Despite the advent of never-before-seen weaponry in WWI, nothing could move the lines along the Western Front as the “hunker down” defensive tactics offset any offensive onslaught.
In February 1915, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of Admiralty at the time, commissioned the “Landships Committee” to create an armored tracked vehicle for land use. Interestingly, the term “landship” was derived from “battleship” due to apparent parallels. British Army Col. Ernest Swinton and Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defense William Hankey came up with the concept of taking armored vehicles and fitting them with rotating belted tracks that could easily roll up and over any obstacle — including barbed wire.
Churchill agreed but wanted the project to be kept on the down-low. Even production workers doing the building were told the vehicles would be used as “water tanks” to carry sustenance to troops in the field. Thus, the name tank was born.
By July 1915, an early prototype was developed, which took the body of an existing armored car and slapped it on top of a Killen-Strait agricultural tractor. Several more tweaks were made, and by fall, the Armoured Car Division of the Royal Naval Air Service rolled out the Lincoln Machine, nicknamed “Little Willie” to poke fun at the German Imperial Crown Prince Wilhelm.