The immobility of the trench warfare characterizing the First World War led to a need for a powerful armed military engine that would be protected from enemy fire at the same time, and could move on the extremely irregular terrain of battlefields.

As early as 24 August 1914, the French colonel Jean Baptiste Estienne articulated the vision of a cross-country armoured vehicle:[1] Victory in this war will belong to the belligerent who is the first to put a cannon on a vehicle capable of moving on all kinds of terrain.One of the first attempts was made in France on 1 December 1914, when Paul Frot, an engineer in canal construction at the Compagnie Nationale du Nord, proposed to the French War Ministry a design for a vehicle with armour and armament, based on the motorization of a Laffly road roller with heavy fluted wheels that had been developed from 1912 and had been used to compact canals:[3] This rolling fortress, which only cannon could stop, would force our enemies to adopt another tactic, and anyway would give us a marked momentary advantage.The vehicle was fitted with 7 mm armour, was powered by a 20 hp gasoline internal combustion engine, and was able to move both forward and backward, with two driver positions, one at the front and the other at the back.

The tank was tested on 28 March 1915 in the grounds of the Corpet & Louvet factory, and effectively destroyed barbed wire lines and climbed a 25% slope, but was deemed lacking mobility:[8] The trials of this machine have demonstrated that it would not be possible to obtain practically satisfying results from it.The project was abandoned in favour of General Estienne's concurrent project of a tank using a tractor base, codenamed Tracteur Estienne, which was being developed at that time.

[10] A few months before, in January 1915, the French arms manufacturer Schneider & Co. had already sent out its chief designer, Eugène Brillié, to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Company, at that time participating in a test programme in England.

The prototype of the Frot-Laffly was sold to the United Kingdom, Paul Frot claiming in a letter dated 8 January 1918 that it had influenced British tank design.