One hundred years ago the face of modern warfare changed forever when tanks were used for the first time. On the morning of 15 September 1916 the British attacked German positions at Flers-Courcelette - part of the larger Somme offensive - with 32 tanks.

The results were decidedly mixed but this faltering introduction was not reflected in contemporary press reports. The Guardian and Observer enthusiastically reported on their deployment and the hope that they might break the stalemate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Battle of Flers Courcelette 15 - 22 September: The Mark I tank (D 17) surrounded by some of the infantry from 122nd Brigade whom it led into eastern part of Flers on 15 September 1916. Photograph: IWM via Getty Images

An initial report of ‘mystery machines’ appeared in the Observer on 17 September, containing a multitude of questions and speculations. ‘Do they attack as battering rams or as gun carriers, or both? Are we to conceive them as a sort of ironclad van...ploughing ponderously onward through hedges of wire, over holes, over trenches to the bewilderment and affright of the Hun?’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Spanish cartoon, published in the Manchester Guardian, 9 October 1916, imagining how a tank might look. Photographs of the new machines did not emerge in the paper until November.

The hopeful reaction to the new machines naturally spurred interest in how they had been conceived and by whom. A brief interview with Lloyd George conducted as he left the War Office appeared two days later. He attributed the credit to Churchill who had converted ministers to their potential, whilst seeking out the expertise of the Admiralty in designing armour plating.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Manchester Guardian, 21 September 1916.

On 21 September, battle reports were published which fleshed out details of the tanks and the actions of their crews at Flers-Courcelette. ‘Single handed one of these strange craft is prepared to engage an entire battalion, an entire battery, a trench crammed with machine guns, and come out of the fray victorious.’ However snatches of the same report reveal the new weapon’s shortcomings, as when describing one seemingly gung-ho manoeuvre ‘Through no effort of the frightened Boches, the steering-gear went wrong and the pilot could only travel straight ahead. This he did.’

German reaction to the tank was also noted, albeit briefly. One report indicated that the German Government planned to lodge a complaint against the use of the tank with the International Red Cross Society, ‘as being contrary to the recognised methods of civilised warfare.’ Another revealed the German claim that a Konigsberg engineer named Göbel had actually had the idea for a tank ‘years ago.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The first photographs of tanks appears in the paper, 23 November 1916.

Gradually a more restrained view of the vehicles began to appear in print. On 24 September, the Observer ran a report quoting a special correspondent on ‘the British front’ who concluded ‘powerful as may be these fantastic looking machines, they are, after all, machines and nothing more’ suggesting tanks had been of limited success. A piece entitled The Land Dreadnoughts, written by motoring journalist H Massac Buist related some of the mystery that had surrounded their production as well as warning his readers ‘we must not let ourselves imagine that [tanks] have solved the problem of the war.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A British tank in action in 1917 . Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Perhaps one of the most interesting pieces published in the paper was the diary of an Australian crewman, relating the various skirmishes and manoeuvres in which he was involved over the course of a week. Whilst his words were undoubtedly vetted by the authorities the diary reveals how tank warfare had desensitised those embroiled in the fray.