THE WAR AND OIL
The War which has just ravaged the world, proved that the country which
controls oil will one day control the earth. It is just as Elliot Alves
predicted: "Armies, navies, money, even entire populations, will count
as nothing against the lack of oil." That the Allies have won this War
is in great part due to the two greatest trusts, the _Standard Oil_
and the _Royal Dutch-Shell_, which placed themselves at the service of
the Entente. Germany, hemmed in on all sides, saw her last resources
disappear when the Eastern front broke up.
Without petrol for lorries, tractors, motor-cars, aeroplanes--without
heavy oil for ships' boilers and factory engines--without lubricating
oil for all machinery, how was it possible to carry out the combined
movements of armies? It was not until about 1916 that people began to
say this War would be a "war of oil." The army staffs first grasped
its real utility during the defence of Verdun, situated at the end of
a wretched railway with a single line of metals. The destruction of
many railway lines and the inadequacy of the system behind the front
led the generals to transport their troops more and more frequently
by motor-lorry. It might be said that this War was the victory of the
lorry over the railway. The last phase, in particular, consisted in a
campaign of motors and aeroplanes against railways. Rich in railway
materials, our enemies were poor in petrol. Our High Command, at the
end of 1918, resolved to profit by our superiority on this point.
Before the War, Germany imported 1,263,000 tons of oil:
719,000 from the United States;
220,000 from Galicia;
158,000 from Russia;
114,000 from Rumania;
52,000 from India.
From the very beginning of hostilities nearly all these sources were
closed to her. That is why the German General Staff fought so hard for
Galicia, then for Rumania, and finally for the Caucasus.
"As Austria could not supply us with sufficient oil," wrote Ludendorff
in his _Memoirs_, "and as all our efforts to increase production were
unavailing, Rumanian oil was of decisive importance to us. But even
with deliveries of Rumanian oil, the question of oil supplies still
remained very serious, and caused us great difficulty, not only for the
conduct of the War, but for the life of the country. The stocks of the
Caucasus opened a more favourable prospect for us in 1918."
"The eastward march of the central empires is thus explained as due to
the urgent need for the conquest of oil. The treaty of Bukarest was an
'oil peace,' as also was that of Brest Litovsk.
"In Rumania, Germany seized all the oil-deposits, all the refineries,
all the pipe-lines, and altered and reorganized them according to
the immediate needs of her armies. For the benefit of her dependent
company, the _Steaua Romana_, she plundered all the properties of the
British, Dutch, French, or purely Rumanian companies.
"It was then that she destroyed the Baïkop-Constantza pipe-line and
relaid the pipes on a military route from Ploesti to Giurgiu. It was
then that the economic staff of her army founded in 1917-18 the _Erdol
Industrie Anlagen Gesellschaft_, which sequestrated, liquidated,
despoiled all the other oil companies and collected the booty for its
own profit in a vast monopoly of exploitation and distribution. This
monopoly was only broken in August 1918, by the double victories of the
Allies on the Eastern and Western fronts."[14]
When the Eastern front gave way, Germany's resources vanished. She had
left only her benzol, a little heavy oil, and no lubricating oil. She
had to give benzol to her airmen instead of petrol, although knowing
perfectly well that their machines would thereby lose greatly in power.
Her motor-lorries were not in use during calm periods; Ludendorff kept
them for critical moments. And the scarcity of oil was so serious
in the interior of Germany that the peasants passed the long winter
evenings in darkness.
The Allies, also, lived through some tragic moments.
The year 1917 was the most terrible for them. Their armies almost
ran short of petrol, their navies of heavy oils. Now, their armies
consumed a million tons of petrol a year, their navies eight million
tons of heavy oils. The stocks were reduced to such a point that, in
May 1917 the Grand Fleet had to give up its training cruises and battle
exercises, for the German submarines made a special point of attacking
tankers coming from America or Asia. In France and Italy, the use of
oil and even petrol was severely restricted.
In December 1917, when the cartel of the ten French refiners, which
had undertaken to supply the French armies, recognized that it was
powerless, and had to admit in an official letter that its stocks
would be exhausted in March 1918, on the eve of the spring campaign,
M. Clemenceau sent a despairing appeal to President Wilson. The
representative of the Commander-in-Chief had pointed out that France
did not possess in its storage depots sufficient reserves to last more
than _three days_ in a situation like that of Verdun.
Here is the text of the historic telegram: "At the decisive moment of
this War, when the year 1918 will see military operations of the first
importance begun on the French front, the French army must not be
exposed for a single moment to a scarcity of the petrol necessary for
its motor-lorries, aeroplanes, and the transport of its artillery.
"A failure in the supply of petrol would cause the immediate paralysis
of our armies, and _might compel us to a peace unfavourable to the
Allies_. Now the minimum stock of petrol computed for the French
armies by their Commander-in-Chief must be 44,000 tons and the monthly
consumption is 30,000 tons. This indispensable stock has fallen to-day
to 28,000 tons and threatens to fall almost to nothing if immediate and
exceptional measures are not undertaken and carried out by the United
States.
"These measures can and must be undertaken without a day's delay
for the common safety of the Allies, the essential condition being
that President Wilson shall obtain permanently from the American
oil companies tank steamers with a supplementary tonnage of 100,000
tons. This is essential for the French army and population. These
tank-steamers exist. They are sailing at this moment _in the Pacific
instead of the Atlantic Ocean_. Some of them may be obtained from the
fleet of new tankers under construction in the United States.
"President Clemenceau personally requests President Wilson to give the
necessary Government authority _for the immediate dispatch to French
ports of these steamers_.
"The safety of the Allied nations is in the balance. If the Allies
do not wish to lose the War, then, at the moment of the great German
offensive, they must not let France lack the petrol which is as
necessary as blood in the battles of to-morrow."
To "harness the _Standard Oil_ to the victorious chariot of the
Entente," to use the expression of Mr. Page, nothing less was necessary
than the official intervention of the United States Government. The
_Standard_ preferred to compete with the _Royal Dutch_ in the Pacific.
Wilson put an end to this state of affairs and the Petroleum War Board
immediately placed all the necessary boats at the disposal of France.
Thanks to the reserves thus built up, Foch, at the time of the great
German push in Picardy, was able to bring up heavy reinforcements
by motor-lorries and fill the gaps where the British front had been
broken. Marshal Foch was able to execute his strategic surprises only
by relying on the 92,000 motor-lorries and the 50,000 tons of petrol
a month, which the Government placed at his disposal from March to
November, 1918.
The Allied Governments had already decided to pool their resources, and
had set up the Inter-Allied Petroleum Conference, a central body whose
task was to supply them all.
It was constituted as follows:
1. Sir John Cadman, Kembal Cook, Ashdown and Graham, representing the
British Petroleum Executive.
2. Captain Foley and L.J. Thomas, representing the American Petroleum
War Board.
3. Professor Bordas, Controller-General of the French Technical
Services, and head of the laboratories of the Ministry of Finance;
Henry Bérenger, Lieutenant Georges Bénard, and the Marquis de
Chasseloup-Laubat, representing the French General Petroleum Commission.
4. Captain Pozzo and Lieutenant Farina, representing the Italian
Commission on Mineral Oils.
The Chairman was Sir John Cadman, a former professor in the University
of Birmingham, who has played so important a part in British policy
during the last few years.
The Inter-Allied Petroleum Conference had a gigantic task to face.
During the last eighteen months of the War, it had to procure twelve
or thirteen million tons of oil. It succeeded because it was able to
guarantee the co-operation of the _Royal Dutch_ and the _Standard Oil_
in the cause of the Entente. It ordered the two trusts to supply each
country from the nearest producing country. This was a great sacrifice
for them, as it obliged each trust to refrain from fighting in the
territory of the other. It arranged for the transport of oil in the
double bottoms of British ships; 1,280 ships were adapted in this way,
being equivalent to a hundred new tank-steamers. And it hurried on the
construction of tank-steamers in Great Britain and the United States;
600,000 tons were built in America and 400,000 in Great Britain.
_During hostilities the Americans tripled their oil fleet._
Its efforts were so successful that, on March 28, 1918, at the height
of Ludendorff's offensive, the President of the French General
Petroleum Commission was able to write to the Prime Minister:
"France has at her disposal for the battle 170,526 tons of petrol and
67,000 tons of other oils, instead of the 44,000 tons asked for."
"Thanks to the Inter-Allied Petroleum Conference," as M. Henry Bérenger
remarked, "never, at any moment, have our soldiers lacked a drop of
this spirit which gives them the necessary means of rapid movement
and of cornering and defeating the enemy. If hostilities had lasted
only a few more days, our victorious troops would have taken, in the
Ardennes, whole armies whose line of retreat was becoming so congested
that they must have fallen into our hands without resistance. Hence the
Germans hastily accepted the conditions which were imposed upon them,
without either hesitation or discussion." (December 7, 1918.)
This time, the military and political importance of oil was apparent
to every eye. On the morrow of the Armistice (November 21, 1918), it
was celebrated in enthusiastic speeches. And Lord Curzon was able to
declare, at Lancaster House, "Truly posterity will say that the Allies
floated to victory on a wave of oil."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: H. Bérenger: _La Politique du Pétrole_, 1920.]