to his own troops.  The Allies were sometimes stated to have captured such and such a place “by the use of masses of tanks,” when, as a matter of fact, very few tanks had been used.  And this convenient excuse, as it appeared in the official communiques, began soon to have some strange and disastrous results.  The German regimental officer began to think that as soon as tanks appeared, it was a sufficient reason for the loss of a position.  For the German Army last year might be divided into three categories:  “A small number of stout-hearted men (chiefly machine-gunners), who could be depended on to fight to the last; men who did not intend to fight, and did intend to put up their hands on the first occasion; and, thirdly, the ‘great middle class,’ who were prepared to do their duty, and had a sense of discipline, but who could not be classed as heroes....  It was they who came to consider that when tanks arrived, ‘there was nothing to be done.’”

Moreover, the failure of the German Higher Command to produce tanks themselves to fight those of the Allies had a very serious effect, not only on the faith of the troops in their generals, but also on the morale of the public at home.  German war correspondents and members of the Reichstag began to ask indignant questions, and the German War Office hurriedly defended itself in the Reichstag.  As late as October 23rd General Scheuch, the German War Minister, declared:  “We have been actively engaged for a long period in producing this weapon (which is recognised as important) in adequate numbers.”  It seems to be true that efforts were then being made, but not true that these efforts were of long standing.  “Altogether ‘slowness’ was the keynote throughout of the German attitude towards the tank idea.”  He neither appreciated their true use nor the best means of fighting them; and even when we presented him with derelict tanks, as was soon the case on the Ancre in 1916, he failed to diagnose the creature accurately.