page_title: Schneider CA1
section_title: The Souain experiment
hierarchical_section_title: Schneider CA1 / Development / The Souain experiment
caption_attribution_description: Slovenčina: 17 mars 1916, essais de la machine Fouché n°1C à Vincennes.
context_page_description: The Schneider CA 1 was the first French tank, developed during the First World War.
  The Schneider was inspired by the need to overcome the stalemate of trench warfare which on the Western Front prevailed during most of the Great War. It was designed specifically to open passages for the infantry through barbed wire and then to suppress German machine gun nests. After a first concept by Jacques Quellennec devised in November 1914, the type was developed from May 1915 onwards by engineer Eugène Brillié, paralleling British development of tanks the same year. Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne in December 1915 began to urge for the formation of French armoured units, leading to an order in February 1916 for four hundred Schneider CA tanks, which were manufactured by SOMUA, a subsidiary of Schneider located in a suburb of Paris, between September 1916 and August 1918.
  Like most early tanks, the Schneider was built like a simple armoured box, without compartmentalisation of the inner space. It lacked a turret, with the main armament, a short 75 mm cannon, in a sponson on the right side. By later standards it would therefore have been an assault gun instead of a tank.
context_section_description: On 9 December 1915 in the Souain experiment, a Schneider prototype armoured tank, a Baby Holt chassis with boiler-plate armour, was demonstrated to the French Army. Among the onlookers were General Philippe Pétain, and Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne — an artillery man and engineer held in very high regard throughout the army for his unmatched technological and tactical expertise. The results of the prototype tank were, at least according to Estienne, excellent, displaying remarkable mobility in the difficult terrain of the former battlefield of Souain. The length of the Baby Holt however appeared to be too short to bridge German trenches, justifying the development of longer caterpillar tracks for the French tank project.  For Estienne the vehicle shown embodied concepts about armoured fighting vehicles which he had been advocating since August 1914.  Already on 1 December Estienne had proposed to the French GHQ the use of tracked armoured tractors to move infantry, equipment and cannon over the battlefield, having performed some trials with British caterpillar tractors. On 11 December Estienne let a certain lieutenant Thibier draw a sketch of two conceptions: the one of a Baby Holt chassis fitted at the front and the back with auxiliary rollers, to improve the trench-crossing capacity; the other of an elongated suspension protected by side armour.
caption: The Souain prototype crossing a trench, on 9 December 1915.
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