GERMANY'S BIG ARSENAL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 93, 8 October 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

GERMANY'S BIG ARSENAL.

REVELATIONS ABOUT KRUPP'B.

To the genius of Kinpp Germany owes its military power to-day. Just over a century ago, Friederich Krupp, the founder of Germany's greatest arsenal, started a little factory on a small piece of ground at Altenessen, a suburb of Essen. Krupp possessed one great asset; he knew the secret of making crucible steel. It is the irony of circumstances, however, that this secret was actually discovered by an Englishman, and it was only a few days ago that Professor John Oliver Arnold said that when shortly before the war he was dining with the manager of Krupp's the latter boasted that they were making steel ingots weighing 110 tons for guns by the crucible process evolved 175 years ago by Benjamin Huntsman. It is some satisfaction to learn, however, that, according to the Professor, Germans cannot« produce Sheffield white crucible steel, the process of making which is a secret handed down from father to son in Sheffield, and that in the North of England wo are making ingots weighing 150 tons, while our 12,000-ton presses are capable of squeezing out arm«ur-plate like cheese.

At first Friederich Krupp did not profit much by copying Huntsman s secret. Fortune frowned on him. lie lacked capital, while quarrels and lawsuits with his partners reduced him 1o poverty, and he ultimately died in 1826 at the age of forty, leaving a bundle of debts and a factory which consisted of little more than a couple of sheds, in which work was at a standstill, as legacy to his wife and children. Friederick Krupp's widow, however, was a woman of energy and iniative, and with her son Alfred, who was then fourteen years of age, she developeu the business with such excellent results that within four years the was beginning to gain quite a big reputation.

GENII'S OF THE FIRM

And as he grew up Alfred Krupp became the genius of the firm. It was he who in the works at Essen produced the first gun—a three-pounder made of crucible 6teel —in 1847. Until then, according to Mr. H. Robertson Murray, in his interesting book on Krupp's (Holden and Hardingham), with cast iron and bronze, the limit of big armaments had been practically reached. Crucible steel, however, opened a new vista, and the casting of that threepounder was the real beginning of the great rise of Krupp, and Essen, which at the time Friederich Krupp established himself there was a little country town of less than 4,000 inhabitants, grew and grew until it became one of the most important cities in Europe, with a population of 300,000, while the little factory developed until it extend, ed over an area of 500 acres, which is nearly three times the size of Hyde Park.

The fame of Krupp was first brought to the notice of the world, however, during the Franco-German War, for to the power of the Krupp guns was mainly attributed the failure of the French artillery, the Krupp gun being of crucible steel, which gave it many advantages over the French guns of cast iron and bronze.

HUGE COLLERIES.

For years now, Krupp's have been supplying the wor'd l with guns, ana the need of coal and iron to feed the furnaces led to the acquisition of colleries, the yearly output of which amounts to about 3,000,000 tons of coal. It may be said, without exaggeration, that Krupp's have armed the world. In one year alone the firm has received an or. der from the German Government to supp'y no fewer than 2,500 field guns. They have a proving ground at Mappen, which provides a range of tea miles, which can be increased to fifteen.

From tinie to time, the German Government has subsidised the Krupp works, the profits for 1914 amounting to £1,695,000, as against the £1,830,000 of the previous year. The war, however, has more than compensated for the temporary fall in receipts, the latest intelligence being that the capital has been increased from £9.000,000 to £12.500,000, and the number of employes from 80,000 to 100,000.