ether by means
of chlorsul phonic acid {END OF TABLE NEEDING FIXED!} aimed at the minimum conversion, and in a number of cases none was required. The above analysis can leave us with no doubt in our minds that the organic chemical industry is the logical place for efficient chemical warfare production. It cannot leave us unconvinced as to the vital importance of the dye industry in national defence.
Allied Difficulties.—Our own production was nothing but a series of slow and relatively inefficient improvisations. We have already referred to the fluctuations in chemical warfare organisation for research and supply during the war. These added to the difficulties of the supply department, just as they did to its complement, the research department. Only great patriotic endeavour could have made possible the relative success achieved, not only by the departments, but in particular by the firms with whom they were called upon to co-ordinate.
We wanted mustard gas, and realised its need in July, 1917. Research work began almost from that date, yet successful large scale production did not materialise in England until more than a year later. We must admit, however, that the French were in a position to use their product on the front in July, 1918. Let us examine some of our difficulties.
The first efforts were directed towards the process by which, as we eventually ascertained, the Germans produced the whole of their mustard gas. The actual chemical laboratory details of the process presented no serious obstacle, but difficulties multiplied as soon as we attempted large scale work. We wanted ethylene-monochlor-hydrin. Some work had been done on this during the war for the National Health Insurance Commissioners in connection with the production of novocain. Half scale work had occurred at the works of a Midland chemical firm, and experience so gained was freely offered and used in a scheme for the large scale production of mustard gas by the co-operation of a number of big chemical manufacturers. Pressing requests for the material were continually coming from G.H.Q., the programmes outlined being more and more ambitious. We had to reproduce the result of years of German effort spent in developing their monochlor-hydrin process for indigo. As a consequence, large sums of money were expended on the process, although it never eventually operated. Its difficulties, and other reasons, led us to research on other and more direct methods which the French were also investigating. The successful outcome of this early research was due, in particular, to Sir William Pope and those associated with him in the work. The process was so promising that the long and cumbersome chlor-hydrin method was abandoned. As a result our five or six months' work on the German method meant so much time lost. The new direct, sulphur monochloride method was taken up actively and several private firms attempted to develop the small scale manufacture. The work was dangerous. Lack of that highly developed organic chemical technique, which was practically a German monopoly, rendered the task much more dangerous than it would have been if undertaken by one of the I.G. factories.
The French, realising the importance of the new methods, spared nothing in their attempts to develop them. Their casualties multiplied at the works, but the only reply was to put the factories concerned under the same regime as the front, and the staffs were strengthened by well-chosen military personnel. The French realised the nature of their task, and organised for it. When the difficulties of production were pointed out in August, 1917, in the British Ministry of Munitions, reports were instanced that the Germans had used forced labour. The French in their production at Rousillon, on the Rhone, employed volunteer German prisoners. It was a curious contrast to see mingling together amongst the producing plants representatives of the American, Italian, and British Missions, with French officers, French technical men, and German prisoners. The latter appeared to be perfectly satisfied in their work. They were used for certain limited purposes, such as handling raw materials, and were not, as a rule, exposed to the dangerous operations against which the French struggled so heroically and successfully. It was as though a small section of the front had been transferred to the heart of France. We saw the minister visiting a factory and pinning the Legion of Honour on to the breast of a worker blinded by yperite. We saw messages of congratulation from the front to the factories themselves. The morale was wonderful. As a result, the French mastered the technical difficulties of mustard gas production and shell filling by June, 1918. They shared information with us, but the race had started neck and neck, and it was impossible to discard completely the large plants to which we were already committed. Without disparaging our own efforts, we must pay a tribute to the achievement of the French yperite producing and filling factories. It is impossible to give personal credit in this matter without going beyond our scope, and we can only draw general comparisons. But we must draw attention to the following. The German factories passed with ease to mustard gas production by a process which, compared with the final Allied method, was clumsy and complicated, but which suited their pre-war plant. Their policy was, therefore, sound from the point of view of the campaign. The Allies experienced great difficulty and danger in attaining large scale manufacture with a simpler process.
The same self-sacrificing zeal and patriotic endeavour was shown in this country, but we were handicapped in mustard gas production by the energetic way in which we had pressed forward the industrial realisation of the monochlor-hydrin method. The French, less committed in terms of plant and finance, could more readily adjust their energy, materials, and money to the new method. It must not be forgotten, also, that, at this period, chemical warfare supply organisation was experiencing certain critical changes which could not but reflect upon our efficiency. Here again the earlier centralisation of research and production by France was a great factor in her favour.
Our difficulties with phosgene, and in particular with the arsenic compounds described above, were of the same nature, involving us in casualties, great expenditure, and little success, when compared with German production. The great need for these arsenic compounds was realised as early as February, 1918, and investigations began even at that date, but they had not appeared in the field by the time of the Armistice. Whatever mistakes we may have made locally during the war, they are small compared with the big mistake which was responsible for our comparative failure in chemical warfare production. We were almost completely lacking in organic chemical industrial experience.
It is interesting to note that the activities of those elements of organic chemical industry which did exist in France and England fully justified the conclusions we have drawn. Thus, although entering late into the field of chemical warfare production, Doctor Herbert Levinstein, Professor A. G. Green, and their collaborators of the firm of Levinstein Limited were able to develop rapidly a successful industrial mustard gas process which was of considerable assistance to England and America. This work, both in research and production, deserves the greatest credit. Again, the dye factories were called upon much earlier to assist in French production and were of considerable assistance.
It would be well at this juncture to review very briefly the other war activities of our own dye industries. The outbreak of war found them by no means inactive. In this country, for example, our own dye factories were able to keep pace with the increasing demand for dyes created by the rapid mobilisation of military and naval equipment. In particular the rapid large-scale production of indigo by the Levinstein firm, at Ellesmere Port, was a considerable achievement. In addition, the new State-aided enterprise at Huddersfield was largely diverted to explosives production, and rendered very valuable services in the supply of Tetryl, T.N.T., synthetic phenol, picric acid, and oleum. For such reasons, the need for essential dyes, and the use of dye capacity for explosives, the important part which the rapidly expanding industry could have played in chemical warfare production was not recognised quickly enough by the relevant authorities. This is not surprising, for the war significance of the German dye industry was not fully realised until the Armistice. It required the Hartley Mission to drive this fact home. When, however, the brilliant researches, referred to above, on the mustard gas method had decided our policy, the dye factory of Levinstein Limited vigorously converted the process into a technical success, and what was still a laboratory reaction in the spring of 1917 became a successful manufacturing process in July of that year.