page_title: Schneider CA1
section_title: The 1918 battles
hierarchical_section_title: Schneider CA1 / Operational history / Actions / The 1918 battles
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Tanks in einem Feldbahnhof
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: French command considered to launch large-scale summer offensives in 1918, benefiting from a grown number of AFVs. At this point of the war, less than a year after their first employment, the Schneider tanks were already considered obsolete. They nevertheless still formed an essential part of the tank force: a successor medium tank type, the Schneider Modèle 1917, had been cancelled; the light Renault FT had not been produced in sufficient numbers yet, especially the 75 mm cannon version; and the Saint-Chamond was of limited utility, so the Schneiders had to provide the necessary fire-power. Their continued importance became obvious when the French plans were on 21 March, at which date 245 Schneider tanks were operational, disrupted by the German Spring Offensive, a massive infantry onslaught made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk allowing Germany to shift the bulk of its forces to the Western Front. In April there were minor counterattacks at the Somme by a small number of Schneider tanks: five vehicles on the 5th at Sauvillers-Mongival, six on the 7th at Grivesnes, and twelve on the 18th at the Bois de Sénécat, west of Castel. On 28 May, also at the Somme, twelve vehicles (AS 5) supported an American Expeditionary Forces attack in the Battle of Cantigny, the first time in history American troops cooperated with tanks. At first the German offensive was largely directed against the British Expeditionary Force but when this ultimately failed to produce the desired decisive breakthrough, late May the Germans turned in force on the French in the Third Battle of the Aisne. The German advance threatened the Champlieu base, which was abandoned, severely disrupting repair and maintenance. Early June the offensives had created a large French salient around Compiègne and Erich Ludendorff decided to reduce it in Operation Gneisenau. Soon for the French the situation became critical as a German success would open the way to Paris. On 11 June, tanks were for the first time used in mass for a mobile counterattack in the Battle of Matz. Although most of the vehicles involved were of the Saint-Chamond type, two Schneider Groupements (II and III) also participated with seventy-five tanks. The French armour concentration, hitting the flank of the enemy penetration, succeeded in halting the German advance and Gneisenau was cancelled. The success came at a price however: thirty-five Schneiders were lost. In the west of the salient on 9 July a small local counterattack took place named after the Porte and Des Loges farms, which was supported by about fifteen Schneider tanks of AS 16 and AS 17.
  On 15 July the Germans began their last large 1918 offensive, attacking Rheims in the Second Battle of the Marne. Soon their advance faltered and they found themselves in a very vulnerable situation, with overextended supply lines and exhausted troops lacking well-entrenched positions. On 18 July French and American divisions, cooperating with a large number of tanks, started a major offensive, the Battle of Soissons, in which for the first time since 1914 Entente forces on the Western Front succeeded in making substantial progress, reducing the entire German salient created in the Third Battle of the Aisne. In the operation three Schneider Groupements (I, III and IV) participated with 123 vehicles, the second largest deployment of the type during the war. The battle was a strategic disaster for the Germans, leading to the disintegration of a large part of their forces and initiating a period of almost continuous retreats. Although now at last the conditions were favourable to fulfil the offensive role for which they had been created, the Schneider tanks could not be of much assistance to the itself also decimated French infantry. By 1 August 1918 the number of operational Schneider CA tanks had dropped to fifty. As production was halted that month, losses could not be replaced, whereas the intensified fighting resulted in a much-increased wear. As a consequence, effective levels remained low: forty vehicles on 1 September, sixty on 1 October, f
caption: Schneider tanks, here with the later cross-hatched camouflage, were mostly transported by rail
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