Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 12 June 1933, page 9


WAR TANK. j

An Austrian Invention, s

REJECTED IN 1911. |

LONDON. June 0. (

The military correspondent of the "Daily

Telegraph" says:-"Some of the generals of ; the 'Teutonic Alliance' are now belatedly lamenting the fact that military conserva-tism lost them the best chance of winning

the Great War, as they might have been 1 equipped with tanks from the outset. It ls just revealed that an Austrian military rail-way officer Invented a tank and offered lt to the Austrian War Office in 1911. It weighed

about four tons, and mounted a four-centi- ' metre quick-firing gun on an armour-plated

motor lorry. It moved on wheels on the roads ( and on caterpillar wheels when travelling across country. The Austrian War Office rejected the invention in December, 1911.

"It ls not generally known that an Aus-tralian, Corporal Lancelot E. de Mole, In 1912 offered the British War Office a tank superior to those we at first used In the war. His design was pigeon-holed and was only un-earthed afterwards. ,

"General Kirchname, an Austrian, reveal- ! lng the 1911 invention, says that the Central

Powers, with their heads buried In the sand. : failed to see a trump card available." ;

[Corporal de Mole was officially credited in ' England with being the Inventor of a tank which anticipated and in some respects sur-

passed that actually put into use in 191Q. but , he received no monetary reward for his In- , vention.J I