Tank crushing it's way through barbed wire
during training before the battle of Cambrai 
With kind permission of Imperial War Museum ©IWM (Q6424)

The use of tanks as a weapon of modern warfare began on the western front during WW1. Their advantage was that they could mow down and break through the barbed wire which presented such a formidable obstacle to the movement of infantry. They could also go across trenches by carrying ‘fascines’ – rolls of brushwood which they dumped in a trench, forming a rough bridge enabling a tank to ride over.

‘Deborah’ is a British Mark IV tank which saw service in Flesquieres during the Battle of Cambrai on November 20, 1917.

This is the story of Sir William Hugh Stobart Chance (in his own words), educated at Eton College and commissioned in to the Worcestershire Regiment in 1915.