[3] In the summer of 1916, likely in July,[3] General Léon Augustin Jean Marie Mourret, the Subsecretary of Artillery, verbally granted Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM), a shipyard in the south of France near Toulon, the contract for the development of a heavy tank, a char d'assaut de grand modèle.

At the time, French industry was very active in lobbying for defence orders, using their connections with high-placed officials and officers to obtain commissions; development contracts could be very profitable even when not resulting in actual production, as they were fully paid for by the state.

The reason he later gave was that the British tanks then in development by a naval committee seemed to be better devised as regarded lay-out, ventilation and fire protection, so a shipyard might improve on existing French designs.

This sudden attention greatly alarmed Mourret, who promptly investigated the progress that had been made at FCM and was shocked to find there was none.

[4] This development coincided with a political demand by Minister of Armaments Albert Thomas to produce a tank superior to the British types.

On 7 October, he had asked the British prime minister David Lloyd George to deliver some Mark Is to France but had received no answer.

Concluding, correctly, that no such deliveries would materialise, on 23 January 1917 he ordered that French tanks should be developed that were faster, and more powerfully armed and armoured than any British vehicle.

It was visited by the Undersecretary of State for Inventions for National Defense Jules-Louis Breton on 13 January 1917, who was much impressed and developed a keen interest in the project.

This proposed tank was the most advanced design of its time; it was received very favourably, also because of the enthusiastic report by Breton, and a consensus began to form that the project was most promising and a potential "war-winner".

He admitted that "colossal landships" might in certain circumstances have their uses, but claimed that while it was as yet unproven that a workable heavy type could be developed, let alone produced in sufficient numbers by French industry, it would be folly not to give priority to light tanks that could be constructed without delay.

Joffre answered that Estienne was no doubt correct in his tactical and organisational analysis, but that political backing of the heavy tank was simply too strong.

On 29 January he wrote a letter to Thomas, making clear that under no circumstances could the project be allowed to impede production of the Schneider CA.

Moritz was assured by Renault in January 1917 that the desired 200 CV (150 kW) engines were reliable and would pose no danger to the project.

[3] On 17 November, Moritz, introducing to the CCAS the forthcoming presentation of the FCM 1A prototype, explained it was a test bed that did not exactly correspond to the original "A version" specifications.

The front of the hull followed the profile of the tall climbing faces of the tracks and therefore gradually curved upwards, ending in a high vertical nose plate.

The design deliberately had no overhanging front or rear sections, which had greatly hampered the mobility of the earlier French Schneider CA1 and Saint Chamond tanks.

External communications were the responsibility of the mechanic, who could open a small hatch just behind the turret to signal using flags, flares or electrical lights.

The main problem was that it proved difficult to steer the tank due to its extreme track length and insufficient chain link profile.

Though the first shortened 105 mm Schneider cannon had been received in October, the first live firing tests were only held on 5 and 7 February 1918, with satisfactory results.

[3] Discussing the results of the trials, on 4 January 1918 the technical department of the Artillerie Spéciale concluded that the FCM 1A seemed a powerful combat vehicle capable of having an important negative effect on enemy morale.

Already on 30 December, minister of munitions Louis Loucheur had thought that France "hadn't a minute to lose" and suggested to the French Prime Minister (Président du conseil) Georges Clemenceau to spend fifty million French francs to construct a hundred FCM 1As, the first fifteen to be delivered from July 1918 onwards, in order to have a strength of eighty vehicles on 31 December.

To stop this, the Direction de l’Artillerie d’Assaut on instigation of Estienne decided in April 1919 to procure ten char 2Cs after all, and use this as an argument to reject any other projects.

This was not completely successful; as late as 1920 it was proposed to the Section Technique des Appareils de Combat to build a 600-tonne tank with 250 mm armour.

[8] At FCM, Jammy and Savatier finished the char 2C prototype, the other nine tanks being built almost simultaneously; all ten were delivered in 1921 and modified by the factory until 1923.

The char 2C had a loaded weight of 69 tonnes, partly because of its armour, which was among the thickest of World War I-era tanks, but mostly because of its huge size.

In use an electric motor spun the outer shell at such a speed that, due to persistence of vision effect, the individual slots disappeared while their armour protection (including against bullet splash) remained.

[e] A corridor, tall enough for a crewman to stand upright, ran between the engines, allowing two electricians to constantly attend the complex apparatus.

When the German Panzerdivisionen, in the execution of Operation Fall Rot, breached the French lines after 10 June 1940, the decision was made to prevent the capture of the famous equipment.

[15] After a decision taken in December 1922, from 1923 until 1926 the later Champagne was modified at La Seyne into the Char 2C bis, an experimental type with a 155 mm howitzer in a rounded cast steel turret.

Between 15 November and 15 December 1939 the Lorraine, as the company command tank, was experimentally up-armoured at the Société des Aciéries d'Homecourt to make it immune to standard German antitank guns.