324 Chapter Nine
time and subsequently. Substitutes for many items could in fact be
found. Other metals replaced copper in shell casing, for example; and
for uses in which copper was irreplaceable, alloying and electroplating
made available quantities go much further. Thousands of other ad
justments in industrial practice conserved scarce raw materials and
avoided serious breakdowns of production. But nothing could replace
nitrate in gunpowder. Chemists already understood how to convert
nitrogen from the air into nitrate, but because of expense the process
had never been tried on an industrial scale. After Germany’s initial
stocks of powder had been depleted in October 1914, however, con
tinuation of combat depended on the supply of nitrate coming from
factories created completely de novo. Without such a supply, the war
would have come to a speedy close, for smuggling Chilean nitrates
past the British blockade was practically impossible.
Accordingly, for the first two years of combat the War Ministry
keyed its planning and regulated the scale of national war effort ac
cording to the amount of gunpowder available each month. In 1914,
1,000 tons a month was the most that could be produced, whereas the
army needed 7,000 tons monthly to keep its guns firing freely. In the
fall of 1914 the War Ministry first set a goal of 3,500 tons per month,
then raised it to 4,500 tons per month in December 1914, when the
prospect of early victory finally faded. In February 1915 the target
figure was boosted to 6,000 tons per month. Production of gunpow
der lagged behind these goals, but not by much, for in July 1915, 6,000
tons were in fact manufactured. The War Ministry and German in
dustry could feel proud of such a record, even if 6,000 tons of gun
powder each month still fell short of the ever escalating demand.^40
German industry was also able to supply the army with the
thousands of other items it needed in more or less satisfactory
amounts. Industrial shortages, when they appeared, were successfully
adjusted by assigning priorities among competing users and by seek
ing substitutes. Manpower was not yet a critical limit, despite sub
stantial drafts from the civilian work force to replace army losses.
More ominous were the shortages of food, which became serious
enough in May 1916 to provoke the establishment of a special Food
Office. Being staffed by civilians, the Food Office did not have juris
diction over army purchases of food and never managed to create a
truly efficient food rationing system.
- Ernst von Wrisberg, Wehr und Waffen, 1914–1918 (Leipzig, 1922), pp. 86–92.
Wrisberg was the officer of the War Ministry in charge of supply and wrote to defend his
record against subsequent reproaches of too much “business as usual.”
