In September 1914, British and French infantry formations were decimated by machine-gun fire at the Battle of the Aisne. It was clear that innovation was needed to avert such disasters.

Over the next two years, the British designed, developed and introduced a machine-gun destroyer, known as the tank, which was used for the first time in September 1916 on the Somme battlefield.

In this fascinating talk, Stephen Pope will highlight how tank tactics were initially developed by Colonel Ernest Swinton in February 1916, refined by the staff of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1916 and utilised during the tank’s debut at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.

Stephen Pope is a retired British Army officer, military historian and author. It was in 2003, during a battlefield tour to France, that Stephen first learned about the tank’s debut at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette and the role played by men of the Army Service Corps and the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps.

Leaving the Army after 39 years, he pursued his interest in tanks. He began writing about the history of tank crews and aided in the tank centenary celebrations in France in September 2016.

Tank Tactics in 1916