In December 1915, the influential Colonel Estienne made the Supreme Command very enthusiastic about the idea of creating an armoured force based on these vehicles strong Army support for tanks would be a constant during the decades to come. A major arms producer, Schneider, took the lead in January 1915 and tried to build a first armoured vehicle based on the Baby Holt tractor but initially the development process was slow until in July they received political, even presidential, support by combining their project with that of a mechanical wire cutter devised by engineer and politician Jean-Louis Bréton. In France, on the other hand, there were multiple and conflicting lines of development which were badly integrated, resulting in three major and quite disparate production types. Almost all production effort was thus concentrated into the Mark I and its direct successors, all very similar in shape. In Britain a single committee had coordinated design, while the major industries remained passive. While the British began the design and use of tanks in World War I, France at the same time developed its own tracked AFVs, but the situation there was very different. History World War I Schneider CA1, the first French tank The most significant French tank development during the war was the Renault FT light tank, which set the general layout for future tank designs and was used or redesigned by various military forces, including those of the United States. Another 400 Saint-Chamond tanks were manufactured from April 1917 to July 1918 but they were underpowered and were of limited utility because the caterpillar tracks were too short for the tank's length and weight. The French also experimented with various tank designs, such as the Frot-Laffly landship, Boirault machine and Souain experiment. The Schneider CA1 was the first tank produced by France, and 400 units were built.
French development into tanks began during World War I as an effort to overcome the stalemate of trench warfare, and largely at the initiative of the manufacturers.
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