330 Chapter Nineeration between Russian artillery and infantry contributed more than
was admitted at the time to the disaster that came to Russian arms.^49
Against Hapsburg troops, Russian armies could still win victories, as
the Galician offensive of 1916 showed. But the long series of German
victories in the east in 1914 and 1915 demonstrated that mere num
bers were an inadequate counter to German technique. Yet as soon as
the Germans turned attention to the Western Front in 1916, attacking
at Verdun and then parrying the allied assault at the Somme, the
Russians regained offensive capability. Clearly, Germany had some
how to become able to mount a massive effort simultaneously on both
fronts if such setbacks were to be avoided. In August 1916 Hinden
burg took over the Supreme Command, intending to do just that.Managerial Metamorphosis in World War I:
Second Phase, 1916–18Before considering the new phase of the conflict inaugurated by the
intensification of the German mobilization for war, it is convenient to
pause and reflect on some general aspects of the war effort which had
begun to alter older patterns of European society profoundly, even
before the climactic paroxysms of the final two years of war had had
time to make their mark.
In industry, the most important general change was the introduction
of mass production methods for manufacturing artillery shells and for
nearly every kind of infantry equipment as well. Larger items could
not easily be mass produced, yet by the war’s end, production lines for
cars and trucks and for airplane engines had become standard, espe
cially in France and the United States, where workers’ resistance to
such radical departures from older industrial practice was much less
than in either Germany or Great Britain.^50 As we saw in chapter 7,
- A striking statistic: Russian rifles fired off 125 rounds per man per month,
whereas the French used only 30 rounds and the British 50. Ibid., p. 135. Camouflage
and indirect fire, which became normal on the Western Front in 1915, left Russian
artillery methods far behind. Using these techniques, German gunners had little diffi
culty in silencing Russian batteries at long range. Russian infantrymen preferred to
attribute the resulting weakness of artillery support to civilian bungling in the rear,
whereas in fact deficiencies of Russian military training went far to nullify Russia’s real
industrial successes in expanding war production. - Louis Renault inaugurated his production line for car bodies in 1911 after a visit
to the United States. This provoked a strike, but he won it, thus preparing for rapid
expansion in the war years when all phases of car, truck, and plane manufacture were
organized into assembly lines. Cf. Hatry, Renault: Usines de guerre, p. 15; Fridenson,
Histoire des usines Renault, vol. 1, pp. 73–75.