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Post Info TOPIC: A-H Holt in Belgium


Legend

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A-H Holt in Belgium
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Don't know if we've had this before, but this is a pic of a Holt in occupied Brussels. The German and Flemish/Dutch captions say it's for hauling heavy German siege guns, but that looks like an Austrian uniform, so presumably it has been used to take the Austrian howitzers to their appointment with the Belgian forts.

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Hero

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As information, the vehicle is indeed Austrian; not German.   The American frim of Holt Caterpillar had recently established a plant in Wien, and  in November 1913 a contract was awarded to provide artillerie zugmaschinen for the KuK.  The army took their first delivery in January 1914.   The only type purchased was the four cylinder Holt 75 (as pictured).  
By prior agreement 4 batterien of M11 Morser were railed to Germany on 30 July 1914.  Though these units were to utilize the Austro Daimler M12, they had to be supplemented with Holt traktoren.  These batterien saw their combat debut engaging Belgian fortifications in the west. ( This would explain the photograph.)
After the fall of Maubeuge the batterien were withdrawn in stages for movement to Kuk theatres of operation. ( The last batterie left the Nieuport area in early 1915.)
This is not to say Holt traktoren were not used by Imperial Germany.  Indeed large numbers were captured during the 1918 Kaiser offensive and pressed into service.

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Commander in Chief

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The kuk motor batteries were only requested by the German Supreme Command on August 6th, 1914. Thus they arrived too late (August 19th) to participate in the bombardment of the Liège forts and were first used against the Namur fortifications.
The Germans used wheeled agricultural tractors (steam or petrol driven) to tow their big guns.

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