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The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was a battle within the Franco-British Somme Offensive which took place in the summer and autumn of 1916. Launched on 15 September 1916 the battle went on for one week. Flers–Courcelette began with the objective of cutting a hole in the German line by using massed artillery and infantry attacks. This hole would then be exploited with the use of cavalry. It was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army during the Battle of the Somme. By its conclusion on 22 September, the strategic objective of a breakthrough had not been achieved; however tactical gains were made in the capture of the villages of Courcelette, Martinpuich and Flers. In some places, the front lines were advanced by over by the Allied attacks. The battle is significant for the first use of the tank in warfare. It also marked the debut of the Canadian and New Zealand Divisions on the Somme battlefield. ==The debut of the tank== (詳細はLandships Committee with the objective of developing an armoured vehicle that would break the deadlock of trench warfare. Under the highest degrees of secrecy the 'tank', as it later became known, was designed and built with the first prototype of the Mark I rolled out in January 1916. Just less than six months after its first tests, General Sir Douglas Haig had wanted to launch the first mass tank attack on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. However, the manufacturers could not have the tanks ready in time for the first attacks on 1 July. Two and a half months later, as Flers–Courcelette was being planned, the tanks were delivered and Haig had General Sir Henry Rawlinson, his subcommander in charge of 4th Army (the troops that would carry out the attack), incorporate them into his battle plans. From the beginning the tanks were challenged by having to traverse the heavily upset terrain of the Somme battlefield while still beset with numerous mechanical failings and manned by crews that had had little training in their operation. Nonetheless, the decision was taken to send the 49 tanks that were available into battle on 15 September. He was warned against this by the engineers who were responsible for the creation of the tank and his subcommanders, such as Ernest Dunlop Swinton (who had been part of the Landships Committee), and the French government, which sent Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne and Sub-secretary of State of Inventions Jean-Louis Bréton (who were normally arch-enemies), to London, hoping to persuade the British government to overrule Haig. The primary concern of those who did not want the tank used was that they wanted it kept secret until they could be massed in larger numbers and be more likely to lead to a major breakthrough. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Flers–Courcelette」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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