It is now France in the world car market looks far from being a star, although Renault and Citroen are still being produced. It was not so before the First World War, when French cars were the standard of quality and grace for many manufacturers. It is enough to re-read the novels by Alexei Tolstoy "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" and "The Emigrants" ("Black Gold") to feel that the European market was filled with French cars. This was the case after the war, but it was also on the eve of the war. There were many firms, but today many of them are known only to experts. For example, the Berlie SVA truck is just one of them, but in fact it was one of the most famous cars of this class during the First World War. One could even say that for her this car was equal to GMC, GAZ AA or "Opel Blitz" during the Second World War. Marius Berlie founded his company in 1894, and already in 1906 he created his first commercial truck with a chain drive and a cab over the engine of the machine, which was soon followed by other models. When the war broke out, the company released the Berlie SVA truck.
The car had a four-cylinder petrol engine with a capacity of 25 liters. with., a chain drive of the rear wheels and a steel frame instead of a wooden one. The gearbox was four-speed, hard rubber tires and a bumper in front of the radiator. It could carry about 3.5 tons and had a top speed of 30 km / h.
In the French army, this car has become something of a reference truck. It was these trucks that moved along the so-called "Sacred Route" - the road along which day and night the French delivered goods to Verdun in 1916. However, the success was not only that the car was of high quality. It was also massive. The Berlie company was the first to introduce the assembly of these vehicles on the assembly line, which caused the price drop and increased labor productivity: every day 40 new trucks rolled out through the factory gates. Until the end of the war, 25,000 vehicles of this type were delivered to the army. They were used in the 1920s and 1930s and in the early years of World War II. In Poland, the Ursus company produced a copy of this car.
Before the First World War, most of the artillery was horse-drawn, with the exception of some heavy guns, which were moved by steam tractors - huge, gluttonous and clumsy. In 1910, the military first approached Panar-Levassor with a proposal to create a heavy transporter with an internal combustion engine. The development of the new car was taken up by Lieutenant Colonel DePort, who eventually designed a heavy truck with all-wheel drive.
During sea trials at the end of March 1912, the car showed excellent driving characteristics, after which they continued already in Vincennes, where he was forced to tow heavy guns. In addition, it also carried 14 people; moreover, in the case of towing a 220-mm mortar, the total towing weight exceeded 12 tons.
On rough terrain, the car proved to be excellent, and it was decided to test it at the spring maneuvers in 1913, after which it was adopted by the army. The Chatillon-Panard transmission (and DePort handed over his design to this particular company) was arranged in such a way that it did not have cardan shafts, but only one differential. It worked on a transverse shaft, and transmitted rotation to the wheels through helical gears at the ends of the intermediate shaft and four diagonal shafts, which again had such gears that rotated the gears of the wheels.
The opinion expressed by the commission regarding the new transporter was the most enthusiastic. The French army tried to transport heavy guns by road back in 1907, but since it only had two four-wheel drive vehicles, it is clear that nothing good came of it.
Fifty tractors "Chatillon-Panard" were ordered immediately - and soon delivered to the army, and then an order was issued for another fifty vehicles. Nevertheless, it was decided to carry out additional tests before ordering the second batch, now in muddy roads, since the previous ones were carried out what is called "dry land".
In March 1914, tests were carried out in pouring rain, the earth turned into a quagmire, and it was in it that the cars got stuck. It was decided not to order the second batch, but when the war began, the army had at least these fifty vehicles. And at that time it had 220 cars, among which there were 91 trucks, 31 ambulances, 2 automatic cannons and a motley collection of staff cars and cars for communication.
Well, the "Chatillon-Panard" went to fight, and it turned out that the car was not bad at all. The motor had a power of 40 l / s, which allowed it to have a maximum speed of 17 km per hour. He could tow a trailer weighing up to 15 tons, but at the same time his speed dropped to 8 km per hour.
The French automobile company Latil (now long ago taken over by Renault) built the world's first four-wheel drive truck back in the late 1890s. During the First World War, it began production of the Latil TAR (4x4) vehicles with all drive and steer wheels for use as tractors for heavy weapons. The drive was a 35 hp four-cylinder petrol engine. The carrying capacity was 4000 kg.
Of course, the French were lucky to have good roads since the days of Roman rule. As a result of the use of vehicles, the average speed of transporting guns increased sharply, and the length of the marching columns decreased. For example, it was "Latil" TAR that carried 155-mm guns, as well as 220-mm and 280-mm Schneider mortars.
The same trucks were used by the American Expeditionary Force, which landed in France. The quality of this car can be judged by the fact that the French army kept it in the 20s and 30s, and it was also used at the beginning of World War II, although by that time it was considered obsolete for a long time.
A feature of the machine was the engine in one block with a cone clutch and a five-speed gearbox. The motor could run on gasoline, benzene or alcohol. The tractor was intended for the army and could tow trailers and guns weighing up to 36 tons.
Before the start of the First World War, two heavy all-wheel drive tractors "T1" and "TN" with 20 and 30 hp engines were also built. for road trains with a total weight of 17-19 tons. On the “TN” model with a wheelbase of 4.0 m, a mechanical blocking of cross-axle differentials and a rear winch-capstan appeared for the first time. Lighter models "TSZ" and "TS5" with engines of the same power, but with a wheelbase of 2, 8 m, became the basis for the "colonial" model "U" truck, designed for Africa. During the war, the production of the universal vehicle "TR" (4x2) began - a smaller copy of the "TAR" model with a 35 hp engine. "Latil TR" was produced until the end of the 20s. as a ballast or truck tractor, timber carrier, and a car with an onboard platform with a carrying capacity of 4 - 5 tons. The wheelbase was 2, 1 - 3, 75 m, the total mass of the road train reached 16 tons.
Louis Renault built his first car at the end of 1898. Well, the first real commercial truck with a carrying capacity of about 1000 kg was made in 1906. In 1909, a truck with a carrying capacity of 1200 kg appeared, and then 1500. The hallmark of Renault in those days was the radiator, which was placed directly behind the engine, and not in front of it, as is customary today, and the hood is very characteristic in its design.
Already in 1913, 5,200 people were employed at the large Renault plant in Billancourt on the outskirts of Paris, and production reached 1,000 cars a year. When the First World War began, Renault plants began to produce shells (up to 6,000 per day), machine guns, military vehicles, aircraft engines (up to 600 per month), aircraft (up to 100 per month), rifled barrels (up to 1200 per day), guns and the famous FT-17 tanks (up to 300 per month). And, of course, trucks: also up to 300 per month.
At the end of 1915, cars with a carrying capacity of 2.5 tons, 4 tons and 6 tons were produced. Some were used as tractors for the famous 75-mm field gun, others for transporting FT-17 tanks to the front. At the same time, they had a maximum speed of 18 km / h.
