Munitions of war
From LoveToKnow 1911
"MUNITIONS OF WAR. - Under this heading, while it would be impracticable to refer to what was done by all the belligerent countries, the organization of the production of munitions during the World War by the United Kingdom and in the United States, on the one hand, and by the Central Powers on the other, is dealt with. Its history in the United Kingdom is told first.
1.-UNITED KINGDOM The Problem. - When the British army of six divisions took the field in 1914 it possessed about 900 field guns, less than 200 field howitzers, about 60 heavier weapons of 6-in. and upwards and perhaps about 200 obsolescent types, such as the 4.7-in. and the 85-pdr. howitzer, a reserve of ammunition of less than a million rounds weighing some 20,000 tons, and less than 2,000 machineguns. By the end of 1918, the army had received 10,000 field guns, 6,000 other light guns, over 3,000 field howitzers and 7,500 heavier guns and howitzers; 217 million rounds of artillery ammunition weighing 54 million tons and nearly 225,000 machine-guns.
The revolution in the material means of waging war was one which none of the belligerents entirely foresaw. It is true that the German and, to a less extent, the French army had munition reserves on a vastly greater scale than the British; but Germany counted upon a short war, and as she had not made adequate preparation for a continuous industrial effort, her armies were strictly rationed in 1915 while her resources were being mobilized. France was quick to appreciate the significance of the bombardments of the early battles, and in Oct. 1914 set machinery in motion for organizing her industrial resources under the direction of M. Thomas, who was appointed Under-Secretary for War in charge of munitions. For this task France had available a large number of expert officers who had passed through the arsenals, and these were placed in charge of districts in which they combined inspection with control of supplies.
Great Britain, on the other hand, was for various reasons slower to realize the change that had occurred, and in any case had a much smaller trained personnel and equipment for producing land munitions than the continental Powers. The Royal Ordnance Factories were, of course, at once set to work at fullest pressure and in October very large orders were placed with the armament firms who were given very wide instructions to expand their production. Mr. Ernest Moir was also sent to France to report on the schemes of the French Government But time was needed to enable the situation to be seen in true perspective, for Great Britain was faced not merely with the task of providing a new and unprecedented scale of equipment, but also with the need of enlarging the expeditionary force into a continental army. On this last point opinion was slowly changing during the winter of 1914, but even in the spring of 1915 a large section of instructed opinion still urged that Britain's best contribution to the Allied cause was to conserve her economic strength and carry on " business as usual." In this environment the authorities at the War Office, many of whose most experienced personnel had been sent to the front, and who were overburdened by the colossal problem of keeping the army supplied with its most urgent daily necessities, failed to appreciate fully the change needed in the standard of equipment and the sweeping character of the plans that would have to be made for dealing with it. At the outbreak of war, for example, the standard of machine-guns was 2 per battalion and it was not until the spring of 1915 that this was raised to 8 per battalion. At the end of the war the standard worked out at 48 per battalion. As regards ammunition a small increase in the number of rounds per gun per day on which the programme of field-gun ammunition was based was made before Christmas 1914; by the early summer of 1915 the basis was raised to 25 rounds per gun per day for field guns and in Sept. 1916 to 50 rounds per gun per day. One reason for this moderation was that in the early months of the war the officers in the War Office who framed the munition programme constantly had in mind the limited capacity of the country for producing munitions, and it was not until the middle of 1915 that this consideration was abandoned.
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War Office Policy
This point of view led to a conservative attitude in the placing of contracts. With its staff both at headquarters and in the inspection departments seriously depleted, the War Office not unnaturally clung to old and tried sources of supply and limited its orders during 1914 to Government factories and the armament firms. It relied for increased supplies on extensions to the Royal Ordnance Factories and at the works of Messrs. Vickers and Armstrong's (for ammunition and other munitions), Coventry Ordnance Works (chiefly for field guns and howitzers) and the Birmingham Small Arms Company (for machine-guns), leaving it to the armament firms to obtain any further increase from the engineering resources of the country by placing their own sub-contracts. The immediate result was a big demand for labour from these armament firms, and while this was at first forthcoming, the continued absorption into the army soon made the position difficult. At the request of the War Office, therefore, the Labour Department of the Board of Trade carried out a brisk campaign in Jan. 1915 for the recruiting of labour for these firms. This canvass produced only small results. It brought to light, however, the strong objection of the ordinary engineering firm against permitting their most essential men to be passed on to the armament firms and the demand that contracts should be more widely distributed.
This claim was constantly pressed by the Board of Trade; but during the spring of 1915 the War Office adhered to the policy of dealing only with the armament firms, and continually pressed for labour to be supplied to them. In March, however, the War Office permitted an exhibition of samples of munitions to be held at the central offices of the labour exchanges in the main towns of the country, and as a result a few small con- tracts were placed with individual firms.
Armaments and Treasury Committees
The nation was, however, rapidly realizing the need for more drastic treatment of the problem, and at the end of March Lord Kitchener appointed an " Armaments Output Committee " in the War Office under the chairmanship of Mr. George Booth, a shipowner and banker.
A week later the Government appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Lloyd George - known as the " Treasury Committee " - to take charge of munition policy. The " Armaments Output Committee" at the War Office at once became in effect the executive instrument of the Treasury Committee, and one of its first actions was the securing of an order for the Leicester cooperative group. During the months of April and May the Armaments Committee, on which Sir Percy Girouard (a director of Armstrong's) had now joined Mr. Booth, brought into existence several local committees to produce munitions in some cases by cooperative effort and in others to institute national factories to which the various firms would contribute machinery and labour. At first an effort was made to maintain the predominance of the armament firms in certain areas by giving them within these districts a first call on the available engineering labour. Another plan was for the armament firms to " mother " the new contractors and exercise a general supervision over the work of a district. But after much discussion all restrictions in favour of the armament firms were definitely broken down, and by the time the Ministry of Munitions was formed it had become evident that the list of direct contractors must be enormously increased. Following the lead of Woolwich the armament firms thereupon threw open their doors to visiting parties of engineers to learn and study the method of shell, fuze and other armament production.
But while orders could be and indeed had been placed on a large scale, deliveries were not forthcoming. The Armaments Committee endeavoured to deal with some of the difficulties by setting up a machine-tool department in the charge of Sir Alfred Herbert, who at once issued instructions to machinetool makers to give priority to orders in hand for the British Government or for armament contractors. A raw materials section, which was placed in May under the charge of Mr. Leonard Llewellyn, also began an inquiry into the situation as regards copper, brass, aluminium, lead, antimony and spelter.
Labour
A still greater difficulty was labour. For several months the Board of Trade had been making great efforts to deal with the labour situation, and in particular to check the recruiting of skilled engineers, both from armament and other engineering works. Lord Kitchener's view on this matter was that any man who wished to enlist should be permitted to do so, and it was not until March 1915 that he accepted the principle that it might be of greater national advantage to retain a skilled munition worker at his occupation in the workshop than to allow him to join the army. A beginning was made in April 1915 by scheduling certain occupations in respect of which the recruiting officers were to discourage enlistment, and by issuing badges to men in armament firms to save them from the pressure of public opinion, which at this time was being exerted very forcibly on able-bodied men to join the army.
But the labour shortage in the spring of '915 was approached not only from the point of view of numbers of skilled men in employment. Attempts were also made to increase production by diminishing lost time, suspending such trade-union rules as restricted output, and admitting semi-skilled, unskilled or female labour to do part of the work hitherto done by skilled men. Up to Christmas 1914 negotiations on these points took place between the shipbuilding and engineering employers and employed, but without result. In Jan. and Feb. 1915 a sudden rise in prices and acute competition for labour between the various Government contractors produced considerable migration of labour and a general state of unrest, which found expression in a series of strikes. On March 15 the engineering workpeople agreed with the employers that, to a limited extent and as experience proved necessary, semi-skilled or female labour might be substituted for skilled labour subject to certain conditions, of which the most important was that the substituted workpeople should be paid the district rate of the men replaced. These relaxations were to be withdrawn at the end of the war.
This, however, hardly went far enough, and, as the result of a series of conferences held between March 17 and March 27, the trade-union leaders signed the Treasury Agreement, under which they undertook to recommend their constituents to suspend restrictive practices for the period of the war in return for an undertaking that the Government would see that the profit resulting from these suspensions did not go to private employers. This agreement coincided with the passing of a Defence of the Realm Act which authorized the Government to " take over " firms engaged on munition work. It was at first intended that this should involve the actual control of the four big armament firms in the same way that the Government had " taken over " the railways. But after negotiations with these firms the idea of handing over their management to an executive committee was abandoned, and the limitation of profits retained as the only substantial element in " taking over." On the other hand, it was increasingly evident that the same rule would have to apply to a far wider field than the four big armament firms. Hence the agreement was not at this time carried into effect, since the trade-union leaders found it difficult to carry out their part of the bargain in practice, while the negotiations with the firms dragged on until the Ministry of Munitions came into existence. The labour situation was complicated during this period by the efforts of various employers to entice away the skilled labour of their competitors, and considerable loss of output was suffered by the migration of labour.
Foreign Orders
At a very early stage the inability of contractors to guarantee prompt delivery led to the placing of orders in America and Canada. These orders, though not very large in amount compared with subsequent purchases, had one important result in the conclusion of a commercial agency agreement between the British Government and Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. of New York, who were made solely responsible for the purchase of British munitions in the United States. Orders had been placed by the War Office for 4.7-in. shell and for nitrocellulose powder as early as Oct. 1914, followed in November by orders for rifles, metals and explosives. By the end of the year not only Great Britain but the Allies and the armament firms in all Allied countries were negotiating for munitions, materials or machinery, with the result that considerable confusion and competition existed. Hence, in Jan. 1915, an agreement was arrived at under which Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. were made sole purchasing agents for the British Government on the basis of a commission of 1% on all purchases made. At this time the War Office anticipated that the value of these contracts would not exceed 10 millions sterling, but by the middle of the year it was, in fact, approaching loo millions and by the end of the year was over 200 millions. The large commission payable on these orders subsequently gave rise to some criticism; but Messrs. Morgan had in effect to create a munitions department to deal with this immense volume of business without the powers which the War Office and subsequently the Ministry of Munitions exercised in Great Britain. This organization was placed in charge of Mr. E. R. Stettinius of the Diamond Match Company, and the efficiency of its service and the enterprise shown by the commercial agents in protecting the interests of the British and subsequently of the Allied Governments proved of immense service to the Allied cause. The arrangement continued until shortly after America came into the war, when other machinery was needed for obtaining supplies owing to the institution of farreaching control by the American Government.
Rifles
During these early months public attention was mainly devoted to the question of ammunition. But in fact an even more urgent problem was that of rifles, the manufacture of which requires not only very specialized machinery, but also demands labour of special experience which could only be slowly increased. On the other hand, the number of rifles required for training and equipping a rapidly growing army as well as for replacing wastage in the field was far in excess of the stock in the country. For training purposes old-pattern rifles were repaired and resighted and a considerable number of rifles borrowed from Japan. But the date at which the new armies took the field was largely governed during the first twelve months of the war by the slow but steady increase in the output of service rifles, most of which were supplied by the Government arsenal at Enfield. Early in 1915 the War Office became seriously disturbed at the slow rate of increase in production, and finally orders for a million rifles of a slightly modified Enfield pattern were placed early in April 1915 in America with the Remington Co. which had already been given a large order for rifles of Russian pattern. This order was subsequently increased and additional orders placed, but though delivery was originally promised for the autumn of 1915, the rifles were not in fact available before the summer of 1916 and on arrival were found to need adjustment before they could be issued for service. As the cumulative output of Enfield and of the private firms in Great Britain had by that time overtaken requirements and the wastage in trench warfare had proved less than was feared, none of these American rifles were ever actually sent into the field with the British army. The effect of these orders was, however, that when America came into the war she had available two or three of the largest and most modern rifle plants in the world, which had just come into full production.
Situation in May 1915
By May 1915 it was still uncertain how large a force Great Britain would endeavour to put into the field, and the War Office was still far from realizing the great increase that must be made in the standard of equipment. Substantial orders had been placed at home and abroad; and at home, as a result mainly of civilian pressure, a beginning was being made to place these contracts outside the range of the armament firms. It was, however, fast becoming clear that no contractor would, without assistance, be able to steer through the rising confusion of economic disturbance, and that the Government would have to assist contractors with both plant and material. But the War Office had neither the staff nor the experience to institute effective statistical or technical control over so large a commercial business. A treaty had been made with the labour leaders to abolish restrictive practices and to permit the employment of female and unskilled labour, but the arrangement was not being carried out in the shops. Hence the enormous orders which had been given to the armament firms were not being fulfilled, and subsequent events proved that if the goods had been delivered the inspection, storage, and transit organizations would have been unable to cope with them.
The Ministry of Munitions
The Ministry of Munitions was an inevitable consequence of the failure of contractors g,nd subcontractors to cope with this economic situation, and of the fact that the War Office had not the technical resources, even if it had the will, to create the organization needed for handling so complex and so rapidly changing a problem. It was stated on May 14 by the military correspondent of The Times (approved by G.H.Q., France) that " we had not sufficient high explosive to level the enemy's parapets to the ground after the French practice." It may be noted in passing that, although this comment refers only to H.E., there were two aspects to the problem, namely (1) inadequacy of ammunition as a whole, and (2) the proportion of shrapnel and H.E. respectively to be supplied for field artillery. On the latter question British tradition had always favoured shrapnel, whereas French practice was to use practically all H.E., with their famous 75-mm. field gun.. Experience eventually proved that r8-pdr. H.E. shell, which contained only 13 oz. of H.E., was of little use for destroying deep entrenchments, and it was ultimately limited to use against personnel, against surface works and for wire-cutting.
On the British front the last of these tasks continued mainly to be done by means of shrapnel. Hence, in spite of the fact that, when the initial difficulties had been overcome, the H.E. 18pdr. shell was easier to manufacture in quantity than shrapnel, the British army in France throughout the war fired only 40 million rounds of H.E. compared with 60 million rounds of shrapnel (of which less than 3 million were fired up to the end of 1915). The event in fact proved that the more fundamental deficiency was in heavy artillery firing H.E. shell of large calibre - the standard types of which were ultimately the 60-pdr. shell containing rather more than 6 lb. H.E., the 6-in. howitzer shell weighing loo lb. and containing 122 lb. of H.E., the 8-in. howitzer shell weighing 200 lb. and containing 20 lb. H.E., the 9.2-in. howitzer shell weighing 290 lb. and containing 34 to 52 lb. H.E., and the 12-in. howitzer shell weighing 750 lb. and containing 66 to 105 lb. H.E. In this respect G.H.Q., equally with the authorities at home, were open to the criticism of being slow to see future developments, since at this time they had not put forward any large demand for heavy artillery.
The Times article, backed by the authority of the army in the field, confirmed the growing fear that the British troops were inadequately supplied with ammunition compared with the enemy or even with the Allies. The political crisis which ensued brought the Ministry of Munitions into being, with 1 of 6 Munitions Of War Mr. Lloyd George at its head, and the members and staff of the Armaments Output Committee and of the Treasury Committee as the nucleus of its personnel.
The first year of the Ministry of Munitions was the creative period not only as regards the internal structure of the Ministry itself, but also in regard to its main duties. It was a period in which army demands were defined, manufacturing programmes laid down, methods of dealing with labour formulated and put into effect, large numbers of specialized factories designed for mass production constructed, and devices evolved for exercising control over the industrial life of the country.
The Ministry of Munitions Act, which received the Royal assent on June 9 1915, did little more than create the post of Minister of Munitions. The definition of his functions was left to be fixed by Orders in Council. The Act was therefore followed a week later by an order transferring to the Minister of Munitions the main functions of the Master-General of the Ordnance in relation to contracts and the supply of munitions (including explosives) and the inspection of munitions. The Minister of Munitions was given concurrent power with the War Office under the Defence of the Realm Act which gave authority to take over and regulate the work of any factory. The Minister was also given a general duty to " examine into and organize the sources of supply and the labour available for the supply of any kind of munitions of war, the supply of which is in whole or in part undertaken by him, and by that means, as far as possible, to ensure such supply of munitions for the present war as may be required by the Army Council or the Admiralty or may otherwise be found necessary." In the.. first instance the War Office retained the control of the ordnance factory at Woolwich, the small-arms factory at Enfield, and the Waltham powder factory, and also the right to lay down the standards of inspection to be observed by the inspectors in the factories. Provision was made, however, for the transfer of these or any other functions in the future as might be agreed upon between the Minister of Munitions and the Secretary of State for War or the head of any other interested department, such as the Admiralty.
The ordnance factory at this time and for many months to come was doing the lion's share in supplying the army with munitions, not only because of the volume of its output but even more because its large supply of skilled labour, its staff of technical officers, and the fact that it had drawings and specifications available of all stores in army service, made it the only means of supplying the sudden and of ten small demands which the inadequate and miscellaneous character of the equipment in the field made inevitable. The War Office was therefore unwilling to hand over so vital an institution until the new organization had got on its feet. The transfer was, however, made in Sept. 1915.
Internal Organization
From the outset the work of the Ministry fell into two main sections: that concerned with the supply of munitions and all that this involved in technical assistance to contractors, supervision of inspection, stores, transport, control of materials and regulation of non-munition work; and, on the other hand, the regulation and control of munition labour. These two functions divided the Ministry into two divisions which were housed in separate buildings and developed along divergent lines of organization. The labour section of the Ministry, staffed largely by personnel drawn from the Labour Exchanges Branch of the Board of Trade, developed its organization on civil-service principles, the heads of departments reporting to the Minister through the general secretary of the Ministry, Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith. The business men, on the other hand, who were called in as heads of the supply departments, had a profound distrust of orthodox Government methods and demanded the right of direct access to the Minister. A brief controversy on this point between the general secretary and the director-general of munition supply (Sir Percy Girouard) ended in the latter's victory. This was perhaps justified by the imperative necessity for prompt action; and as Mr. Lloyd George encouraged the heads of departments to act upon their own responsibility on the basis of general instructions, it enabled a large number of activities to be pressed forward at the same time. It had the effect, however, of making the general secretary practically head of the labour sections only of the Ministry; and moreover, as the right of access was secured not only by Sir Percy Girouard (who was succeeded in August by Sir Frederick Black), but also by the deputy directors - Mr. Glynn West (in charge of ammunition), Mr. Booth (establishment, foreign orders, etc.), Mr. Eric Geddes (small arms), Mr. C. E. Ellis (guns) - and by the heads of the departments of explosives (Lord Moulton) and trench warfare (Gen. Louis Jackson, and Mr. Alexander Roger), and as the number claiming this privilege continued to increase, it gave rise to difficulty in coordinating the work of the various sections. Within the first few weeks, these various heads of departments went to the corresponding sections of the War Office, discussed requirements and gave instructions to the contracts department or placed their own contracts, without reference to the programme of the department as a whole. This difficulty was overcome by setting up a " Requirements and Statistics " department, whose primary duty was to be the sole official channel of communication between the Ministry of Munitions and the War Office on all questions relating to supply. Informal discussion was encouraged, but the various departments were authorized to act only on the formal demand from this new department. Since this department had passing through its hands the programme as a whole, it was also given the duty of compiling the statistics of the Ministry and receiving weekly progress reports from the supply departments.
The diversity of experience in organization among the business men also led to confusion in the mechanical arrangements for distribution and registration of papers, and it was some months before the newcomers grasped the essential difference between acting as head of a section of a large public service which is a part of a still greater whole and acting as head of a private business. These defects, which arose from the very qualities which enabled the Ministry successfully to set rapidly in motion and ultimately to control the immense industrial reserves of the country, finally induced Mr. Lloyd George in March 1916 to change his headquarters from the labour department to the main supply department. In March 1916, Mr. E. B. Phipps was transferred from the Board of Education as second general secretary to take charge of the mechanical organization of the supply departments.
Munitions of War Act
The first task of Mr. Lloyd George was to make the country realize that the munition effort must be second only in importance to the work of the army in the field, and must override all such ideas, for instance, as of the importance on economic grounds of maintaining the export trade. Hence during June he undertook a campaign of speeches in the chief industrial centres to prepare the minds of both employers and workpeople for the very great restrictions imposed by the Munitions of War Act.
The chief provisions of this Act (July 2 1915), which brought to a head the developments in the labour situation seen during the first year of the war, may be summarized as follows: - arbitration in disputes as to wages, hours and conditions of service made compulsory; strikes and lockouts prohibited; Minister authorized to declare factories " Controlled Establishments "; profits of these establishments limited by means of a tax known as the " Munitions Levy"; no wage changes to be made in controlled establishments without consent of Ministry; migration of labour prevented by provision that a controlled establishment must not engage a man unless he held a " leaving certificate " from previous employer; Minister authorized to demand statistical returns; Minister given authority to issue badges which protected men from pressure to join the army and to suppress illicit badges; Minister authorized to create corps of war munition volunteers available for transfer at his discretion; Minister authorized to demand removal of labour from non-munition work. The administration of the labour sections of the Act was placed in the hands of " Munitions Tribunals " set up in all industrial centres. The Act had con siderable success in stabilizing labour conditions, and brought to an end the period of unrest.
Almost immediately the Act was passed a strike occurred in the South Wales mines, and it required a personal visit of the Minister to persuade the men to return. But this was the last serious outbreak for a very considerable period.
In regard to female labour and the abandonment of union rules, the objections of the ordinary trade unionist to permitting unskilled labour to do work previously regarded as skilled had been steadily weakening as the shortage of labour became more acute, and as experience of making shells and fuzes on repetition methods spread through the country it became more obvious that the work was unskilled. Finally the disinclination to surrender pre-war practices had largely arisen from the fact that it was impossible to prevent the changes spreading to private work, and in any case it was extremely difficult to distinguish between Government and private work; but as the year proceeded private work fell more and more into the background. Prejudice on the part both of employers and workpeople against the employment of women in engineering work had still to be overcome. The men's opposition to the women was considerably appeased by the decision that women doing skilled or semi-skilled work should be paid the same rate as the men displaced, while the fixing of a minimum wage for unskilled female labour of £1 a week tended to raise the level of women's wages in general and minimize the possibility of men's wages being prejudiced. A department was started to encourage welfare work in the factories, and in many congested districts housing and hostel schemes were initiated. From the passing of the Act the employment of women on munition work increased continuously until the end of the war. In the succeeding six months, the " badging " system of the Minis try (see Labour Supply And Regulation) caused a decided check to recruiting from the engineering factories. Indeed, at a later stage it appeared that badges had been given rather too freely, and many badged men were ultimately released for service. The plan of mobilizing a corps of war munition volunteers met with only a qualified success at this period, and a great difficulty was experienced in obtaining the release of men from the army. This problem was somewhat simplified after the introduction of compulsory military service.
The " Munitions Levy " was ultimately succeeded by the general Excess Profits Duty, leviable on all firms in the country, and the assessment passed from the Ministry into the hands of the Board of Inland Revenue. This Act, which created the powers exercised by the labour section of the Ministry of Munitions, involved a very extensive interference by Government with the liberty of the individual worker, and was the more remarkable since at this date the army was still dependent upon voluntary enlistment. Its passage was only made possible by the clauses limiting private profit on munition work.
The Production Programme
Early steps were taken to ascertain the general requirements of the War Office. But the Minister, in view of the circumstances of his appointment, considered himself in no way bound by these demands, and held that he was free to place such orders as would ensure an enormous increase in the munition-making capacity of the country and also to look very far ahead in placing orders abroad.
Guns
The most notable action of Mr. Lloyd George in this respect was in the matter of heavy artillery. In June 1915 a conference on munitions was held at Boulogne, at which French experts strongly urged the necessity of increasing enormously the proportion of heavy artillery per division. Field artillery had practically no effect on deep trenches, and as the whole front had become a vast entrenchment it was necessary to contemplate having in the field as many heavy guns as field guns. Following upon this conference, Sir John French put forward a demand to the War Office to provide for each division and army corps a definite establishment of heavy guns and howitzers 6 in. and upwards. This standard was worked out on the basis of 50 divisions and put forward as a definite demand. In view, however, of responsibilities in other theatres of war and of pressure from the French Government, the War Office was already laying its plans on the basis of 70 divisions. The gun programme, therefore, before being passed to the Ministry was proportionately increased and an allowance added as reserve. On receipt of this demand the Minister early in July allocated these orders among the armament firms and authorized the necessary extensions to plant and the purchase of the large quantity of machine tools required from English and American manufacturers. It was obvious, however, that the scale of the plant to be developed would determine the date at which these enormous orders could be fulfilled. Mr. Lloyd George had at this time urged the necessity of increasing the British military effort to ioo divisions. Partly with this object in view and partly to broaden the basis of the munition output of Great Britain, which was still far behind that of Germany, he increased the programme on his own responsibility in Aug. 1915 to a ioo-division standard, and ordered all the consequential demands for shell, fuzes, explosives, propellants, steel, etc., to be calculated on this basis. This action was much criticized both on the ground of expense and the alleged impossibility of training personnel to man so vast an armament. But Mr. Lloyd George was supported by the Cabinet, though arrangements were in train in the spring of 1916 for handing over the surplus to the Allies and particularly to Russia if and when it matured.
Within a few days, however, of the opening of the battle of the Somme in July 1916, G.H.Q. revised their ideas and put forward an entirely new basis of equipment. The establishment of 6-in. howitzers, which had seemed large in July 1915, was trebled; the demand for 8-in. and 9.2-in. howitzers was doubled, while a new item was added in the shape of heavy long-range guns. When the programme was examined it was found that the surplus orders of the Ministry covered these increased demands for all heavy howitzers except the 6-in. and that only comparatively small additions to the existing gunmaking capacity would be required to enable the Ministry to cope with the whole of the new programme. So complete a vindication of Mr. Lloyd George's courageous action, with its farreaching consequences in the subsequent campaigns, marks it as one of his great contributions to the Allied cause. Indeed, his contention that gunmaking capacity would be one of the vital factors in the campaign was repeatedly confirmed by subsequent events which involved new calls upon British gunmaking capacity. In the first place French experience at Verdun, and subsequently British experience on the Somme, soon showed not only that wastage by destruction would be far larger than had been anticipated, but also that expenditure of ammunition was on so huge a scale that the number of guns worn out and needing relining would be very large indeed. Secondly, it was decided before Christmas to arm all merchant ships with two guns capable of coping with submarines. Thirdly, an urgent and increasing demand arose for anti-aircraft guns, not only on the front but also for the defence of London and many other strategic points in Great Britain. Finally, the development of the use of tanks on a large scale called for the production of an enormous number of guns of small calibre.
Hence it was not until the middle of 1918 that the output of guns of all kinds became sufficient for these combined requirements, and after the output and importation from America of large-calibre shells had enabled heavy stocks to be accumulated, it became necessary to divert some of the projectile factories from shell-making to the repair of guns.
Ammunition
The highly technical processes involved in gun manufacture remained for the most part in the hands of a comparatively few firms. The ammunition programme, on the other hand, with its immense drain on materials and plant, until the end of the war absorbed more than half of the energies of the Ministry and of the munition factories, and was the main cause for the control which was ultimately imposed upon the industry of the country. The shell itself, which at first figured so largely in public discussion, is, as its name implies, merely a container of H.E. or of bullets, and the problem of finding sufficient explosive, propellant, fuzes, primers, cartridge cases and the score or so of other components which go to make up a round of ammunition, proved much more difficult than the manufacture of the shell. The balancing of output, including the appropriate provision of the various metals or chemical substances, was not accomplished without much experience; and as from time to time particular items were ahead or in arrears, the Ministry had to provide for the accommodation of large stocks at all stages of production. The programme thus involved the building-up of a colossal stores organization, the burden upon which was greatly increased by the irregularity in the rate of consumption on the front. Moreover, as the Ministry found it necessary to make itself directly responsible for supplying materials to contractors it became not merely a purchasing department but one of the greatest selling organizations in the world.
The ammunition programme was calculated from the enlarged artillery programme on the basis of the expenditure per gun per day asked for by G.H.Q. But as it was impossible accurately to foresee to what extent new firms or new shell factories would produce the output expected from them, there was added to the net shell demand a margin of 50% in the case of light shell (up to 4.5 in.), which had been ordered largely from inexperienced firms, and 33% in the case of heavier natures, which at first were confined to more experienced firms or new factories built for the purpose. Orders for the former were placed to a large extent through the local committees called into existence by the War Office Armaments Committee or by the Ministry during the June publicity campaign. In some cases the orders went to special factories, in others to cooperative groups, the whole organization being bound together by a local office of the Ministry under a special directorate (in charge of Mr. James Stevenson) at headquarters. The supply of heavier shell was met by orders with armament and other selected firms, but when the programme was increased in Aug. 1915, it was decided that " national projectile factories " should be built for the Ministry and managed by the various experienced firms on a commission basis. These factories, laid out for a special purpose, ultimately proved highly efficient in mass production and enabled an enormous saving to be made in. cost. Additional orders for both light and heavy shell were also placed in America and Canada.
Experience proved, however, that light shell could be turned out much more readily than fuzes and other components, and they began to come forward rapidly and before the filling factories were ready to deal with them. The American share of the programme had also been ordered for early delivery. Hence, by the summer of 1916, an enormous stock of light shell had accumulated, partly as a deliberate policy and partly from fortuitous causes. At various dates, therefore, in 1916 light-shell orders in America were allowed to terminate and output at home cut down, and the machinery partly turned on to heavy shell.
The new artillery programme of July 1916, however, based upon experience on the Somme, not only absorbed the surplus Ministry orders for heavy artillery, but also raised the daily ammunition ration for heavy guns. The Minister was still uncertain what output would be attained in the national projectile factories, which were only then coming into production, and therefore almost his last act at the Ministry was to place large orders in America and Canada, in the two natures in which the biggest increase was asked for, viz. 8-in. and 9.2-in. shell.
Shells could be made in any engineering shop; but explosives could only be handled in factories built for the purpose. Hence, as soon as the ammunition programme was settled the ammunition department set to work to plan and to build a dozen large filling factories, which were rapidly completed and began to handle shell in Feb. and March of 1916. The task of these factories was, however, not merely the technical one of filling shell, making cartridges or filling fuzes, but also that of assembling all the necessary components in proper proportion and of handing to the army in complete condition as rapidly as the Ordnance Department could accept delivery. At Christmas 1915 the organization of these filling factories was divided from ammunition manufacture and handed to a new department. During the spring their work was delayed not only by inexperience, but also by the inability of the technicians to find a satisfactory fuze for detonating amatol filled H.E. shell which would avoid the Scylla of over-sensitiveness, with the resulting casualties to the troops through prematures or gunbursts, and the Charybdis of excessive safety, resulting in " blinds " and ineffectiveness against the enemy. Work at the highest possible pressure at Woolwich at last solved the problem, and solved it so satisfactorily that, a year later, British artillery was probably more immune from prematures, etc., than any other. But the constant change of processes during these critical months held back the factories from getting on with bulk production, and it was not until the middle of May that the Ministry began to hand over large supplies to the army. The date of the Somme offensive was largely determined by these considerations.
Explosives and Propellants
Special steps to develop the production of explosives were taken in 1914 - the problem of increasing the output of tri-nitro-toluol (T.N.T.) and other explosives being remitted to a committee under the presidency of Lord Moulton. Hence, when the Ministry was formed, plans were not only in hand but had already achieved considerable success. Pressure had been put upon gas undertakings throughout the United Kingdom to extract the utmost amount of the by-products of coal distillation at the expense of the illuminating-power of their gas, in order to increase the supply of toluol and of benzol, which Great Britain had begun to supply to France. When the Ministry was formed Lord Moulton's department was transferred, and charged in addition with the supply of propellants. At that time this consisted almost entirely of cordite, of which the supply was fairly ample owing to the large capacity which had been developed for naval purposes.
When, however, the new ammunition programme was decided upon, it was evident that the supply both of H.E. and of propellants would also have to be enormously increased. So far as explosives were concerned it was evident that the world's available supplies were insufficient to enable the programme to be carried through by means of either pure T.N.T. or picric acid. It was known that in theory a mixture of T.N.T. and ammonium nitrate could be made to produce as violent a detonation as pure T.N.T., and that the French army was in fact using a mixture of picric acid and ammonium nitrate. In order not to compete for the supplies of picric acid, it was decided to rely upon a mixture of T.N.T. and ammonium nitrate (amatol), and the design department was set to find a means of satisfactory detonation.
The result of their efforts was that during the war, out of about 625,000 tons of explosive supplied, only 21 0,000 tons (of which 35,000 tons were imported) was T.N.T., less than 80,000 tons picric acid, and the rest ammonium nitrate.
In the case of propellants the stocks and manufacturing capacity for cordite in autumn 1915 were fairly large, and as early steps were taken to increase output its supply never delayed the ammunition programme throughout the war. Its production was, however, limited by the supplies of acetone, and even when an ether-alcohol solvent was used as an alternative to acetone, it was not possible to meet the enlarged programme by cordite alone. The army had accepted as propellant for certain guns a nitro-cellulose powder, which was the standard charge on the Continent before the Ministry came into existence, and since it was not manufactured in England orders had already been placed in America. One of the earliest acts of the Ministry was to place, with Messrs. Dupont of America, enormous additional orders sufficient to justify the manufacturers in making large additions to their plant.
From that date onwards the question between cordite and nitrocellulose continually exercised the minds of the Ministry. The argument for importing finished propellant was the great saving in tonnage involved, since it is necessary to assemble several tons of material for each ton of propellant and nearl y all of the material had to be imported - mostly from very great distances. This advantage had, however, to be balanced against the consideration that, so long as Great Britain remained dependent on a neutral country for a substantial proportion of its propellants, the supplies were out of British control so far as the manufacture was concerned, were liable to serious losses from submarine activity, and in danger of interruption should the United States Government for any reason desire to prohibit the export of munitions. Towards the end of 1916 the last of these considerations assumed considerable importance; and as at that time the use of nitro-cellulose had been adopted for a considerable number of types of artillery, it was decided to commence the manufacture of nitro-cellulose powder in Great Britain. A large factory was projected, but was abandoned when America came into the war.
The novelty of the supply both of explosives and propellants led to the building of large national factories to supplement the limited capacity of the factories in private hands. Indeed, the largest industrial venture of the war was the propellant factory at Gretna, the scale of which is illustrated by the fact that its acid-producing capacity exceeded that of the whole country before the war. As it was considered expedient to build not only out of range of enemy aircraft but also away from industrial centres, it involved building a town to house the workpeople. The factory, which cost £8,000,000 to build, made nearly one-fourth of the cordite required by the army during the war, at a considerable saving of cost.
The relative importance of home sources and of imports of explosives and propellants is shown in Table I, which gives the percentages of the total output during the war: TABLE I.
| Trade | National Factories | Imports p | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Picric Acid. ... . | 92% | 62 | % | 11% |
| T.N.T.. .. . | 21 | 63 | 16 | |
| Ammonium Nitrate | 65 | 30 | 5 | |
| All Explosives | 53 | 39 | 8 | |
| Cordite.. . | 47 | 38 | 15 | |
| Nitro-cellulose | - | 2 | 98 | |
| All Propellants | 26 | 22 | 52 | |
The explosive output involved a greatly increased supply of nitrate from abroad. At first this was readily forthcoming, but at an early date Allied competition led to difficulties in Chile, and later, when lack of tonnage made it difficult to spare ships for so long a voyage, an inter-Allied organization was set up to buy for the Allies in common and to ration supplies. In the last year of the war France met her needs to a substantial degree by the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen; but though a plant for this purpose was begun in Great Britain it never reached the production stage.
Trench Warfare
The stabilizing of the western front led to the employment of a great variety of engines of war subordinate to the artillery, such as mortars, hand grenades, etc., some of which were designed and even produced at the front. These weapons gave great scope for inventive faculties, while the implements themselves did not require the same degree of accuracy as artillery or aeroplanes. Hence they provided an outlet for engineering capacity which was not suitable for more exact munitions, while it enabled civilian enterprise to make substantial contributions on the side of design. The trench warfare department of the Ministry was in fact organized on the principle of setting " design " and " production " side by side. It produced a large number of products which it offered to the army, of which three are of outstanding importance. (1) The first was the Stokes mortar, which was manufactured and sent to the front in spite of a very lukewarm reception by the military authorities. In this case the Ministry proceeded in advance of the sanction of the War Office, but the weapon won its way and became part of the standing equipment in the latter years of the war. (2) The department in the autumn of 1915 experimented with shell filled with lachrymatory gases, and, in the spring of 1916, with poison gases of various kinds. The most powerful of these was at first withheld from use by the army, as the Government was unwilling to go farther in this respect than the Germans; but the experience of the campaign of 1916 finally removed any scruples of this kind. A notable achievement of the trench warfare department in this field was the development of the cast-iron shell as a container for poison gas. This device avoided making an additional call upon the limited supplies of shell steel, and as it could be opened by a less violent explosion than was required with a steel shell there was less likelihood of destroying the properties of the gas and dissipating it too widely. By 1917 the proportion of chemical-filled shell to H.E. shell was rapidly increasing, and as it finally grew from being a small supplement into an integral part of the ammunition programme, the filling of chemical shell was ultimately taken over by the ammunition filling department. In the autumn of 1918, 20% of certain natures and 12% of others were filled with chemical, and the percentage in 1919 would have been immensely greater. (3) During 1916 the department equipped the army with shrapnel-proof helmets, which rapidly became a regular part of the soldier's equipment.
Tanks
Another feature of Mr. Lloyd George's administration was the commencement of the manufacture of tanks. The design of the first tank was developed (see Tanks) by an Admiralty committee and tested before several members of the Cabinet in Feb. 1916. The design was favourably reported upon by the military representatives present, and a special department was created in the Ministry under Col. Albert Stern to manufacture these new weapons. The secret was well maintained, in spite of the special priority in regard to labour and materials which was given to the manufacturers during 1916. Tanks were first used in the field in Sept. 1916, and thereafter their production assumed its normal place among the other departments of the Ministry.
Other Activities
During Mr. Lloyd George's administration steps were taken to establish a general system of priority not only in regard to machine tools and the use of raw material, but also in all the work done in engineering and chemical factories; but the carrying-out of the scheme in full belongs to a later date.
Foreign Purchases
Within a month of his appointment Mr. Lloyd George sent Mr. D. A. Thomas (later Lord Rhondda) to the United States and Canada to report upon the progress of munition output in America. Mr. Thomas reported that although the commission paid to Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. seemed high the work was being well done and he recommended no modification in the arrangement. In Dec. 1915, Sir Ernest Moir was sent to America to exercise a general supervision over deliveries. An organization was set up in New York which kept track of output, followed goods through to port, and reported progress to the Ministry. This organization continued in existence until the end of the war, but became part of the British mission in the United States when America joined the Allies. In Canada Mr. Thomas found an organization in being under Gen. Sam Hughes, the Canadian Minister of Militia, though Gen. Hughes had no direct control over British orders. Subsequently the Canadian Pacific Railway were made agents for the British Government, and their organization developed into the Imperial Munitions Board, which exercised the functions of the Ministry of Munitions in Canada except that of inspection, which remained under an officer in Ottawa responsible to the head of the inspection department in Great Britain.
Financial Control
At the commencement of the war it was evident that in the existing state of uncertainty it would be impossible for Parliament to retain control over the details of expenditure, and from Aug. 6 1914 onwards the money for carrying on the war was voted in the form of unallotted votes of credit, whose distribution was placed in the hands of the Treasury. The latter department, however, at once recognized that it was impossible for the spending departments to submit detailed proposals, and it therefore abandoned the machinery by which it normally sanctioned expenditure. This relaxing of control applied first to direct expenditure for the war, but was soon extended to cover advances to contractors, etc.
When the Ministry of Munitions was formed, similar powers were necessarily conferred upon the Minister except as regards the salaries of officials. Nor was it possible for the finance officers of the Ministry to control expenditure in the sense that they could exercise any influence upon the volume of orders to be placed. It has been stated that at the outset the Ministry placed orders largely in excess of War Office requirements in order to increase munition-producing capacity, and at a later date the Ministry discussed the character of the programme put forward by the War Office from the standpoint of the balance between various demands, the extent to which they could be met from stock, or the limitations imposed by lack of materials, tonnage, labour or other limiting factors. But except as regards the limit of money available for foreign purchases, financial considerations did not, in fact, govern the munition programme.
The task of the financial officers of the Ministry, under the assistant financial secretary (Sir Hardman Lever), was, therefore, confined to ascertaining that the public funds were spent as economically as possible. The limitation of contractors' profits to a large extent suspended the normal stimulus to reduce costs of production, and the first and most important enterprise of the finance department of the Ministry was to develop and impose upon contractors an adequate system of " costing " and cost-accounts. These were developed during the first few months of the Ministry's existence, and enabled the officials of the Ministry to negotiate successfully considerable reductions in prices. This costing system, together with the rapidly increasing efficiency of production through experience of manufacture on a large scale, quickly produced substantial reductions in price as compared with the original sums paid for all classes of munitions. In Aug. 1916 it was claimed by Mr. Montagu in the House of Commons that the Ministry had already saved by this means £20,000,000 on home shell contracts alone and that American and Canadian prices for shell had been reduced 15% and 121% respectively.
Design
A most important expansion of the functions of the Ministry took place in Nov. 1915, when the design department of Woolwich was transferred to the Minister. A new inventions board had already been instituted in the Ministry, but this did not deal with established service articles. It had for many months been a subject of complaint, by those controlling production in the Ministry, that the design department was still working on pre-war traditions and was not sufficiently in touch with the requirements imposed by methods of mass production, nor was it drawing sufficiently upon the experience which was being gained by those actually engaged in this production. The War Office quite properly attached the very greatest importance to questions of design and the accuracy limits in specifications which the safety of the army made necessary, and were unwilling to release control of this department. The matter, however, was decided by the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) in favour of the Minister of Munitions, the transfer was made, and it was laid down that the Army Council should inform the Minister in general terms of the qualities required in a specific supply, that the design department under the Minister should submit its results to the War Office, and that the latter would then indicate the amount of its requirements. The officer in charge of design under the Minister would, however, be responsible for approving the specifications for manufacture. This officer, who in the first instance was also given charge of the inspection staff, thus took over the duty of laying down the standards of inspection.
The work of this department during the first six months of ter its transfer to the Ministry was of an exceedingly difficult character, for it had to solve the problem of successfully detonating artillery shell filled with the new high explosive (amatol).
The transfer of this department, which was put under a military officer with war experience (Maj.-Gen. Du Cane), had the important consequence of creating direct contact between the Ministry and the army in the field, and so enabled the behaviour of the new munitions under service conditions to be known in the workshops.
The Somme Battle
The first period of the Ministry's history ends with the opening of the battle of the Somme. The output of artillery and of ammunition, so long delayed by one difficulty after another, had at last permitted the army to accumulate a substantial stock of shell and to dispose of an artillery equipment with which it could match the standard of expenditure set by the Germans at Verdun. But the stock had only begun to accumulate in the preceding six weeks; and as the preliminary bombardment (which could be heard from the English coast) continued day after day, the rapidly dwindling stock was watched with growing anxiety. When the troops went over the parapet, and while the ground was being consolidated and the guns brought up, there was a momentary respite, but within a few days the barrage broke out again, and before the end of July the army was living from hand to mouth upon the incoming supply from Great Britain. So far as all the heavy natures were concerned, practically the whole of this came from a single filling factory. The fear of an untoward accident to Chilwell or of an interruption to the cross-Channel service was thus added to the normal worries of production and transport. Fortunately, however, everything went according to plan, and the supply steadily grew until the winter brought the offensive to an end.
This achievement was not the first fruits of the formation of the Ministry of Munitions. The army had been living for months past on munitions supplied on previous War Office orders; but these orders would not have materialized had it not been for the help rendered by the Ministry to War Office contractors, in technical matters (gauges, drawings, etc.), in supply of materials, and in control of the labour supply, recruiting, etc.
At the end of 12 months, however, the larger plans initiated by Mr. Lloyd George began to bear fruit and became one of the dominating factors in the war. From the middle of 1916 onwards, there was never a general shortage of munitions, and the special emergencies which arose from time to time were met with increasing facility, as the enormous industrial organism which had been set in motion during this first year became more responsive to control.
Centralized Administrative Control
The second year of the Ministry of Munitions (Mr. E. Montagu becoming Minister in July 1916, and Dr. Addison in Dec. 1916) saw a very considerable readjustment of and increase in the artillery and ammunition programmes of the Ministry as a result of experience in the battle of the Somme. The increased artillery demand naturally involved consequential increases in the ammunition programme, but in Sept. 1916 the army sent in a demand that the ration of ammunition per gun should also be increased. It was found that the 18-pdr., which at one period was thought might even be superseded altogether, had functions of supreme importance in furnishing the " creeping barrage," in following up before the " heavies " could be moved, and in shelling the enemy as soon as he left his permanent entrenchments.
The daily ration was therefore raised to 50 rounds per gun per day, while the 6-in., 8-in., and 9.2-in. howitzers, whose rations had been 20, 15 and 12 rounds respectively, were raised to a uniform 30. Though these increases added 50% to Mr. Lloyd George's programme, they did not involve any changes in manufacturing policy. They did, however, call for more complete control over materials and processes subsidiary to the ammunition programme, and made necessary increasingly drastic restrictions of non-war work by means of priority certificates, while the growing shortage of labour involved a constant extension of the principles of dilution. These changes involved a tightening of the centralized control of the Ministry over industrial conditions, and made it increasingly difficult for private industry to continue or for other departments to get their contracts fulfilled. It was largely on this account that the Ministry took over a number of additional services, of which the chief were the supply of aircraft, railway material, agricultural machinery and motor vehicles, the last of which was placed in the charge of Sir Albert Stanley.
When the Ministry took over the supply of aircraft, which was placed in the hands of Sir William Weir, the supply of aeroplanes was at the rate of 675 per month and of engines 721 per month. These figures rose to 1,117 and 1,083 respectively per month in the next five months, as new firms came into production and the difficulties with materials were overcome. For the rest of the war, however, it was necessary to give a very high priority to aircraft production, particularly with regard to skilled labour, although the novel character of the work and its consequent freedom from restrictive trade-union practices permitted female labour to be introduced from the outset to a greater extent than in other sorts of munition work.
The progress of " dilution " generally throughout this period is shown by the fact that while in July 1916 employers reported that 336,000 women had replaced men, in July 1917 654,000 women had replaced men. In Government establishments, which had only employed 2,000 women before the war, 69,000 women had replaced men by July 1916 and 191,000 by July 1917.
Control of Steel and Other Materials
The development of the steel department into one of the most vital sections of the Ministry belongs to this period. Prior to the formation of the Ministry of Munitions the War Office had enlisted the services of a steel expert (Mr. McLellan) to assist them in buying the multitudinous variety of products covered by the contracts department, and in the spring of 1915 the Government bought, on behalf of the Sheffield trade, considerable quantities of Swedish bar iron which they held as a reserve against the possibility of Swedish supplies being cut off. Action had already been taken regarding some of the more rare metals used for ferro-alloys, an arrangement having been made, for example, by the Government to take all the wolfram of the Empire until after the end of the war. But in the first year of the Ministry's history the steel problem was not of critical importance, and the steel section was a branch only of the materials department, separate sections being organized to deal with high-speed and carbon tool steel and with metallurgical coke. In the spring of 1916, as the shell factories began to get to work, and the demand for shell steel to assume large dimensions, three aspects of the steel problem came to the front: namely, the necessity for an increase in the total steel production of the country, the restriction of commercial or less essential war uses of steel, and the regulation of prices. The first scheme for increasing the steel plant was prepared in March 1916. In June 1916 plans for developing pig-iron production by converting and modernizing old blast furnaces and building a few new ones were prepared, while in May 1916 the first control order fixing the maximum prices of iron ore, pig-iron, steel, coke, bricks, etc., was passed. These arrangements were supplemented by the placing of orders for shell steel in the United States, and in June 1916 a representative was sent to that country to arrange for supplies. During this first year some assistance in meeting demands was obtained by a modification of the War Office's specifications. By April 1916 the Army Council had approved the use of steel in shell containing up to. 07% of sulphur and phosphorus. This figure was subsequently increased to. 08%. One other problem which had given rise to difficulty was the supply of foreign ore, as a result of the increase in freights. A committee of ore merchants was summoned in the spring of 1916, and decided upon a uniform freight basis from Bilbao to Great Britain of 17s. per ton, an official ore broker being appointed to take entire charge of chartering ore tonnage. The centralization of chartering had a wholesome effect, and though the price subsequently rose to 38s. the demoralization of the market was prevented. Such was the position when in Aug. 1916 it was decided to form a separate steel department under Sir John Hunter.
The first action of this department was to press forward the plans already prepared for building new steel works and bringing new blast furnaces into operation. These programmes were subsequently enlarged at various times, and ultimately amounted to 166 new steel furnaces and 22 new blast furnaces in addition to the 40 old blast furnaces modernized. At a later date large rolling-mills were commenced, chiefly for increasing the supply of steel plates for ships, tanks, etc., and from time to time substantial improvements were made in the equipment of existing rolling-mills. In all these developments the Government shared the financial burden, not by direct subsidy but by allowing. firms a deduction from their excess-profits-duty payments. A substantial percentage of these extensions were completed before the end of the war, but the programme was considerably delayed by insufficient labour and by difficulties in securing materials.
The problem of foreign ore supplies became increasingly difficult. The new department dissolved the existing committee and created a section for dealing with this problem. The purchase of Spanish ore remained in the hands of merchants, but they had: to obtain the permission of the Ministry before placing orders, and thus in effect, though not in form, the purchase was centralized. This action, together with the fact that Germany was no longer in the market, prevented the price of ore in Spain from being unduly raised. Freight rates, however, and the cost of insurance rose to enormous sums; but as the Government bore the excess over the official rate, ore was delivered to British works at a fixed price. This became an important factor in stabilizing the price of steel. As regards Swedish ore large quantities were bought, and supplied to British makers.
The difficulty in securing shipping from Spain and the Mediterranean led to two internal developments. (I) The Cumberland ore mines, which were the only substantial source of non-phosphoric ore in Great Britain, were taken over on the basis of a guarantee to the owners and developed to their maximum output. (2) Under the most favourable conditions, however, no more than a small proportion of acid steel from British ore could be expected. A great effort was accordingly made to develop the manufacture of basic at the expense of acid steel, which had hitherto constituted the larger part of the output of Great Britain. This involved in the first place an attempt to increase the output of the low-grade phosphoric ores of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and elsewhere, and in the second place a modification in the programme of steel works extensions, which first had been planned mainly for acid steel.
This question of basic steel, though a technical one, was potentially of great political importance. In peace-time, Great Britain had been content to be dependent on foreign sources of relatively high-grade ore for more than half her steel. The problem in 1916 was whether it was either possible or desirable to become self-dependent in this vital matter. There was much to be said for and against each of three possible courses: - (I) making basic steel from low-grade British ore, (2) making acid steel from imported ore, or (3) importing pig-iron or steel from America. The difficulty of importing ore which required a large tonnage on a submarine-infested area was obvious; but the use of low-grade British ore involved a larger consumption of fuel and therefore of man-power in the coal-mines, and an increased congestion in internal railway transport. Imported American pigiron, on the other hand, utilized neutral labour and economized tonnage, since two tons of Spanish ore are needed to make a ton of pig-iron, but until America came into the war the difficulty of financing purchases and the desire not to become too dependent on the United States caused the Ministry to persevere with home supplies, and even after America joined the Allies the policy could not be materially changed, owing to the large scale of the war demands of the American Government, which left little margin for export. Hence the production figures (Table II) show a steady development in basic output.
TABLE II.
| Acid Steel Output (Ingot tons) | Basic Steel Output (Ingot tons) | |
| 1913. . | 4,860,000 | 2,804,000 |
| 1914 | 4,478,000 | 3,357,000 |
| 1915. . | 5,111,000 | 3,439,000 |
| 1916 | 5,468,000 | 3,523,000 |
| 1917 | 5,772,000 | 3,945,000 |
| 1918 . | 4,992,000 | 4,547,000 |
The total of 36, 700,000 ingot tons of steel for the four war years 1915-8 (toward the production of which there were imported 26 million tons of ore and over 2 million tons of pig-iron) represents about 28 million tons of finished steel, to which must be added 24 million tons of shell steel imported from the United States and Canada, and a million tons of general steel.
In Nov. 1916, a control order restricting steel consumption for less urgent uses was passed, under which the department was entitled to obtain itemized returns of steel deliveries from every works, and to insist that the orders in hand should be carried out in order of urgency. These returns showed how much steel was being used for each branch of war production; and although at first it was difficult for the various departments of the Government to reduce their demands to a fixed programme and to convert these demands into terms of steel, a system was gradually evolved in which it was possible to balance deliveries against requirements. From July 1917 onwards steel allocations were made at monthly meetings of departments presided over by the controller of steel production.
By this time, however, the balance of needs had been substantially altered. The shell programme had been in effective operation for nearly two years. Stocks of empty shell and of shell steel had accumulated, the orders placed in America had materialized, and it was now possible to deal with the supply of ammunition without providing large margins for contingencies; hence the actual monthly allocation was substantially reduced. On the other hand, a very urgent demand for steel for shipbuilding had arisen, and with increasing demands for tanks, aircraft, military railways and other needs the supply of shell steel dropped to a relatively minor position. The figures for the allocation of steel for the first six months of 1918 (Table III) show the balance between the various departments.
TABLE III. - Steel Programme for First Six Months of 1918. (Weekly average in tons.) Admiralty (mainly plates and sections) War Office Contracts Department. Ministry of Munitions Explosives .
Guns, large .
Machine-guns and S. A. Trench warfare.. Mechanical warfare. Mechanical transport .
Aircraft.. Steelworks extension. Factory construction. Machine tools and cranes Railways, U.K.. .
Railways, overseas .
Electrical power supply Total M. of M. . 26,272 India Office. .. 492 Other Government Departments and Priority. 19,804 Allies: - France. 6,940' Italy. 7,092 Shell steel: Great Britain land service and Admiralty 21,448 France. 900 Italy. 3,360 Tubes. 7,672 Wire rods 4,808 Grand Total.. 139,880 The actual realization was fairly close to the estimated figures, but in addition an average of 16,400 tons of shell steel was imported from the United States and Canada.
In regard to prices the Government, after attempting in 1915 to regulate prices by agreement, found that costs were rising to such an alarming extent that it was faced with the necessity either of raising the price of steel, and so altering the basic figure of vast numbers of Government contracts, or of keeping prices fixed and making good the balance to manufacturers in the form of direct or indirect subsidies. The change in prices would ultimately have been very large, as the subsidies finally amounted to no less than £io per ton on steel made from imported ore. Of this sum, ocean insurance amounted to f5. The event thus justified the decision of the Ministry to adopt the policy of subsidies, for otherwise it would have been faced not merely with the readjustment of numberless contracts, but also with a rise in the general level of prices, involving increased middlemen's profits, wages variations, etc. Moreover, the Government was itself directly or indirectly the purchaser of 98% of the total produced, and, except as regards freight, the increases in steel cost were largely caused by wages advances, which were to a substantial extent controlled by the Government itself. The policy once started involved controlling the materials for production, including ore, coke, pig iron, scrap, ferro-manganese, and magnesite, fire, and silica bricks. Increases in wages in the steel works themselves were met by paying subsidies direct to 37,076' 10,016 ? 556 2,760 900 ? 924 ,4808 1, 33,536376 1,42 4, 46 4 536 the manufacturer, but the bulk of the subsidies were paid not directly to steel manufacturers but to shipowners and mineowners, and in bearing the actual cost of submarine losses at sea. The total amount paid directly or indirectly as subsidy to steel production costs in 1918 reached 45 million pounds sterling.
The only other way in which the stabilization of prices could have been obtained was for the Government to have bought the whole output of iron and steel, and to have sold it to the user; and if the complete character of the control had been envisaged at the outset it is possible this plan would have been adopted; but as control was at first only partial, while the maintenance of private commerce remained important, it was impracticable.
The case of steel is the most representative example of the numerous controls exercised by the Ministry over a wide field, touching the economic life of the community at many points.
Before the Ministry came into existence, some measure of regulation had been adopted in the case of several non-ferrous metals and chemicals. At an early stage in 1915, for example, the Government purchased the whole output of wolfram (the ore used for making tungsten, which is the alloy used in highspeed steel) from imperial sources. The list was added to continuously throughout the war, until at the Armistice it included aluminium (the demand for which enormously increased owing to its use in aircraft, in fuzes, and as a chemical element in smoke powder), antimony (used as an alloy of lead for making shrapnel bullets), chrome ore (the material for the alloy in chrome steel), copper, brass, lead, nickel (for nickel steel and rifle bullets), mica (for magnetos), platinum, potash, resin, shellac, tin and zinc. The long list of the explosives department included acetate of lime, acetic acid, acetone, glycerine, bleach, chlorine, ether, benzol, coal tar, creosote, nitrate, pyrites and sulphuric acid. The new process for making cordite, which was developed at the Gretna factory, was one of the main causes which brought alcohol under control, and ultimately stopped its production for non-industrial purposes; while the control of sulphuric acid, together with the scarcity of nitrate, quickly brought the whole supply of fertilizers within the domain of the explosives department, since control of one or two materials inevitably leads to the control of competing materials. Thus the department became responsible for the supply of superphosphates and basic slag, nitrate and sulphate of ammonia, and potash.
Several of these commodities differed from the case of steel in the fact that the article was imported on a large scale in the form in which it was commonly sold in England. Regulation, therefore, commonly started in two ways: the fixing of a maximum price and the control of importation by licence. The Government early exercised a large influence on the market by reason of very large contracts which it placed abroad, but these were not always sufficient to give adequate control. Hence orders were made under D.O.R.A., giving the Government the right to commandeer all imports on private account. Even this was not always sufficient, since the existence in the country of a large stock of material made allocation difficult and created a small but free market which had a disturbing effect on price. Hence the further step was necessary of prohibiting purchase and sale except under licence. Finally, in all cases where home production was a substantial element, as for example in the case of alcohol, glycerine, etc., the Government commandeered the whole of the internal output. Certain cases, however, such as pyrites, followed the steel precedent, since the stabilizing of the price of sulphuric acid meant that, as the cost of transport and insurance of pyrites from Spain increased, the Government had to bear a large part of the cost of the material.
The period under consideration marked the transition in the great majority of cases from the looser form of control by maximum price to the more complete regulation of all dealings in the commodity and the commandeering on Government account of total available supplies.
Foreign Orders and American Intervention
When it was decided to place new heavy-shell orders abroad, considerations of finance, together with the desire to avoid becoming too dependent on a country which at any moment might ban the export of munitions, led the Ministry to place as large a proportion of orders as possible in Canada. The failure of the new rifle plants erected in 1915 to make delivery in time to relieve the rifle shortage led to special negotiations for reduction in these contracts, and arrangements were ultimately entered into, under which the total to be delivered was reduced from 2,500,000 to 1,200,000. This, together with other orders, meant that in 1916 the British Government was buying large quantities of material but not much finished munitions from America. When America entered the war, representatives of the Ministry accompanied Mr. Balfour to the United States with the object of giving the U.S. Government the benefit of British munition experience, endeavouring to coordinate the programmes of the Allies, and arranging for any change that might be called for in the organization of the munitions office in America. The American departments were not in fact sufficiently organized as to personnel or duties to enable these objects to be carried very far at that date. In May 1917, Messrs. Morgan gave notice to terminate their commercial agency, and offered to place their organization at the disposal of the U.S. Government. As a temporary arrangement they offered to continue to place orders for the Allies at a reduced commission, but it early became evident that every order would involve negotiations with the Government for financial approval as well as for the necessary priority and export permits. It was clear that these duties could not be appropriately undertaken by an American organization, and on the recommendation of the Balfour mission a British munitions representative was sent out to take charge of a mission in Washington, whose duty would be to carry on negotiations with the American Government for the necessary supplies. This officer subsequently became part of the American war mission under Lord Northcliffe.
Assistance to Russia
In the autumn of 1916, serious attention was devoted to the possibility of remedying the disparity in the material resources available on the Russian compared with the western front, the need being emphasized by the arrest of the successful offensive of Gen. Brusilov as soon as his troops came up against fortified positions which could only be overcome by heavy artillery. From the beginning of the war, Lord Kitchener had made great efforts to persuade the Russians to place orders abroad, and direct assistance in this task both in England and America was subsequently given by British organizations and British credit. But the possibility of direct material assistance was very limited. Russia was a non-industrial country taking part in a war which was being largely fought by mechanical appliances, and in particular, on the vast extension of the eastern front, by modern means of transit. Russia was ultimately defeated by the failure of her inadequate railway system, which was called upon (r) to provide mobility for the troops at the front, (2) to bring food from the interior of Russia for 15,000,000 men and large numbers of horses normally living on the local produce of the soil, (3) to supply coal and steel from the Caucasus to the munition areas of Petrograd and Moscow which normally got supplies via the Baltic or by the Polish frontier, (4) to carry imports from the ice-bound ports of Archangel and Vladivostok. From Vladivostok it required 120 locomotives to maintain one train a day to Moscow; and though new rolling-stock and engines were put on rail in the Far East, by Christmas 1916 there had accumulated 600,000 tons of war material, including tens of thousands of tons of barbed wire, though many miles of the front had no wire defence at all.
The munitions representatives who accompanied the Allied mission to Russia in Jan. r917 found that, in spite of the completion of the railway from the ice-free port of Murmansk to Petrograd, the ports and railways of Russia could not deal with more than 3,500,000 tons of imports (including coal), compared with minimum demands for 13,000,000 tons. A careful programme based upon the former figure was drawn up, including a substantial supply of heavy artillery and aeroplanes, and a permanent mission was stationed in Petrograd to assist in transport and in the training of personnel, but the revolution prevented the programme from being carried out.
Internal Developments
During this year, efforts were made to improve the internal organization of the Ministry, among whose various parts there was still a lack of coordination. Moreover, the increasing functions had led to still more heads of departments having direct access to the Minister. Mr. Montagu endeavoured to deal with the problem by setting up a committee whose chairman (Sir Arthur Duckham) and vice-chairman (Sir James Stevenson) were relieved of departmental duties; but its powers were purely advisory. At the same time a weekly meeting of heads of departments was inaugurated and continued until the summer of 1917. This was of value in giving all departments a knowledge of general policy; but the numbers were too large for it to be an effective instrument of administration.
More important developments were inaugurated in financial administration, in two directions. The first was the overhauling of all the past accounting transactions of the Ministry, with the view of recovering money that had been temporarily lost through the confusion and deficiencies of the earlier system of records. This bore fruit in " recoveries " to the amount of some 39,- 000,000. The second was the reconstitution of the accounting system on a commercial basis for the future, by substituting double-entry for the old single-entry system, in use before the war in nearly all Government departments. Since the method of departmental bookkeeping was dictated by the prescribed form of accounts rendered to the Treasury and Parliament, this reform led incidentally to proposals for a remodelling of the public accounts themselves. By 1917 the financial staff of the Ministry had established a system of contract-control by means of cost accounts.
Early in 1917 the control of the inspecting staff was reorganized al. an independent department under Sir Sothern Holland. This period also saw a great increase in the size and duties of the priority department, under Sir Edgar Jones. The staff of the Ministry, which had risen to 5,000 under Mr. Lloyd George, rose to 13,000 by July 1917.
Inter-Allied Coordination
The third and culminating period of the Ministry of Munitions (Mr. Winston Churchill being Minister from July 1917 to Jan. 1919) saw certain important though not fundamental changes in programme. The chief of these were growing aircraft demands, accentuated by the campaign of the Independent Air Force against German industrial centres; a sudden enlargement of the tank programme as a result of their successful employment in the attack on Cambrai in Nov. 1917; and, thirdly, the efforts to emulate the Germans in the production of mustard gas, and to find, if possible, new and more effective poisons.
Further, during 1918 plans were far advanced, in preparation for the 1919 campaign, for increasing the range of an offensive, (a) by adapting the caterpillar principle to the movement across country of troops and stores on a large scale, and (b) by entirely re-equipping the army with longer-range field and other artillery. These measures were carried out by adapting rather than by enlarging the munition-making resources of the country. Indeed, the adequacy of the supply was put to a severe test in March and April 1918, when the army lost 1,000 guns and ioo,000 tons of ammunition in the retreat from St. Quentin, in addition to losses resulting from the intensive attacks made upon British munition dumps in France by bombing aircraft. The artillery and ammunition losses were made good by May, and only in the case of small-arms ammunition, the expenditure of which in machine-guns increased to quite unexpected figures, was any anxiety experienced.
This phase of munition history corresponded with the unrestricted submarine campaign, the active participation in the war by the United States, and an increasing shortage of man-power. It was, therefore, marked by increasing efforts to economize and coordinate effort, (a) within the Ministry, (b) between the Ministry and other British departments, and (c) between Great Britain and the Allies.
Departmental Reorganizations
Mr. Churchill's first task at the Ministry was to deal with organization. The internal mechanism had never developed on a considered plan, but had been determined partly by personal considerations and partly by the kaleidoscopic changes in the relative importance of various activities as the drama of the war unfolded. Mr. Lloyd George's administration was a period when half a dozen departments of supreme importance were feverishly urging on production in a new field under new conditions. And the business men in charge of them utilized to the full their right of direct access to the Minister - thus making organization extremely difficult.
The complexity became much worse during the next period, as duty after duty was imposed upon the Ministry, and as the task of carrying out the old ones involved control in new directions and the creation of fresh administrative branches. Hence, by the summer of 1917, the number of departments had increased to over so, and although the machinery was in existence for coordinating the programme itself, there was not sufficient cooperation or clear definition of responsibility between the departments. Various attempts had been made to meet this difficulty - as, e.g. by the proposal to attach to the Minister one or more staff officers who would act as liaison officers between the departments, many of which were housed at some considerable distance from headquarters. A more promising scheme was to increase the number of parliamentary secretaries and make all departments report through one or other of them. But this scheme broke down through the complications still caused by exercise of the right of direct access to the Minister on the part of the business heads.
Mr. Churchill solved the problem by the creation of a Muni tions Council, consisting of the Minister, parliamentary secretaries and 12 members, including the secretary to the Ministry. Their duties were to deal in the first instance with all matters requiring decision in the departments entrusted to them; and although the heads of departments in theory retained the right of access to the Minister, in practice it was not exercised and the members of Council became in fact the heads of groups of departments. The reform was accompanied by the rehabilitation of the permanent civil servant. The position of the secretary was strengthened by insistence that papers should pass through his hands to the Minister, and still more by the attachment to each member of Council of a civil servant called a secretarial officer - whose duty was to see that the procedure worked smoothly and uniformly. This machinery came into being and worked with surprisingly little friction.
But in fact the Council did not often meet as such, its work being to a large extent done by a standing " coordinating " committee of the Council, which dealt with all matters arising out of the programme and its execution. A second standing committee of the Council dealt with and prepared plans for demobilization, while matters which did not fall within one or other of these spheres were dealt with by Council committees appointed ad hoc. The organization of the Munitions Council in its final form was as follows: F. - Finance, contracts, controlled establishments finance, munitions works board, lands branch, central stores, salvage (Sir Gilbert Garnsey).
D
Design, inspection, inventions (Gen. Sir Francis Bingham).
S
Iron and steel production, factory construction (Sir John Hunter).
M
Non-ferrous metals, scrap, railway material, optical munitions, potash, railway and sea transport of munitions and material (Sir Ernest Moir).
X
Supply of explosives, propellants and chemicals (Sir Keith Price).
0
Supply of artillery, gun ammunition, rifles, machine-guns, small-arms ammunition and trench-warfare supplies. Engineering department (Sir James Stevenson).
A
Aircraft (Sir Arthur Duckham).
W
Warfare, tanks, poison-gas, etc. (Gen. Seely).
L
Labour regulation and supply (Sir Stephenson Kent). Sec. - Secretariat, staff and establishment, legal department, etc. (Sir William Graham Greene).
R
Requirements and statistics, American department, Allied requirements (Mr. W. T. Layton).
Allies
Head of Paris office and one of the British delegates on Inter-Allied Munition Council (Sir Charles Ellis).
In addition the master-general of the ordnance (Gen. Furse) was made an honorary member representing the War Office.
| 1024 |
At this stage of the war, coordination of the efforts of various departments of state was even more important than internal reorganization. The British Ministry of Munitions never absorbed the purchasing sections of the Admiralty; and the predominant need of naval supremacy, strengthened by the traditional rights of the senior service, had enabled naval requirements to retain a nominal priority over land requirements. This did not greatly affect munition output when once the munition movement was in full swing - except on occasions, notably, when a sudden decision was made to mount two guns on every merchant ship; when tho losses of ships at sea placed the shipbuilding programme in front of all other demands and by its call upon steel prejudiced other branches of production; and to a less extent after the battle of Jutland, when the decision was made to replace the whole existing naval ammunition supply.
In the case of seaplanes, and a few articles connected with the anti-submarine campaign, anti-aircraft bombs, etc., the Ministry supplied naval as well as army requirements. But the Ministry did not supply the main needs of the Admiralty; and the plan of forming a single Ministry of Supply for both services, including all the goods supplied by the Army Contracts Department, though much discussed when Mr. Churchill came to the Ministry and though recommended by a Treasury committee, was never carried into effect. Moreover, control was gradually developed by the Ministry of Food, and by the mines, timber, paper and other departments, which still remained under the Board of Trade, dealing with various spheres of economic life. There was also a continued demand from the army for specialists to run the repair services, workshops, etc., which were built up behind the front.
Thus there arose keen competition between departments for man-power, for tonnage and for finance (especially dollar credits in the United States and Canada). There also remained the question of the order of priority of work to be done. But experience had proved that no absolute " priority " could be given to any single activity. The word continued in constant use until the end of the war, but in fact the increasing strain upon economic resources, combined with the greater accuracy of demands and forecasts, meant that the conception of placing demands in order of importance was largely superseded by the plan of rationing economic resources. Each of the three factors mentioned was dealt with by a Cabinet committee, which in one case became the province of a new Ministry - that of National Service. In the case of finance the allocation of American dollars was taken out of the hands of the Treasury and assigned to a standing committee called the American Board - an interdepartmental committee under the presidency of Mr. Chamberlain, who with Lord Buckmaster represented Great Britain on the Inter-Allied Committee of Finance. The problem of tonnage also passed out of the hands of a periodical meeting of departmental officers under the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping into the purview of a Cabinet committee, and the programme so approved was coordinated with that of the Allies by the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council.
So far as they affected munitions, the three factors were intimately connected. It was cheaper to manufacture at home than to buy abroad, and a given amount of dollars would carry a larger programme if spent on raw material than if spent on finished articles. But the tonnage needed to import materials was greater than that required for importing articles such as manufactured explosives or ammunition, while there was obviously a saving in British man-power by buying the finished product. On the other hand, munition capacity at home was in a more highly advanced stage of development than in America, and was quickly adaptable, whereas British orders in America had to compete with the enormous programme of the U.S. War Department. Moreover, the reserve of man-power in the United States was intact, and it was evident that the most rapid and effective way in which America could make her weight felt in the world contest was to get that reserve into the field, with the help, if necessary, of British munitions and equipment. The balancing of these considerations, which occupied much of the time of Ministers during the last 18 months of the war, thus broadened out into the problem of coordinating the whole Allied effort. But the final decisions did not radically alter the proportions of British munitions production.
Man-power
As regards man-power, 53,000 men were withdrawn between March and Nov. 1917 for the army from munitions work, by a continuous process of substitution and dilution without diminishing production. As a result of the German offensive in the spring of 1918, which created a man-power crisis and led to the raising of the age limit for general recruiting, it was decided to make an immediate " clean cut " in the munition factories of all men of 19 and 20 regardless of the nature of their employment, and to take all men of 21, 22 and 23 within a short period. A hundred thousand men were obtained by this plan before the middle of the year; but when the tide of battle turned, Mr. Churchill secured the suspension of the second part of the scheme. Indeed, he secured the release of some of those already enlisted for work upon the new tank programme, for the blast furnaces, and for the manufacture of scientific instruments, etc.
Throughout this period the employment of women steadily increased, and the lack of skilled men was met by pressing them to enroll as war-munition volunteers - thus increasing the reserve of mobile skilled men - and by rationing skilled labour to firms. Protection from recruiting was withdrawn from men not fully employed on skilled work. The embargo on employing more than a certain number of skilled men was at first resisted, and led to a strike at Coventry in July 1918. But the Ministry stood firm and the scheme was carried into effect.
Tonnage
In the autumn of 1917 a drastic cut was ordered by the Cabinet in the import programmes of the different departments, since the Minister of Shipping, taking the best available estimate of losses from the submarine campaign, anticipated that the imports into Great Britain would drop by 10 million tons. The ration to the Ministry of Munitions was reduced from 12 million to 10 million tons, most of which had to be deducted from iron-ore imports. The steel budget was consequently reduced and pressure put upon the departments to minimize their programme. The Minister, however, took the view that, as other supplies might be uncertain and it would be foolish to keep ships waiting for a cargo, he should be allowed to maintain a surplus stock of metals, materials, etc., on the Atlantic seaboard of America ready for shipment at any moment. Owing partly to the success of anti-submarine measures, partly to the success of the policy of concentrating ships on the shortest (i.e. the Atlantic) route, and partly because other materials were not ready in time, the actual imports of munition materials during 1918 were at the rate of 12 million tons a year. In the autumn of 1917 an arrangement was made with the United States to supply American ships to convey material needed in Great Britain to replace material used in making goods for the U.S. army in Europe. But this scheme of hypothecating ships to convey particular replacement material was not, in fact, carried into effect, being superseded by the plan of reviewing and allocating the tonnage and material resources of the Allies as a whole through the machinery of the Inter-Allied Transport and Munitions Councils.
The orders for heavy shell placed by the Ministry in 1916, which were delivered during the early part of 1917, gave so large a stock that no further orders were necessary except in regard to 6-in.-shell orders, which were placed both in the United States and Canada for delivery in 1918. Apart from this, the main requirements from America were for shell steel, nitro-cellulose powder, copper, spelter, motor lorries and lubricating oil, while as the year progressed substantial orders were also placed for aeroplane spruce and for Liberty engines. The rate of dollar expenditure, however, in 1918 represented less than half of the maximum reached in the first quarter of 1917, while in Canada the purchases dropped to less than 60% of the maximum reached in the second quarter of 1917.
Inter-Allied Relations
These discussions emphasized the necessity for agreement with the Allies. In the late summer of 1917 the difficulty of financing imports from the United States led to an agreement between the British and French Ministers of Munitions, under which the latter undertook to pay by dollars in America for goods bought in England which involved replacement in American material. Further discussion of the problem, moreover, led the British Minister to insist that the production of shell steel to French specification should cease and that M. Loucheur should buy his shell steel direct from America. France, from a very early stage in the war, had devoted her restricted steel production to the manufacture of more finished products, and had relied on England and America for the overwhelming proportion of her shell steel. The French Minister was anxious to retain some of his supply from European sources as an insurance against an interruption of sea communication; and to meet this difficulty Mr. Churchill agreed to retain a small output of shell steel of French specification. The bulk supply was, however, transferred to the United States. This example illustrates the kind of problem which arose under the conditions at the end of 1917, and which, together with the necessity of coordinating the American munition effort with the Allied needs, gave rise to the formation of the Inter-Allied Munitions Council. Prior to the formation of the British Ministry of Munitions the Allied delegates purchasing in Great Britain on behalf of their respective Governments had been brought together in an international commission under the supervision of an officer of the Board of Trade. This officer and his staff, however, could not keep in touch with the growing supply departments, and their function resolved itself into that of rendering assistance as liaison officers to the foreign purchasing agents in London. In particular their duty was to see that the purchases made were a proper charge against the funds loaned by the British Government to these various countries, and secondly that ships were available for transporting the goods purchased.
When the Ministry of Munitions started, Mr. Lloyd George took an early opportunity of holding a conference with the French Minister of Munitions, and throughout the war such conferences were frequent. In Nov. 1915, at one of these meetings, at which Italian and Russian delegates were present, it was agreed that an Inter-Allied bureau should be formed for the purpose of studying and coordinating the requirements of the Allies. The scheme, however, was never carried into effect, as the Allied nations were not at that time ready to declare the basis of their requirements. In the early summer of 1916 the competition of the Allies in the United States became accentuated, and a few months later it was decided to form a bureau the duty of which was to coordinate the demands made upon New York by the various Ministers of Munitions. The bureau was not, however, sufficiently strongly supported, and it was found that various departments were placing orders without consulting the organization. A third attempt at coordination was made in Nov. 1916, when the campaign of 1917 was discussed in London. At these conferences substantial progress was made in the direction of setting down the complete programme of the different Allies present, and it was agreed that an organization should be set up in Paris to which full information should be supplied, and from which a complete statement of the requirements in the field and the manufacturing requirements of each Ally should be circulated for confidential information to the various Ministers. This organization continued with fluctuating fortunes and with fairly full information about Great Britain and France, but very little about other Allies. Sufficient information was, however, forthcoming to afford a very valuable check upon the demands put forward from time to time by various countries.
Such was the position when a conference was held in Dec. 1917 in Paris to consider the position for 1918. At this conference the European Allies recommended America finally to adopt a European type of artillery, but no definite plan of cooperation emerged from this discussion.
In April 1918 Allied munition officers, including representatives of the American army, again discussed the munition situation in reference to the situation in America, and as a result M. Loucheur, at the suggestion of. the British representative, sent out formal invitations for a conference to meet in June to consider a proposition for the constitution of a permanent Inter-Allied Munitions Council, with a standing secretariat and with authority to discuss and make recommendations upon the programme of the various Allies. This Council was organized into sub-committees dealing with artillery, explosives, tanks, aircraft, tonnage, steel and raw materials. This was nominally an advisory body, but as its chief members were the Ministers themselves it was of sufficient authority to take binding decisions and to negotiate with the Inter-Allied Transport Council and the Financial Council of the Allies as to the tonnage and finance available for munitions, and to arrange between the Allies for the allotment of such resources. It thus represented an important link in the final coordination of Allied efforts.
Its existence enabled a check to be put upon the basis for calculating the production programme of the various Allies, while the general survey which it gave enabled it to make a unanimous recommendation to the United States to give priority for French and British shell steel required over steel for American factories, in view of the depletion of British and French reserves, and the necessity of making them good before the 1919 campaign, which might be expected to start early in the new year. Finally, the representative of the American War Department on the Council, when he received instructions that an enormous increase was to be made in the size of the American army in the field, was able to organize a plan which, by using British and French gun-making capacity, would have enabled this enlarged army to be equipped many months earlier than would have been the case by depending upon American factories.
At the Armistice the numbers employed in the Ministry of Munitions amounted to over 25,000, of whom 60% were women. Some Munition Statistics. - The development of the British munition effort may be illustrated by some additional statistics. The most striking are perhaps the expenditure of gun ammunition on the western front. The figures cannot suitably be shown in numbers of rounds, owing to the change from light to heavy shell during 1916 and 1917, and to a limited extent back to light shell when open warfare was resumed in 1918. The best index is therefore weight in tons.
[[Table Iv]]. - Munition Expenditure on Western Front (in tons). Eleven Months Aug. 1914 to June 30 1915 1915 3rd Quarter 4th << 1916 Ist 2nd 3rd 1917 Ist 3rd 1918 Ist 2nd 3rd 4th " * 1st Somme battle.
Messines, Arras, Vimy, 3rd Ridge, 1st battle of Cambrai.
$ St. Quentin, 2nd battle of Somme, general advance.
Table IV. shows that the expenditure of ammunition reached its climax in the autumn of 1918. More than io,000 tons a day were fired on 15 successive days, and in the record week ending Sept. 29 3,3 8 3,7 00 rounds, weighing 83,000 tons, were fired.
On Sept. 29, when the Hindenburg line was broken, 943,837 rounds were fired, the cost of a single day's ammunition amounting to £3,871,000.
| New Guns and Howitzers | Filled Ammunition (in thousands) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | Medium | Heavy | ||||||||