FATE OF BATTLES AND NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 20, 19 October 1920, Page 7

FATE OF BATTLES AND NATIONS

DECIDED BY CHEMISTRY. . A very remarkable chapter in the his-, tory of tho war is told in the London' "Times"' by Dr. Herbert Levinstein. "It is not generally known that after the battle of the Manic there was a munitions crisis in Germany," he says. "The stock of shells, the lingo accumulation of high explosives with, which the Gorman general staff had calculated to' overwhelm the French, had petered out before the gates of Paris. Certainly the Allies were in no better case, for they also were without stocks of shells or hisn explosives. As a consequence l»th sides settled down into more or less permanent entrenchments. "To the German general 6taff the vital question, therefore, after tho Marne, was how to reorganise the German production of shells and high explosives so aa to re-establish their supremacy .in these agents of destruction. To this end, as we know from General LudcndorfPs memoirs,' the chief of the German general staff summoned two men to his assistance, Krupp von Bohlen and Dr. Duisberg. Everybody has hoard of Krupus ; ii c oi the makers of modern Germany, is perhaps not so well known. He is tho head of the T.G.—the 'Interessen- Gemeinschaft'— the great combine of the German auilino dye manui'aoturcrs. "Most of the German clyestuifs plants were not mobilised at the outbreak or tlie war. Why not? Because the German general staff did not go to war until the stock of explosives secretly accumulated oyer a long period appeared to be adequate to bring about the swift defeat of the Allies. It was at first considered preferable for the dye factories of the I.G. to continue producing stocks of dyes with a yiewjo re-establishing, at the conclusion or the campaign, that dominance over tho textile trades of the world which the German Government considered to be the mniu function of the I.G. "The production of picric acid (lvddite)_wns just as simple for Leverkuscn, for their dye making plants provided them with the raw materials. What happened at Leverkusen occurred at the other great factories of the I.G. in similar measure, and /as the Hindenbure programme became more.developed, nnd as the demands of the ccneTnl staff liecame greater, vast quantifies of explosives wore produced by the factories of the I.G. ' "We, too, as the war developed, produced enormous nuantities of high explosives, but not at the same speed, foi great factories had to be erected for the manufacture of oleum, and nitric acid, and our explosive plant's, contrary to tho German plants, have, generally spenking, only a war value. "The real military importance of chemical warfare lies in the opportunity i. gives to a commander of effecting a surprise, which i* the essence of war.' By the discovery of a new substance canable of penetrating the enemy's gas defences nnd its uso on a sufficiently wide front without previous notice, chemical warfare offers under modern conditions nn incomparable opportunity for effecting a surprise. "In the next war chemical warfare will ploy a decisivo part; that aimears to be certain. It will nrobiiblv not conn until the enemy feels sure thnt he can 1 produce a surprise, on a sufficiently .larec 1 scale to brinu' about a ouiek decision. I It is thus highly improbable that he 1 will Tely on the same substances that 1 were used in the late war. It is. on : the other liand. highly probable that Ik ■ will use new substances which can. bi ; made in nlaut used in peacetime l<» the manufacture of aniline dye-stuffs.