THE MUNITIONS OF THE WAR.
The Shell shortage--When relief came--The dramatic Tanks--Bombs--Some
ammunition figures--The ingenious inventor.
As soon as any subject is involved in political discussion the facts
about it are apt to be distorted in the interests of some particular
view. The "Shell shortage" in the early stages of the war has become in
a sense a political issue; and that I do not intend to discuss. But some
facts about munitions supply must be given--for that was the very pivot
of the war--irrespective of what political case they help or harm.
The British Force at the outset of the war suffered from a shell and gun
shortage as compared with its enemy, because it had been trained and
equipped for a different type of warfare from that which actually came.
It had very little high explosive shell, and what it had was rarely
"high explosive" in the real sense of the term. The patient search for a
foolproof fuse had been so successful that our H.E. shell was
comparatively inoffensive when it reached the enemy's lines. It
spluttered off rather than shattered off. All this was put right in
time. But the difficulties which the Munitions Supply Department had to
face at the outset were enormous. There were, considered in the lights
of the needs of this war, practically no shells, no guns, and no
machinery for making them. Essential material was lacking in many cases,
and the only source of quick supply was Germany, which alone in the
world had organised for war.
But all difficulties were overcome. How great the growth some
comparative figures will show. The production of high explosive in 1914
was almost negligible. The year's supply would not keep the guns of 1918
going for a day. In 1915 we began to produce high explosive on a large
scale, and in amounts which made the 1914 output seem contemptible, but
still in quite inadequate quantities. In 1916 we had increased the 1915
amount sevenfold. In 1917 we had increased that 1916 amount fourfold.
From March, 1915, to March, 1917, the increase was twenty-eight fold. Of
machine-guns we made samples in 1914 and we began to manufacture
quantities in 1915. In 1917 we made twenty times as many as in 1915. Of
aeroplanes the figures mounted in steep flights. In 1916 we seemed to be
producing vastly. In 1917 the rate of production for the first six
months had increased fourfold as compared with the previous year, and
another great acceleration was in progress.
In the end we were enormously superior to any other Army in the field in
the matter of munitions. To the very day of the Armistice improvements
in the quality and rate of productions were still going on in
preparation for the Spring, 1919, campaign, which it was anticipated
would end the war. The German threw up the sponge before then. If he had
waited he would have been literally blown out of his trenches and his
chief cities.
In one sense, of course, we never had enough, but if I were asked to
name a date on which a serious shortage of munitions ceased I should say
September 19th, 1915, on the eve of the battle of Loos. On that date, a
year after Trench War began, word was passed around to the batteries of
the British line in a phrase copied from the provision shops of London:
"Ammunition is cheap to-day." Every gun-pit stocked up with shell. The
gates of the dumps were opened and shell fairly poured out. Battery
Commanders, who knew the days when one shell per gun per day was the
limit allowed, saw with joy thousands of shells, and, as they began
eagerly to fire them off, thousands more coming.
On the 23rd of September a regular bombardment of the whole German line
facing the British line began. The artillery was undertaking the
preliminary work of wire-cutting and parapet pounding. The 18-pounders
with shrapnel, the howitzers with high explosive, started at dawn, and
all through the day systematically smashed away at the German's
defences. That went on for two more days. The fourth day we intensified
our shell-fire. Along many sections of the Front the German wire was
down, and the parapet of the German trench breached. The enemy increased
his artillery fire, too, attacking our trenches and searching for our
observing stations and batteries, but on the whole getting the worst of
the artillery duel. On the morning of the 25th the final artillery duel
began. It was the greatest artillery bombardment in history up to that
date, though afterwards so eclipsed by the records of the Somme, the
Ancre and of Messines as to be remembered as a mere splutter. But at the
time it was vastly impressive.
The morning was dull but the flashes of guns were so continuous as to
give a light which was almost unbroken. It flickered, but it never
failed. The earth itself quivered and shook with the repeated shocks of
the guns. The air became a tattered hunted thing, torn wisps of it blown
hither and thither by the constant explosions.
The Battle of Loos did not give us the break-through we expected, but,
in so far as my observation is worth anything, the reason was not lack
of munitions. Loos showed that the task was a more complicated one than
merely smashing down the front line of enemy trenches. "Trench War" was
resumed, whilst the British Army prepared for the next phase opening in
July, 1916, with the first Battle of the Somme. By then munitions supply
had grown gigantically and in the mechanics of war we were far ahead of
the Germans. This was not only in artillery but in infantry equipment
and in our unique weapon the "Tank," which was the mechanical
contrivance having the most decisive results on the issue of the war.
These appeared in September, 1916, two years after "Trench War" had
begun, and were ultimately destined to make that sort of war impossible,
a task which the German poison gas had failed to accomplish.
As a race we are never consciously dramatic, or I would have imagined on
that September 1916 morning that the arrival of the Tanks on the Somme
front had been carefully timed and stage-managed. The morning was dull
and misty. Over the seared and terrible land little wisps of fog rose
and fell. All likeness to our gentle mother earth had been battered out
of the fields, which were rubbish-heaps of churned-up débris of bodies,
dust, weapons--hideously pock-marked by the eruption of the shells.
Where had been villages were dirtier patches of desolation. Where had
been woods, groups of splintered stumps. It was an abomination of
desolation, like as when the earth was first formed out of the void. In
the midst of this desolation out of the mist came, crawling uncouthly,
the Tanks, like prehistoric saurians.
The German forces were obviously frightened by the Tanks, which climbed
over their trenches, and impervious to rifle bullets, smashed up
machine-gun emplacements and redoubts. But that Tank of 1916 was nothing
like the perfected machine of 1918. Its rear steering wheel was a
weak-spot liable to be shot away. Its pace was too slow for it to keep
up with charging infantry. No real tactics had been evolved for its use.
But, such as it was, that Tank at first brought alarm to more than the
enemy. In going to and from the battle front it "got the wind up" many a
British dug-out. Here is an artillery officer's yarn of the first "Tank
night":
"Our 'Mess' was a roofed-over shell-hole a mile or so in front of
Martinpuich. The roof would keep out shrapnel bits but was no use
against a direct hit from a shell. I was Orderly Dog for the night and
it was my business to take action, when, outside, a strange spluttering,
growling, scratching, spitting sound broke into the steady barking of
the guns. It was like a thousand cats, a hundred dogs, and a sea-sick
elephant or two scrambling and squabbling together in a dust-hole. I
went to investigate. A Tank wandering home was within ten yards of our
Mess, heading straight for it. With all the _insouciance_ I could
command at such a crisis I begged the Tank to stop; urged that our roof
was designed to keep out splinters only and was neither shell-proof nor
Tank-proof; pointed out that if it persisted in its course seven
artillery officers, some of whom had wives and children, and all of whom
had mothers, would be pulped. Then I became calmer and told the Tank
that there was some wine in the Mess and even some whisky and soda, if
the Tank would now stop and have a drink. Fortunately a Tank is a slow
mover and my cooler arguments had effect by the time it had got within
five yards of our roof-tree. Then it backed water and we were safe. The
Tank is a noble animal, but it adds a little to the anxieties of life
underground."
[Illustration: THE FOSSE]
"The Tank" was the great mechanical find of the war, and it was an
all-British find. High authority had many fine name-proposals for the
useful monsters, but Tommy took the matter into his own hands and coined
the word "Tank," and "Tank" it remained. Those who are interested in
matters of language may note that the French do not use the word "Tank"
but describe a "Tank" as a _char d'assaut_, which is accurate, but has a
weak look. It is an illustration of their jealous and admirable care
of their language. They will not allow foreign words to intrude if that
can be avoided. We, on the other hand, are quite careless about our
language. The orders of our Army in France were bespattered with French
words and phrases for which there were quite good English equivalents.
(_Gare régulatrice_ for "distributing station" is one of the many scores
of cases in point.) It is a pity that we are so careless in regard to
our mother tongue. I made an effort once to persuade G.H.Q. that British
Army orders and instructions should be put out in English without any
foreign admixture, but met with little sympathy. The intrusion of French
words was not so bad, but German words had an almost equal degree of
hospitality.
* * * * *
But to return to our munitions. The hand bomb was a weapon which by 1914
we had allowed to fall out of use. The British Grenadiers no longer
threw grenades. But Trench War brought back the bomb as a weapon, and
our bomb was soon better than the German bomb. At the first Somme battle
(1916) we showed a definite superiority in bomb supply and bomb use.
This development was altogether in our favour. The bomb--beastly weapon
as it is, and beastly as are the wounds it inflicts--lends its favour to
the quicker brain, the prompter courage, the keener leadership. The
football field and the cricket green both give a good foundation for the
murderous art of bombing. As soon as we had the bombs our bombing
superiority grew with every day.
An instance to illustrate bombing: For the taking of the village of
Contalmaison (1916) a preliminary task was the capture of Horse Shoe
trench. The attack on this was prospering when it was held up at a
critical point by the unmasking of a German machine gun on our right
flank. To the fire of this gun we were fully exposed, and its effect was
murderous. A young cricketer rose to the occasion. Single-handed he
rushed the gun with a bag of bombs, got to his distance and destroyed it
with a couple of "hot returns from the outfield."
In using ammunition the B.E.F. put up some startling records. On August
8th, 1918, when our big final thrust began there were used 15,598 tons
in a single day. On September 29th, 1918, there were used 23,706 tons.
Here are some other big figures:
Date. Battle. Amount.
1/7/16 Somme 12,776 tons
9/4/17 Vimy 24,706 "
3/6/17 Arras 17,162 "
7/6/17 Messines 20,638 "
31/7/17 Ypres 22,193 "
20/9/17} Polygon Wood 42,156 "
21/9/17}
In the depôts in France we kept a reserve of 258,000 tons of ammunition,
and the issues in a normal month ran to about that figure though it
varied a good deal month by month. Thus the average expenditure during
the last months of 1918 was: May, 5,478 tons daily; June, 4,748 tons
daily; July, 5,683 tons daily; August, 9,046 tons daily; September,
8,576 tons daily; October, 4,748 tons daily; November, 3,158 tons daily.
On November 11th, the last day of the war, we used 233 tons of
ammunition.
Different varieties of ammunition had widely different rates of use. The
gigantic 15-inch howitzer on some days did not fire a single round. It
was a "big day" when it fired fifty rounds. It was just as well that it
was not a gun which indulged in thousands of rounds, for a ten-ton
broad-gauge railway truck would only take twelve rounds for it. The
18-pounder field guns would shoot 100,000 rounds on a normal day, and on
a heavy day would use 200,000 rounds. The cost of ammunition was, in a
time of heavy fighting, up to £3,000,000 _per day_.
A heavy item in munitions was for defence against poison gas and for our
own poison gas service. We entered with extreme reluctance into the
ghastly business, but once we started we soon made the German sorry that
he had brought that element into the war. Our gases were more potent and
more plentiful than his. For lack of material he could not give his men
perfect gas protectors, while to our men we could and did.
The last loathsome trick of the enemy in this direction was the
introduction of mustard gas, a powerful corrosive which was discharged
from shells. The use of mustard gas by the enemy raised a number of
problems for Supplies as apart from the Medical Staffs. The disinfection
with chloride of lime of ground contaminated with the gas, a prompt
change of clothing and bath treatment for men affected, proved
efficacious in dealing with mustard gas. There was, too, safety in
protective overalls of oilskin. Mustard gas affected the Veterinary
Service heavily, there being many casualties to horses and mules through
passing over ground infected with the gas.
* * * * *
The inventive spirit was naturally strong in the Army, and some of the
most useful of the new ideas in the way of munitions or equipment came
from men in the Field. These ideas were tested in the Army workshops,
and occasionally there was a certain amount of waste owing to the same
idea, or nearly the same idea, being experimented with simultaneously in
more than one Army. So an Army Order from Home recalled the King's
Regulation that War Office approval must be obtained before experimental
work was done in regard to any invention. But this, it was urged from
G.H.Q., would act prejudicially to the interests of the Force in France,
since many very useful inventions regarding stores and material had come
from officers and men of the Force and it was not in the best interests
of the public to put any obstacles in the way of future inventions. This
was recognised, and a subsequent Army Order gave authority to the
Commander-in-Chief of any Expeditionary Force to authorise trials of
inventions; but precautions were taken in regard to duplication and
overlapping.
There were not in the Field so many foolish inventors as at Home. No
such merry idea came to G.H.Q. as that anti-submarine device with which
the Admiralty was plagued--a liquid air shell which on being exploded
anywhere in the vicinity of a submarine formed an extensive iceberg
(through the lowering of the surrounding temperature by a release of the
liquid air from pressure). On this iceberg the submarine would be
brought to the surface. The next step would be easy: open with an oyster
knife, sprinkle with pepper and salt and a dash of lemon juice, and
serve.
The B.E.F. had never anything quite so naive as that. Its limit was the
inventor who claimed to be able to project an X-ray from an electric
battery so that it would kill anything within 1,000 yards. This
invention would have been a great war-stopper. It would have been only
necessary to set up a sufficient number of the projectors along our
Front, switch on the current and march on to Berlin. It was offered at a
time when inventions were rather the fashion, and it needed courage to
scoff at even the most curious notion. So it actually got to the stage
of a trial with a High Authority present. The inventor set up his
projector; an animal was let loose within its deadly range and, surely
enough, dropped dead. Unfortunately for the inventor a medical scoffer
subjected the animal to a _post mortem_ examination and found that it
had evidently resolved on suicide, for it had taken a large dose of
strychnine. This discouraged further trials of the X-ray device.
The inventor with a "wireless" device for exploding enemy magazines also
cropped up. You projected a wireless ray and it blew up a dump. This
invention could be very convincingly demonstrated within your own lines.
All that was necessary was to provide in the dump a certain amount of
loose explosive, a fulminate, and a receiver tuned to receive your
wireless message. We were not on sufficiently good terms with the
Germans to persuade them to arrange their ammunition depôts in this way
for our convenience.
There was a close _liaison_ kept up between the B.E.F. and the Ministry
of Munitions. When Mr. Winston Churchill was Minister of Munitions he
was over in France so frequently that a small château was kept up for
him at G.H.Q. He was wont to come into the Officers' Club for his meals.
There was always an air about him that he would have liked to be in the
jack-boots of his famous ancestor and give the world a spectacle of
another Marlborough winning victories in Flanders.