Tank Louis Cartier

Louis Cartier designed the Tank in 1917 after seeing the Renault FT-17 tanks on the Western Front. Viewed from above, a tank is a circle inside a square inside a rectangle. The turret, the body, the treads. Cartier translated that geometry into a wristwatch. Two vertical bars, the brancards, formed the sides of the case and extended downward to become the strap attachments. The strap was no longer bolted to the case through wire lugs. It was a fluid extension of the case itself. That integration of case and strap was revolutionary in 1917 when every other wristwatch used crude soldered lugs.

The Tank entered full production in 1919 with six pieces delivered to commercial stores. Louis Cartier gave one of the first prototypes to General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force. The Tank became the watch that defined rectangular case design. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso, the Patek Philippe Gondolo, every rectangular watch that followed exists in a conversation that the Tank started.

The Tank Louis Cartier, the variant that refined the original Normale with rounded brancards and a more delicate profile, became the definitive expression. Roman numerals on a white dial. Blued steel sword hands. A sapphire cabochon on the crown. The Caliber 1917 MC hand-wound movement. 33.7mm by 25.5mm by 6.6mm. Those proportions have not changed because they do not need to change. The Tank is one of the few watches that was right the first time.