Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918

by Sir C. E. Callwell

Not that there was any desire to remove Sir C. Monro. The object of the shuffle was simply to get Sir W. Robertson out of the country, in view of the manner in which his warnings in connection with strengthening our forces in France had been disregarded and of his having proved to be right. Sir William would no doubt have made an excellent Commander-in-Chief in India; but if ever there was an example of ill-contrived swapping of horses while crossing a stream, this precious plot would have provided the example had it been carried into execution. There would have been a three months' interregnum while the new chief was on his way out and was picking up the strings after getting out—this in the middle of the final year of the war! The best-laid plans of politicians, however, gang aft a-gley. Sir C. Monro had stipulated, when reluctantly agreeing to give up command of his army on the Western Front in the autumn of 1916 and to proceed to Bombay, that this Indian appointment was to be a permanent one, and not a temporary one such as all other appointments came to be during the war. He did not feel disposed to fall in with the Downing Street project when this was broached. Is it to be wondered at that military men regard some of the personnel that is found in Government circles with profound suspicion?

CHAPTER X

THE MUNITIONS QUESTION

Mr. Asquith's Newcastle speech — The mischief that it did — The time that must elapse before any great expansion in output of munitions can begin to materialize — The situation analogous to that of a building — The Ministry of Munitions took, and was given, the credit for the expansion in output for the year subsequent to its creation, which was in reality the work of the War Office — The Northcliffe Press stunt about shell shortage — Its misleading character — Sir H. Dalziel's attack upon General von Donop in the House — Mr. Lloyd George's reply — A discreditable episode — Misapprehension on the subject of the army's preparedness for war in respect to material — Misunderstanding as to the machine-gun position — Lord French's attack upon the War Office with regard to munitions — His responsibility for the lack of heavy artillery — The matter taken up at the War Office before he ever raised it from G.H.Q. — His responsibility for the absence of high-explosive shell for our field artillery — A misconception, as to the rôle of the General Staff — The serious difficulty that arose with regard to this ammunition owing to prematures — The misstatements in "1914" as to the amount of artillery ammunition which was sent across France to the Dardanelles — Exaggerated estimates by factories as to what they would be able to turn out — Their estimates discounted as a result of later experiences — The Munitions Ministry not confined to its proper job — The incident of 400 Tanks — Conclusion.

Who reads the platform addresses of political personages, even the most eminent and the most plausible? Some people evidently do, or such utterances would not fill the columns of our newspapers. If one had ever felt tempted to peruse the reports of these harangues in the piping times of peace, one assuredly had neither the inclination nor yet the leisure to indulge in such practices during the early days of the Great War. To skim off the cream of the morning's news while at breakfast was about as much as a War Office mandarin could manage in the way of reading the daily papers during that super-strenuous time. One morning, however—it must have been the morning of the 22nd of April 1915—I met an assistant with a journal in his hand, as I was making my way along the corridor to my room in the War Office. "Seen this what Squiff says about the shell, general?" he asked, handing me the paper with his finger on the passage in the Prime Minister's Newcastle speech, denying that there was an ammunition shortage.

The report of that discourse took one flat aback. For weeks past letters from G.H.Q., as also the fervent representations made by visitors over on duty or on leave from the front, had been harping upon this question. Lord Kitchener had informed the House of Lords on the 15th day of March that the supply of war material was "causing him considerable anxiety." There was not the slightest doubt, even allowing for the tendency of men exposed to nerve-racking experiences or placed in positions of anxious responsibility to find fault, that our army in France and Flanders was at a terrible disadvantage as compared to that opposed to it in the matter of artillery ammunition. The state of affairs was perfectly well known, not merely to the personnel of batteries constantly restricted in respect to expenditure, but also to the infantry and to other branches of the service deprived of adequate gun support. Into the controversies and recriminations which have taken place over the subject of how this extraordinary statement came to be made at Newcastle, it is not proposed to enter here. There is at all events no controversy as to whether the statement was true or not, in substance and in fact. It is common knowledge now, and it was indeed fairly common knowledge at the time, that the statement was in the highest degree misleading. It did a great deal of mischief amongst the troops in the war zone, and it caused serious injury to those who were responsible for the provision of munitions in this country.

A pronouncement of that kind, published as it was in all the newspapers, was bound to arouse comment not merely at home, but also amongst officers and men confronting the enemy between Dixmude and the La Bassée Canal. These latter, who were only too well aware of the realities of the case, resented such a misstatement of facts, and they were also inclined to jump to the conclusion, not altogether unnaturally, that the serious ammunition shortage, the crying need for additional heavy ordnance, and so forth, were being deliberately ignored by those responsible for supply at home. The inferiority of our side in the field in respect to certain forms of munitions as compared to the enemy, came to be attributed to indifference and to mismanagement on the part of the Master-General of the Ordnance's department and of Lord Kitchener. Even the majority of artillery officers had not the slightest conception of what an expansion of output of munitions on a huge scale involved. Still less were staff officers in general and officers of other branches of the service in a position to interpret the situation correctly. They did not realize that before you can bring about any substantial increase of production in respect to shell, or fuses, or rifles, or machine-guns, or howitzers, you have to provide the machinery with which the particular form of war material is to be manufactured, and that you probably have to fashion some extensive structure to house that machinery in. It takes months before any tangible result can be obtained, the number of months to elapse varying according to the nature of the goods.

Dwellers in great cities will often note what happens when some ancient building has been demolished by the house-breaker. The site is concealed by an opaque hoarding. For months, even sometimes for years, nothing seems to follow. The passer-by who happens to get an opportunity of peeping in when some gate is opened to let out a cart full of debris, only sees a vast crater at the bottom of which men, like ants, are scurrying about with barrows or are delving in the earth. All the time that the ground is being cleared and that the foundations are being laid, those out in the street know nothing of what is going on, and they wonder why some effort is not made to utilize the vacant space for building purposes. Then one day, quite unexpectedly, scaffolding begins to rear its head. A few weeks later bricklayers and their work begin to show above the hoarding; and from that moment things at last are obviously on the move. The edifice grows from day to day. Within quite a short space of time workmen are already putting on the roof. Then down comes the scaffolding, windows are put in, final touches are given to the interior, and, within what seems to be no time at all from the day when the scaffolding first was seen, the building is ready for occupation. So it is with the manufacture of munitions—experience in the United States in connection with output for us and also in connection with output for Russia, was exactly the same as in the United Kingdom in this respect. An interminable time seems to elapse before the output begins; but once it has fairly started it grows by leaps and bounds.

At the time of the Newcastle oration, and for some months subsequently, the work of expansion on a colossal scale which the Master-General of the Ordnance had undertaken was still, speaking generally, rather on the footing of the building of which the foundations are only beginning to be laid even if the excavations have been completed and the debris has been cleared away. There was as yet comparatively little to show. The results did not begin to make themselves apparent until a date when the Ministry of Munitions had already come into being some time. That Department of State gained the benefit. Its Chief took the credit for work in connection with which it had for all practical purposes no responsibility beyond that of issuing what predecessors had arranged for. The full product of the contracts which the Master-General of the Ordnance had placed, of the development he had given to existing Government establishments, and of the setting up of entirely new ones by him, with Lord Kitchener ever using his driving power and his fertility of resource in support, only materialized in the winter of 1915-16, at a stage when the Ministry of Munitions had been already full six months in existence.

If the army in general failed to understand the position, it is hardly to be wondered at that Parliament and the less well-informed section of the Press should not understand the position, and that the public should have been deceived. Very shortly after the Newcastle speech, and no doubt largely in consequence of it, the Northcliffe Press stunt of May 1915 on the subject of shell shortage was initiated. Up to a certain point that stunt was not only fully justified, but was actually advantageous to the country. It made the nation acquainted with the fact that our troops were suffering severely from insufficiency of munitions. It stirred the community up, and that in itself was an excellent thing. But it succeeded somehow at the same time in conveying the impression that this condition of affairs was due to neglect, and in consequence it misled public opinion and did grave injustice. We must assume that, owing to fundamental ignorance of the problems involved, to a neglect to keep touch with industrial conditions, and to lack of acquaintance with the technicalities of munitions manufacture, these newspapers (which usually contrive to be extremely well informed, thanks to the great financial resources at their back) were totally unaware that a sudden expansion of output on a great scale was an impossibility; to suggest that this aspect of the problem was deliberately suppressed would be highly improper. The Northcliffe Press had also maybe failed to become acquainted with the great increase that had taken place in the forces at the front, as compared to the strength of the original Expeditionary Force which had provided the basis of calculation for munitions in pre-war days, an increase for which there was no counterpart in the armies of our Allies or of our enemies. Or the effect that this must have in accentuating munitions shortage may have been overlooked, obvious as it was. Be that as it may, the country readily accepted the story as it stood, and was in consequence grievously misinformed as to the merits of the question. The real truth has only leaked out since the cessation of hostilities, and it is not generally known now.[6]