Belatedly at Eugene's request I post a picture purpoting to show Enver Pasha and some of the Young Turk movement with an armoured car. It is certainly captioned that way in more than one book. On examination however I have a slight qualm in that the crew appear to be in regular army uniforms (in which case Enver would not have been seen dead near it -- correction in fact he would have probably have been seen extremely dead near it!). Its possible that this is the car before capture in which case the natty gent is somebody else. Whichever its that Turkish armoured car.
The drivers safety is indeed a great problem with this car! Where they in their right mind when they constructed it? The driver is instantly dead when driving into combat.
Doggowitz wrote: The drivers safety is indeed a great problem with this car! Where they in their right mind when they constructed it? The driver is instantly dead when driving into combat.
I think its a French thing. number of early French armoured cars and lorries had the driver in an extremely exposed position. One notes that this Gallic design feature ceased sometime towards the end of 1914. Anyway they did give him a flap to keep the sun off!
"Four of these Hotchkiss armoured cars were ordered by the Sultan of Turkey and were delivered in 1909. The Young Turks revolution broke out not long afterwards: the cars were taken over by the revolutionaries and were used by them in overthrowing the Sultan's government."
Could this be the first Armored Car used in combat? It certainly seems so. The Fowler Armored Tractor of the Boer war that we are all familiar with was earlier, but it was a very slow armored tractor, not an Armored Car.
I also know that Russia had Armostrong-Whitworth AC's, but I do not know if any were used in combat. There were other AC's before 1909... The Simms, the Daimler Panzerwagen, 1904 Charron, 1906 Ehrhardt, the Armstrong Whitworth.. Etc.. But I do not believe these ever saw action.