Lancelot de Mole submitted a tracked armoured vehicle design to the British War Office in 1912, four years before tanks first saw combat, and a 1919 Royal Commission found his invention had anticipated and in some respects surpassed the design actually used in 1916, yet awarded the official credit and payment to William Tritton and Walter Wilson because de Mole's rejected design had no proven causal influence on their independent development.
What would resolve this Documentary proof that de Mole's 1912 or 1914 submissions were actually seen and used by the Landships Committee or by Tritton and Wilson would overturn the Royal Commission's finding of no causal connection.
OpenHistory of military engineeringLancelot de Mole (Wikipedia)