Whilst Germany deployed only 18 of its own tank model (A7V), they did capture hundreds of allied tanks and used them in their own regiments.
Fun Fact: so did the Russian Revolution. The Allies tried to invade and the Bolsheviks captured and reverse engineered Allied tanks, mostly copying French designs to make the T-18.
There is thus a direct lineage from the French Renault FT to the T-34, which would become famous for fighting Panzers descended from the British Carden Loyd!
If I remember my history accurately, that’s because tanks were a new British secret weapon. The whole reason they’re even called tanks is because that was the code name, they referred to them as water tanks.
Yes, in 1916 which is fucking crazy to think about because the french army literally had napoleonic era style cuirassiers in 1914.
I think the original actual name was “landships”, but the “tanks” stuck better for some reason
