The first three brigadiers of the Corps were all remarkable men. Brigadier-General C. D’A. B. S. Baker-Carr, C.M.G., D.S.O., commanding the 1st Tank Brigade, started the war as a gentleman chauffeur, a most cheery companion, the Murat of the Corps, ever ready for a battle or a game. I remember him at Montenescourt, during the battle of Arras 1917, fighting with the telephone, at Ypres fighting with the mud, at Cambrai fighting with a comfortable, vacant, rotund little man, but ever cheerful and prepared to meet you with a smile and a glass of old brandy. Commanding the 2nd Tank Brigade was Brigadier-General A. Courage, D.S.O., M.C. He possessed only half a jaw, having lost the rest at Ypres; yet at conferences he was a host in himself, and what a “pow-wow” must have been like before the Boche bullet hit him is not even to be found in the works of the great Munchausen. No detail escaped his eye, no trouble was too great, and no fatigue sufficient to suggest a pause. The successes of Hamel and Moreuil in 1918 were due to his energy, and on these successes was the battle of Amiens founded. The last of the original Brigadiers was Brigadier-General J. Hardress-Lloyd, D.S.O., commanding the 3rd Tank Brigade. He started the war as a stowaway. This resulted in no one ever discovering what his substantive rank was; by degrees a myth as to his origin was cultivated by innumerable “A” clerks both in France and England; these lived and throve on this mystery, which no doubt will at a distant date be elucidated by some future Lemprière. Hardress-Lloyd was one of the main causes of the battle of Cambrai. He, I believe, introduced the idea to General Sir Julian Byng, this away back in August 1917. Hardress-Lloyd was a man of big ideas and always kept a good table and a fine stable--in fact, a _beau sabreur_. I will leave Hardress at that.
Above are to be sought the real foundations of the Corps’ efficiency under its gallant Commander, Major-General H. J. Elles, C.B., D.S.O., who endowed it with that high moral, that fine _esprit de corps_ and jaunty _esprit de cocarde_ which impelled it from one success to another. These foundations no future historian is likely to be so intimately acquainted with as I--and now for the story.[6]