Mark Urban

I mean, they don't want to spend more money on weapons.

The British adopt the 10-year rule, so-called.

Oh, we'll have at least 10 years warning if we have to rearm for another war.

Everybody cuts the money, quite understandably, under the circumstances.

You know, they're sailing into the Great Depression.

They need the money for other things.

And, yeah, so that brings about a really aggravated competition for resources.

Now, in some armies, like the U.S.

Army, pretty soon after the First World War, just completely disbands its tank corps.

It just thinks, well, we don't really need these and the cavalry can keep some, but we don't really need them.

And in many other places, there's no tendency to invest money in it.

But there are these people, these theorists like Boney Fuller.

He was a British colonel, later major general, who had been the chief of staff of the tank corps in the First World War.

And some others in other armies who think, well, no, hang on a minute.

We demonstrated that a tank can break through.

Now, those tanks...

that were in the First World War, the two that feature particularly in my book, the British Mark IV and the French Renault FT, they could only go maybe 20, 25 miles on a tank of gas.

And then they'd run out of fuel because they were only designed to go a very short distance.

But then those theorists started thinking, well, hang on a minute, once you've made the hole in the front line,

What if you just kept driving?