I

It is now three months since I finished the six preceding Letters, written in response to an urgent call from America; nor did I then anticipate any renewal of my work. But while a French translation of the six Letters has been passing through the Press, an appeal has been made to me from France to add an Epilogue, or supplementary Letter, briefly recapitulating the outstanding facts or events which in those three months have marked the British share in the war, and played their part in the immense transformation of the general outlook which has taken place during those months. Not an easy task! One thinks first of one's own inadequacy; and then remembers, as before, that one is a unit in a nation under orders. I must therefore do what I can. And perhaps other readers, also, of this little book, in America and England, as they look back over the ever-changing scene of the war, will not find this renewed attempt to summarise Britain's part in it as it has developed up to the present date (August 16, 1916) unwelcome. The outstanding facts of the last three months, as I see them, are, for Great Britain:—

1. The immense increase in the output of British Munitions of War;

2. The Naval Battle of Jutland;

3. The Allied offensive on the Somme.

The first and third of these events are, of course, so far as the latter concerns Great Britain, the natural and logical outcome of that "England's Effort" of which I tried—how imperfectly!—to give a connected account three months ago.

At that time the ever-mounting British effort, though it had reached colossal dimensions, though everybody aware of it was full of a steadily growing confidence as to its final result, had still to be tested by those greater actions to which it was meant to lead. After the local failures at the Dardanelles, and in Mesopotamia, Great Britain was again, for a time, everywhere on the defensive, though it was a very vigorous and active defensive; and the magnificent stand made by the French at Verdun was not only covering France herself with glory, and kindling the hearts of all who love her throughout the world, but under its shield the new armies of Great Britain were still being steadily perfected, and wonderfully armed; time was being given to Russia for reorganisation and re-equipment, and time was all she wanted; while Germany, vainly dashing her strength in men and guns against the heights of Verdun, in the hope of provoking her enemies on the Western front to a premature offensive, doomed to exhaustion before it had achieved its end, was met by the iron resolve of both the French and British Governments, advised by the French and British Commanders in the field, to begin that offensive only at their own time and place, when the initiative was theirs, and everything was ready.

But the scene has greatly altered. Let me take Munitions first. In February, it will be remembered by those who have read the preceding Letters, I was a visitor, by the kindness of the Ministry of Munitions, then in Mr. Lloyd George's hands, to a portion of the munitions field—in the Midlands, on the Tyne, and on the Clyde. At that moment, Great Britain, as far as armament was concerned, was in the mid-stream of a gigantic movement which had begun in the summer of 1915, set going by the kindling energy of Mr. Lloyd George, and seconded by the roused strength of a nation which was not the industrial pioneer of the whole modern world for nothing, however keenly others, during the last half-century, have pressed upon—or in some regions passed—her. Everywhere I found new workshops already filled with workers, a large proportion of them women, already turning out a mass of shell which would have seemed incredible to soldiers and civilians alike during the first months of the war; while the tale of howitzers, trench-mortars, machine-guns, and the rest, was running up week by week, in the vast extensions already added to the other works. But everywhere, too, I saw huge, empty workshops, waiting for their machines, or just setting them up; and everywhere the air was full of rumours of the new industrial forces—above all, of the armies of women—that were to be brought to bear. New towns were being built for them; their workplaces and their tools were being got ready for them, as in that vast filling factory—or rather town—on the Clyde which I described in my third Letter. But in many quarters they were not yet there; only one heard, as it were, the tramp of their advancing feet.

But to-day! Those great empty workshops that I saw in February, in the making, or the furnishing, are now full of workers and machines; and thousands like them all over the country. Last night (Aug. 15), the new Minister of Munitions, Mr. Montagu, who, a few weeks ago, succeeded Mr. Lloyd George, now Minister for War, rendered an account of his department up to date, which amazed even the House of Commons, and will surely stir the minds of men throughout the British Empire with a just and reasonable pride. The "effete" and "degenerate" nation has roused herself indeed!

Here is the bare résumé of the Minister's statement:—

Ammunition.—The British output of ammunition at the beginning of the war was intended for an army of 200,000 men.

Naturally, the output rose steadily throughout the first year of war.

But—the same output which in 1914-15 took 12 months to produce could now be produced—

As to 18-pounder ammunition,in 3 weeks
" Field howitzer"in 2 weeks
" Medium gun and howitzer ammunition,in 11 days
" Heavy shell,in 4 days

We are sending over to France every week as much as the whole pre-war stock of land service ammunition in the country.

As to guns, I would ask my readers to turn back to the second and third chapters in this little book, which show something of the human side and the daily detail of this great business, and then to look at this summary:—

Every month, now, we are turning out nearly twice as many big guns as were in existence for land service—i.e., not naval guns—when the Ministry of Munitions came into being (June, 1915).

Between June, 1915, and June, 1916, the monthly output of heavy guns has increased 6-fold—and the present output will soon be doubled.

For every 100 eighteen-pounders turned out in the first 10 months of the war, we are now turning out 500.

We are producing 18 times as many machine-guns.

Of rifles—the most difficult of all war material to produce quickly in large quantities—our weekly home production is now 3 times as great as it was a year ago. We are supplying our Army overseas with rifles and machine-guns entirely from home sources.

Of small-arms ammunition our output is 3 times as great as a year ago.

We are producing 66 times as much high explosive as at the beginning of 1915; and our output of bombs is 33 times as great as it was last year.

At the same time, what is Great Britain doing for her Allies?

The loss of her Northern Provinces, absorbed by the German invasion, has deprived France of three-quarters of her steel. We are now sending to France one-third of the whole British production of shell-steel.

We are also supplying the Allies with the constituents of high explosive in very large quantities, prepared by our National factories.

We are sending to the Allies millions of tons of coal and coke every month, large quantities of machinery, and 20 per cent. of our whole production of machine tools (indispensable to shell manufacture).

We are supplying Russia with millions of pairs of Army boots.

And in the matter of ammunition, we have not only enormously increased the quantity produced—we have greatly improved its quality. The testimony of the French experts—themselves masters in these arts of death—as conveyed through M. Thomas, is emphatic. The new British heavy guns are "admirably made"—"most accurate"—"most efficient."

Meanwhile a whole series of chemical problems with regard to high explosives have been undertaken and solved by Lord Moulton's department. If it was ever true that science was neglected by the War Office, it is certainly true no longer; and the soldiers at the front, who have to make practical use of what our scientific chemists and our explosive factories at home are producing, are entirely satisfied.

For that, as Mr. Montagu points out, is the sole and supreme test. How has the vast activity of the new Ministry of Munitions—an activity which the nation owes—let me repeat it—to the initiative, the compelling energy, of Mr. Lloyd George—affected our armies in the field?

The final answer to that question is not yet. The Somme offensive is still hammering at the German gates; I shall presently give an outline of its course from its opening on July 1st down to the present. But meanwhile what can be said is this.

The expenditure of ammunition which enabled us to sweep through the German first lines, in the opening days of this July, almost with ease, was colossal beyond all precedent. The total amount of heavy guns and ammunition manufactured by Great Britain in the first ten months of the war, from August, 1914, to June 1, 1915, would not have kept the British bombardment on the Somme going for a single day. That gives some idea of it.

Can we keep it up? The German papers have been consoling themselves with the reflection that so huge an effort must have exhausted our supplies. On the contrary, says Mr. Montagu. The output of the factories, week by week, now covers the expenditure in the field. No fear now, that as at Loos, as at Neuve Chapelle, and as on a thousand other smaller occasions, British success in the field should be crippled and stopped by shortage of gun and shell!

By whom has this result been brought about? By that army of British workmen—and workwomen—which Mr. Lloyd George in little more than one short year has mobilised throughout the country. The Ministry of Munitions is now employing three millions and a half of workers—(a year ago it was not much more than a million and a half)—of whom 400,000 are women; and the staff of the Ministry has grown from 3,000—the figure given in my earlier letters—to 5,000, just as that army of women, which has sprung as it were out of the earth at the call of the nation, has almost doubled since I wrote in April last. Well may the new Minister say that our toilers in factory and forge have had some share in the glorious recent victories of Russia, Italy, and France! Our men and our women have contributed to the re-equipment of those gallant armies of Russia, which, a month or six weeks earlier than they were expected to move, have broken up the Austrian front, and will soon be once more in Western Poland, perhaps in East Prussia! The Italian Army has drawn from our workshops and learnt from our experiments. The Serbian Army has been re-formed and re-fitted.

Let us sum up. The Germans, with years of preparation behind them, made this war a war of machines. England, in that as in other matters, was taken by surprise. But our old and proud nation, which for generations led the machine industry of the world, as soon as it realised the challenge—and we were slow to realise it!—met it with an impatient and a fierce energy which is every month attaining a greater momentum and a more wonderful result. The apparently endless supply of munitions which now feeds the British front, and the comparative lightness of the human cost at which the incredibly strong network of the German trenches on their whole first line system was battered into ruin, during the last days of June and the first days of July, 1916:—it is to effects like these that all that vast industrial effort throughout Great Britain, of which I saw and described a fragment three months ago, has now steadily and irresistibly brought us.