Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918

by Sir C. E. Callwell

My branch had an extremely busy time in connection with the supply of the munitions which were promised to the Russians on the occasion of that mission of theirs which was sent to England just at the time that I took over charge, and which is mentioned on [p. 287] in the last chapter. These munitions included war material of all kinds, but particularly field-howitzers and heavy artillery. The Russian delegation were quite ready to leave all the arrangements for getting the goods to Archangel from wherever they were turned out in this country, to the C.I.R. and us, working in conjunction with the Naval Transport Department of the Admiralty at first and afterwards with the Ministry of Shipping. They recognized their own administrative shortcomings and wisely left such matters under British control. Some difficulty did, however, arise in respect to the apportionment of tonnage space, as between the armament supplied by the War Office and commodities of other kinds which the delegates procured more or less direct from the trade through the C.I.R. Some regrettable delay occurred in the winter of 1916-17 in getting armament shipped which had been hurried from the factories to Liverpool, owing to its being shut out by goods of much less importance. It was imperative to get heavy artillery out as soon as possible in view of the coming campaign, and it was exasperating to have valuable howitzers idle at the docks which our own army in France would have welcomed. One had to take a high hand; but the Russians were easy to manipulate in such matters, and they never resented virtual dictation in the least so long as the iron hand remained concealed within the velvet glove. Relations were, indeed, always particularly pleasant.

Although the average standard of education was probably lower in Russia than in any other State which could be called civilized, the country has produced many scientists of the very foremost rank, and the Russian artillery included many highly scientific—almost too scientific—officers. It used to be a little trying to find them, after they had received a consignment of our own pattern armament (which the French or the Italians or the Belgians would have jumped at), picking it to pieces, so to speak, criticising the details of high-explosive shell or of fuses from every point of view, and showing greater disposition to worry over such points than to get the stuff into the field and to kill Germans with it. The technicalist, indeed, almost seemed to rule the roost, although this unfortunately did not lead to even reasonably good care being taken of war material that arrived in the country. The Russians had done wonders in respect to developing the port of Archangel; they had performed the miracle actually during the war. But if they had achieved a veritable administrative triumph in this matter, their methods were terribly at fault in assembling goods as they arrived and in getting the goods through to their destination in good order. If they undoubtedly were strong on the scientific side, they were correspondingly weak on the practical side, as is illustrated by the following experience.

I was taken down one afternoon to Hatfield Park to see a demonstration of a certain flame-producing arrangement, of which they had ordered large numbers. This was a pleasant outing, and the demonstration was interesting enough in itself; but the elaborate contrivance seemed to me totally unsuited to the conditions on the Russian front, because the flame was only projected eighty yards—one was quite comfortable a hundred and fifty yards straight in front of the projector—and the device was only adapted to conditions such as had existed in the Gallipoli Peninsula and as held good at a very few points on the Western Front, where the opposing trenches happened to be quite close together. As a matter of fact, the contrivance had been found of very little use when tried by us in the field. Strong recommendations came to hand shortly afterwards from some of our officers accredited to the Russian armies that a goodly supply of trench mortars should be sent out, and particularly of the invaluable Stokes mortars; it was foreseen by the applicants that, once the pattern was available, these could easily be constructed locally in Russia. But one encountered the greatest difficulty in inducing the delegation in this country to have anything to say to the Stokes mortar, because of its comparatively short range. And yet the range of the very oldest pattern of Stokes mortar was five times that of the flame projector, upon which material and time and labour and tonnage were being wasted.

Then, again, there arose the question of tanks. Now a tank could not possibly at that time have been got along the Murmansk railway without squashing the whole track down for good and all into the marshes across which the permanent way was conveyed by precarious and provisional processes. Needless to say, we had no tanks to spare to be kept reposing idle for months at ports and congested junctions, awaiting transport to Vilna or Podolia. But as they could not get tanks, nor transport them if they were to secure some in this country, the Russians were anxious to procure drawings and specifications of these new-fangled engines of war. There was no reasonable likelihood of such a contraption ever being turned out in Russia owing to lack of raw material and to manufacturing difficulties, even supposing drawings and all the rest of it to be available. There were secrets in connection with the internals of a tank which must be zealously guarded. Under the circumstances, I suggested to the General Staff, when putting forward a request on behalf of the Commission for the paper stuff, that faked drawings and details should be furnished to keep the Russians quiet. This was done; but what was furnished would not have bluffed a novice in a select seminary for young ladies of weak intellect. So I sent the rubbish off to General Poole (who was representing this country out there in connection with the munitions that were arriving), telling him the facts of the case and leaving him to do as he thought fit. I was thus able to say, when pressed by the Commission, that this valuable documentary material had already been sent straight to Poole. No doubt he put it all in the wastepaper-basket. Sir A. Stern mentions in his book that he deemed it expedient to hand over a "child's drawing and incorrect details." It is satisfactory to find that he thought of adopting the exact course which I had proposed when originally putting forward the request on behalf of the Russians.

That reminds me of a droll incident that occurred in connection with a Russian delegate quite early in the war. We had no clear understanding with our Allies at that date with regard to the allocation of material between us, nor as to the imperative necessity of preventing anything in the shape of competition in the British markets amongst us partners. The War Office had a certain article in mind that was being produced somewhere up north—at Manchester, I think, but anyway we will call it Manchester. The Russians happened to be after the same thing, and, without our knowing it, one of their officers who was in this country was about to enter into negotiations with the people up north with a view to securing it, and in due course he proceeded to Manchester with the purchase in view. But he was of an inquisitive disposition; he managed to get into some place or other to which he did not possess the entrée. So, being a foreigner, he was promptly run in, and he spent about twenty-four hours incarcerated in some lock-up before he could establish his credentials. During that very twenty-four hours a representative of the War Office appeared in Manchester and snapped up what the captive was after.

The Russian Military Attaché came to the War Office to enter a strong protest at the outrage of which his brother officer had been the victim. He evidently meant to kick up no end of a row, and he had just got into his stride and was going strong and well, when he suddenly went off into a tempest of giggles. He saw the humour of the situation. He was fully persuaded that we had deliberately arrested his friend so as to get him out of the way while we managed to push the deal through ourselves, and he evidently gave us gratifying credit for being so wide-awake. It was not the slightest use our explaining that this was one of those coincidences in real life which are stranger than fiction, that we had been wholly unaware that the Russian officer was even thinking about the article that we had secured, that we knew nothing whatever about him or his adventures. The Military Attaché was politeness itself; but he evidently did not believe a word we said—who, under the circumstances, would? Still, we had come out top-dog in the business, so we left it at that.

It must not be supposed that things never went wrong in spite of the elaborate system that we were adopting for transferring war material to Archangel under our control. Late in the autumn of 1916 I extracted out of von Donop a 9.2-inch howitzer and mounting all complete—he did not part readily with his goods—so as to send them on ahead and to afford the Russians an opportunity of learning the points of this ordnance, in anticipation of the arrival of a regular consignment of the weapons which had been promised for a later date. But part of the concern somehow found its way into one ship and the rest of it into another ship, and one of the ships managed to get rid of her propeller in the North Sea, drifted aimlessly for a whole month, was believed to have foundered, and was eventually discovered and towed ignominiously back to one of our northern ports. She was lucky not to meet with a U-boat during her wanderings. The result was that the Russians received either a howitzer and no mounting or a mounting and no howitzer, I forget which, and the whole bag of tricks was not assembled at its destination until after part of the regular consignment of 9.2-inch howitzers had arrived in Petrograd about April.

In connection with this business of shipping goods to our eastern Ally, it should be mentioned that the sealing up of the port of Archangel and of the White Sea in general from about mid-November until well on in May—the exact period varied in different seasons, and depended to some extent upon the direction of the wind—complicated the problem. Some forty of our ships had been embedded in ice for months in these waters in the winter of 1915-16, and the Admiralty were taking no risks this time. It was not a question merely of getting a vessel to its destination, but also a question of getting her discharged and out of the trap before it snapped-to. That a railway had not been constructed to Murmansk years before, illustrates the torpor and lack of enterprise of the ruling classes in Russia. Although Archangel is icebound somewhat longer, the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia likewise become impassable for navigation during the winter; so that for some months of the year maritime communication between northern portions of the empire and the outer world was almost necessarily to a great extent cut off. And yet all the time there existed a fine natural harbour of great extent on the Arctic coast which was never frozen over, simply asking to be made use of. Not until a state of affairs, which ought to have been foreseen, arose in actual war—the Baltic and exit from the Black Sea barred by hostile belligerents—was anything done. A British company was trying hard to obtain powers to construct a railway to Murmansk at the time of the outbreak of hostilities; but a line was not completed till more than two years had elapsed and was then of the most ramshackle character.

It was not only from the United Kingdom and from France that war material and other goods were being conveyed by sea to Russia, but also from America; and it was infinitely preferable for these latter to take the easterly route to the northern ports of the empire, than for them to take the westerly route across the Pacific to Vladivostok, involving a subsequent journey of thousands of miles along a railway that was very deficient in rolling stock. Matters in connection with Lord Kitchener's contracts in the United States were in the hands of Messrs. Morgan on the farther side of the Atlantic, with a Russo-British Commission on the spot watching developments. Responsibilities in connection with the transactions in this country had come under charge of the Ministry of Munitions. My branch noted progress, kept the General Staff informed, and represented the War Office in connection with the subject when questions arose. Experience of these huge American contracts fully bore out what had occurred at home in connection with the expansion of munitions production on the part of the War Office after the outbreak of war—only in a somewhat exaggerated form. Whereas in this country output began to intensify rapidly within twelve months and the credit was appropriated by Mr. Lloyd George, owing to intensification for which the War Office was solely responsible taking place after the setting up of the Munitions Ministry, output only began really to sprout in the United States about sixteen months after the start. All, however (as already mentioned in the last chapter), was full of promise when the crash of the Revolution came to nullify what had been achieved.

Up to the date of that disastrous event, and even for a few weeks subsequently, one did one's best to accelerate the supply and the despatch of war material from this country to Archangel and, after the closing of that great port by ice, Murmansk, which was just beginning to serve as an avenue into the country owing to the completion—after a fashion—of its unstable railway. The Milner Mission had been as profuse in its pledges as it had been erratic in its anticipations, and had committed itself to somewhat comprehensive engagements in connection with the furnishing of further war material. So that, almost synchronizing with the downfall of the Romanoff dynasty and the setting up of a new regime, this country found itself let in for diverting munitions of all sorts, in addition to what had already been promised, to an Ally in whom trust could no longer be placed. On one occasion in the course of the winter I had defeated the combined forces of Sir W. Robertson and the Master-General of the Ordnance before the War Cabinet over the question of deflecting a few howitzers to Russia. But one's point of view underwent a transformation subsequent to the dire events of March in Petrograd. So far from pushing the claims of the revolutionary government for war material, it then seemed expedient to act as a drag on the wheel, and to take the side of the C.I.G.S. and General Furse when Lord Milner from time to time pressed the question of sending out armament. The War Office deprecated depriving our own troops of munitions for the sake of trying to bolster up armies that were disintegrating apace owing to the action of Kerensky and his like. It was very disappointing—apart from the threatening political situation, prospects had seemed so good in Russia. But all the endeavours that had been made to assist during the previous few months were evidently going to be to no purpose. Just when the despatch of what our Ally required had been got on a thoroughly sound footing, the organization was to prove of no avail.