Chapter XXVIII: Fate is Not Without a Sense of Irony.
With a set of objectives now decided proper strategic decisions could be made, the easiest of which was too concentrate on the North Africa theatre, Lieutenant General Barker being left to conduct a holding operation in East Africa until the Smuts Mission arrived. In North Africa General Gort, pleased as any commander that his theatre would receive priority, was left grappling with the issue that had dogged the campaign since the beginning; Mobility, specifically his troops lack of it. This was not an army problem, the gap that would be left by the phasing out of mounted units had been identified in the 1920s, it was a political one.
In the aftermath of the Great War defence expenditure was naturally wound down, there was no need for Britain to retain a standing army in the millions nor for the fleet to continue laying down new tonnage at the same rate. To control the defence estimates then Secretary of State for War in 1919 had formulated the "Ten Year Rule" which stated that spending should be planned on the assumption that the British Empire would not be involved in a large scale war in the following ten years. In the immediate aftermath of the Great War this was a common assumption, it was believed that the huge losses incurred by every combatant would act as a brake on aggression by the great powers. In the years following this decision defence spending was pared to the bone as the treasury's axe fell on every aspect of the services, headline spending falling over 75% within two years as the rule was rolled over and the ten year point extended each budget. By 1928 the same man, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, decided the roll over was to be automatic and decreed the Ten Year Rule was in force unless deliberately countermanded.
Ramsay MacDonald, tried to abolish the Ten Year rule but was vetoed by his Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson.
This policy was continued in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government, despite MacDonald himself pressing for it's abolition and was retain until the National Government cabinet of late 1931 which put a new man into No.11. This man formally abandoned the Ten Year Rule and, although not dramatically increasing investment, made available funding for some procurement, so as to keep the British defence industry from closing down due to the depression. The new man also started the Rationalisation programme whereby mines and factories closed during the Depression were purchased by the Crown, modernised and re-equipped if possible, demolished and re-built if necessary and then kept in mothballs for future needs. Prior to the December 1935 election this most forward looking Chancellor was putting the finishing touches to the 'Shadow Factory' scheme, providing for parallel facilities at the major industrial sites of the country, enabling production to be rapidly ramped up when the economy was strong enough to allow an increase in defence spending and providing jobs and training in the meantime. There can be little doubt it was only the modern Rationalised factories and the pre-built Shadow Factories that enabled British industry to so rapidly get up the speed needed to keep the forces in North Africa supplied.
The name of the first man, the force behind the crippling Ten Year Rule? The feted voice of rearmament Winston Churchill. The second man, who had prepared Britain economically for war? The much maligned Neville Chamberlain. The cruel irony of fate indeed.
When put against this economic backdrop the reason for Gort's forces lack of mobility become clear. while the two 'M's of modernisation and mechanisation cropped up in every War Office briefing given and specification issued there was not the budget to implement these policies. The phasing out of mounted units for instance had been carried out for the cost savings, not because of the policy of mechanisation, and the faithful following of the 'Ten Year Rule' throughout the 1920s had strangled the many replacement projects of investment; The Tank Design Bureau had been closed in 1923 while the Experimental Mechanised Force established in 1927 had not the money to fully equip itself, let alone conduct exercises to develop tactics.
On the equipment side, development and procurement had been pared to the bone across the board, but it had hit the cavalry particularly hard. Deprived of their horses on the altar of cost savings and modernisation it soon became apparent the treasury would not fund the development, let along procurement, of significant new mechanised equipment. Forced to work closely with the Royal Armoured Corps, home of the mechanised units, just to equip themselves relations were strained between the senior officers of the two branches. The Cavalry still resented being forced to dismount and mechanise and naturally disliked the most visible symbol of mechanisation, fully armoured units. For the Royal Armoured Corps it was a matter of self preservation, the political clout of the Cavalry was immense due to the sheer number of ex-Cavalry men in the War Office and Parliament. Already fighting for funding the prospect of sharing with an angry, politically connected and, in their opinion, old-fashioned branch was not a prospect any tanker looked forward too.
The most prominent victim of this lack of co-operation was the Vickers 6-ton tank, also know as the Mark E, by the Army Review Board, ostentatiously due to concerns over the leaf spring suspension, in practice a victim of inter-branch rivalry ensuring that the cavalry's favoured Carden Loyd tankettes not the Royal Armoured Corps' preference was procured. While there is little doubt that the Carden Loyd enjoyed great export success and was copied wholesale by many nations it was still a tankette. Carrying no main gun, only a 0.50' machine gun, and thinly armoured they were no match for a real tank and could easily be disable by concentrated machine gun fire. It's only advantage was it low cost enabling countries to develop 'armoured' corps at a fraction of the cost of a proper tank unit.
The Vickers Mark E. Type A, the original twin-turret version. A fundamentally solid design in many variants, and with a range of guns, turrets and engines, it would be used by main nations but would never find success in it's native country, a victim of inter-service rivalries.
The shortage of modern equipment was matched by the lack of practised doctrines, though deprived of funding development continued but at a smaller, unofficial, scale, General Wilson's motor-rifle battalions at Camberley and Brigadier Hobart's work at the Royal Armoured Corps' depot being the most prominent. The problem was that this work was mainly theoretical, large scale exercises placed too much strain on the limited budget and in any case there weren't enough units to conduct more than the smallest exercises.
The practical upshot for Gort was that he had no mounted units to send off in pursuit and his few armoured units were equipped with either ancient Vicker's Mediums MkIIs or the newest Carden Loyd Light MkVIs. The former were too slow, the latter scout and reconnaissance units. More to the point even if there had been any effective tanks to send all the trucks in the theatre were needed to consolidate the overstretched supply lines, denying any pursuit force of infantry support which was considered unacceptably risky. The only unit which met the Gort's demands for speed, mobility and fire-power, the ad-hoc WILFORCE, was barely two battalions strong, fine for small raids or diversionary thrust, ridiculously inadequate to pursue a whole army. While the recriminations over the lack of any unit capable of high speed pursuit would last long after the war, that was of little help to the planners of Operation Templar who once again had to think unconventionally.