Ernest Swinton

Major-General Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, (21 October 1868 – 15 January 1951) was a British Army officer who played a part in the development and adoption of the tank during the First World War. He was also a war correspondent and author of several short stories on military themes. He is credited, along with fellow officer Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Dally Jones, with having initiated the use of the word "tank" as a code-name for the first tracked, armoured fighting vehicles.

Early life and career

Swinton was born in Bangalore, India, in 1868. His father was a judge with the Madras Civil Service. The family returned to England in 1874, and Swinton was educated at University College School, Rugby School, Cheltenham College, Blackheath Proprietary School, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers on 17 February 1888. Serving in India, he was promoted to lieutenant on 17 February 1891, and to captain on 17 February 1899.

He served as a captain during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and returned home in September 1902, two months after the end of the war. For his service, he received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in the September 1901 South African Honours list (the order was dated 29 November 1900). Although principally concerned with railway construction, he took a keen interest in tactics, fortifications, and the effectiveness of modern weaponry, especially the recently introduced machine-gun. After the war, he wrote his book on small unit tactics, ''The Defence of Duffer's Drift'', a military classic on minor tactics that has been used by the Canadian Army, Canadian and British Army, British Armies to train their Non-commissioned officer, NCOs and officers, and by US military to train its officers. In the years leading up to the First World War, he served as a staff officer and as an official historian of the Russo-Japanese War.

First World War

The War Minister, Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, appointed Swinton as the official British war correspondent on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front. Journalists were not allowed at the front, and Swinton's reports were censored leading to an effectively uncontroversial although even-handed reporting.

Development of tanks

Swinton recounts in his book ''Eyewitness'' how he first got the sudden idea to build a tank on 19 October 1914, while driving a car in France. It is known that in July 1914 he received a letter from a friend, a mining engineer named Hugh F. Marriott whom he had met while in South Africa. Marriott occasionally sent Swinton news of technical developments that might have a military application, and his letter described a machine he had seen in Antwerp, an American-made Holt tractor, Holt Caterpillar Tractor. He suggested that the machine might be useful for transport, and Swinton passed the information on to several military and political figures who he thought might be interested. At the time, with no apparent prospect of war, the idea seemed to be a matter only of transport efficiency, and Swinton forgot about the matter. The idea of a caterpillar track as the basis for a fighting vehicle occurred to him only as he drove from Saint-Omer, St. Omer to Calais on the morning of 19 October.

In UK, Britain, David Roberts (engineer), David Roberts of Richard Hornsby & Sons had attempted starting in 1911 to interest British military officials in a tracked vehicle, but failed. Benjamin Holt of the Holt Manufacturing Company bought the patents related to the "chain track" track-type tractor from Richard Hornsby & Sons in 1914 for £4,000. When World War I broke out, with the problem of trench warfare and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of Continuous track, crawling-type tractors drew the attention of the military. The British War Office conducted trials with Holt tractors at Aldershot but saw them only as suitable for towing heavy artillery.
Major Swinton was sent to France as an army war correspondent. In November 1914 he suggested to Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the construction of a bullet-proof, tracked vehicle that could destroy enemy machine guns.

In July 1915, Swinton was given a prominent post in the War Office and became aware of the Landship Committee, which was entirely under the control of British Admiralty, Admiralty; he formed a working friendship with its secretary, Albert Gerald Stern. Swinton was able to persuade the prime minister to call an inter-departmental conference on 28 August 1915, which ensured the army's cooperation with the Landship Committee's work and it was Swinton who drew up the specifications of the performance which the army would require.

In 1916 Swinton was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and given responsibility for training the first tank units. He created the first tactical instructions for armoured warfare. The Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors decided after the war that the inventors of the tank were Sir William Tritton, managing director of William Foster & Co., Fosters and Major Walter Gordon Wilson; however, Swinton was awarded £1,000 for his contribution. By 1918, the War Office had received 2,100 Holt tractors.

In April 1918, while on a tour of the US, Swinton visited Stockton, California, Stockton, California to publicly honour Benjamin Holt and the company for their contribution to the war effort and to relay Britain's gratitude to the inventor. Benjamin Holt was recognised by the General at a public meeting held in Stockton.

Post-war

In 1919 Swinton retired as a Major General. He subsequently served in the Civil Aviation department at the Air Ministry. He thereafter joined Citroën in 1922 as a director. He was Chichele Professor of Military History at the University of Oxford and a Oxbridge Fellow, fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1939; he was also a Colonel Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps from 1934 to 1938. In 1938, he edited ''Twenty Years After: the Battlefields of 1914–18: then and Now'', a publication of George Newnes Limited. This was planned for issue in 20 parts but ultimately amounted to 42. The magazine-style publication contained wartime and present-day (ca. 1938) images of France.

Family life

Swinton married Grace Louise Clayton in 1897 and they had two sons and a daughter. His daughter died in a road accident during the Second World War."Maj.-Gen. Sir Ernest Swinton." Times [London, England] 17 January 1951: 6. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 5 August 2012. Swinton died in Oxford on 15 January 1951.

Honours and awards

*DSO : Distinguished Service Order, Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) – ''29 November 1900'' – in recognition of services during operations in South Africa.
*CB : Order of the Bath, Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) – ''12 February 1917'' – in recognition of services during the war.
* KBE : Order of the British Empire, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire – ''2 June 1923'' – in the King's Birthday Honours.
* Legion of Honour, Croix de Chevalier of the Legion of Honour – ''1916'' – in recognition of distinguished service during the campaign

Works

''Eyewitness : Being Personal Reminicsences of Certain Phases of the Great War, Including the Genesis of the Tank
' (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1932)

See also

* Clan Swinton

References

Bibliography

* Swinton, Ernest (under the pseudonym "Lieutenant Backsight Forethought")
''The Defence of Duffer's Drift''
Oxford: United Service Magazine, 1905; Originally published in April 1905 in "The British Infantry Journal", .
* Swinton, Ernest (as editor)
''The Truth About Port Arthur''
London: Murray, 1908
* Swinton, Ernest (as editor)
''The Russian Army and the Japanese War, Vol. I''
New York: Dutton, 1909
* Swinton, Ernest (as editor)
''The Russian Army and the Japanese War, Vol. II''
New York: Dutton, 1909
* McClure's Magazine (two articles under the pseudonym "Ole Luk-Oie")
''Link''
1910
* Swinton, Ernest (under the pseudonym "Ole Luk-Oie")
''The Green Curve''
New York: Doubleday, 1914, and as an added bonus, hi
''obituary''

* Swinton, Ernest (under the pseudonym "Ole Luk-Oie")
''The Great Tab Dope''
Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1916
* Swinton, Ernest
''Tanks''
1918, reprinted from "The Strand Magazine".
* ''The Study of War'' (1926)
* Swinton, Major-General Sir Ernest D.

London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1932 (includes the genesis of the tank)
* ''Over My Shoulder'' (1951, posthumously)
also:
* (translation) ''An Eastern Odyssey: The Third Expedition of Haardt and Audion-Dubreuil'' (1935)

External links

* Internet Archive (Please create a free account to view the footnotes and references above)
''Link''


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{{DEFAULTSORT:Swinton, Ernest Dunlop
1868 births
1951 deaths
Military personnel of British India
British Army major generals
Military personnel from Bangalore
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
Companions of the Order of the Bath
History of the tank
Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
British Army generals of World War I
Royal Engineers officers
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British war correspondents
People educated at University College School
British military historians
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Chichele Professors of the History of War
People educated at Blackheath Proprietary School
Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur