‍ ‍The Trench Warfare Department and the War Office Establishment.‍ ‍

(xi)  The Design and Inspection of Munitions.[1]‍ ‍

a. Introduction. The War Office discharged its responsibilities for the design, manufacture and quality assurance of munitions and other equipment issued to the army through the Directorate of Artillery in which Divisions A1 to A3 dealt with the development and manufacture of munitions, A1 for coastal and heavy artillery, A2 Field Artillery and A3 small arms and vehicles, whereas A4 was responsible for a rather complex network of committees and departments concerned, in the broadest sense, with the quality of the army's warlike stores. These were the Ordnance Board; the Royal Artillery Committee; the Royal Research Laboratory at Woolwich; the Experimental Establishments at Woolwich, Shoeburyness and Hythe; the Royal Ordnance Factories; the Chief Inspector Small Arms and last, but not least, the Chief Inspector, Woolwich, the most important, influential and powerful link in the chain of events, or processes, between the design of an item of ordnance and its issue to the army.[2] The overriding responsibility of these committees and departments was to ensure that the design and manufacture of weapons, and their ammunition, was effective and capable of doing the job expected of them under all conditions, and that handling under the stress of battle was safe for nothing impaired the morale and fighting ability of troops more than distrust in the performance of their weapons. The strict quality standards and rigid financial control exercised by the War Office discouraged many engineering firms from seeking War Office contracts; as a result, munitions production had become the monopoly of the Royal Ordnance Factories and a small number of specialised munitions companies such as Vickers or Armstrong Whitworth, which had the War Office and Admiralty as their main customers. Specialising in munitions these companies could invest in developing the high standards of craftsmanship required to meet War Office standards, an essential attribute in the workforce as weapons were highly sophisticated items of equipment where the permitted variation in the quality of the materials, and the engineering tolerances applied to manufacturing, that determined the effectiveness and safety of a weapon, as opposed to it becoming dangerous or uselessness, was infinitesimally small. In an item of artillery, for example, to be out by one thousandth of an inch in some critical specification, such as the diameter of the barrel, could render the gun dangerous or prone to failure when fired in battle. Equally tight control was exercised over all the materials that went into its manufacture; for example, in munitions-grade steel, 100th too much or too little carbon or sulphur could cause the gun barrel to explode on firing. The final arbiter of the effectiveness and safety of munitions issued to the army was the Chief Inspector, Woolwich, who exercised a vital role through interacting with inventors and manufacturers, supporting them to ensure that the munition for which they were responsible complied with his requirements before it was submitted for final inspection, a role his department discharged by exercising three functions: advisory, informative and administrative.[3] In his advisory capacity, the Chief Inspector was frequently consulted on matters relating to all aspects of the selection of materials and the technicalities of the manufacture of military and naval ordnance and offered assessments on the industrial capacity and manufacturing capabilities of new companies applying to produce munitions. However, his most important responsibility regarding the provision of information was that he was the custodian of the specifications and engineering drawings for all ordnance issued to both the Army and Navy, with the sole responsibility for approving the final specifications and signing and dating the approved master copy of all engineering drawings, an essential process known as sealing. Specifications and drawings could not be issued to manufacturers until they had been sealed. No production could start until they had been issued, and no payment was made unless the final product conformed, in absolute detail, to the specifications. The justification for this procedure was that, as the Chief Inspector was ultimately responsible for quality, he had to ensure himself that all manufacturers were working exactly to the same set of specifications and drawings, for these were the basis on which his staff accepted or rejected an item, ensured standards and agreed to payments. Finally, the administrative functions of the Chief Inspector's department were closely tied to the physical act of inspection and primarily consisted of preparing inspection reports for manufacturers.

b. The Politics. During the discussions on the division of responsibilities between the War Office and the new Ministry of Munitions, the War Office fought most strenuously to retain control over the functions of the Chief Inspector, as they were unwilling to surrender any part of his most important function, the determination of the type and quality of munitions issued to the army, to an organisation run by a bunch of politicians. The Ministry of Munitions was equally determined that the Chief Inspector should be transferred, for they felt that it would be impossible to manufacture munitions without control over their design and the standards manufacturers were to meet. As Lloyd George was not yet politically powerful enough to tackle the War Office head-on, they had to agree to an unsatisfactory compromise in which the most essential functions of the Chief Inspector, that is approving the specifications and the sealing and issue of the technical drawings, remained with the War Office, while the semi-skilled staff that carried out the physical acts of inspection, and the inspectors who wrote up the inspection reports for the manufacturers, would be transferred to the Ministry. As this latter function remained at Woolwich and the inspectors still reported to the Chief Inspector, as well as their new masters in the Ministry of Munitions, most manufacturers would have been unaware of the change, except perhaps by noting the appearance of a new heading on the notepaper on which the Inspectors prepared their reports. An essential feature of this compromise was that it practically guaranteed the preservation of the pre-war Inspectorate's culture and ethos, and it was not long before it became apparent that this would clash with the Ministry's drive to increase munitions production and that this new division of responsibilities would end in tears. Usually, the Woolwich Inspectorate dealt with ordnance manufactured by the highly skilled craftsmen of the munitions companies with a correspondingly low level of failure, giving the Inspectorate the leisure to elevate, almost to the status of religious dogma, a pedantic insistence on conformity to even the smallest detail of the specification. It was soon clear that such an attitude was unsustainable and patently ill-equipped to deal with the rapid increases in munitions output required to sustain an army at war but, as the Ministry of Munitions was to discover, the grip of pre-war practices was so strong, and the mindset that implemented them so powerful, that it appeared impossible to move the Chief Inspector to change the working practices of his department which made the customs and practices of the Woolwich Inspectorate a central battleground between the Ministry and the War Office over the means of increasing munitions production.[4] One of the first things the Ministry of Munitions did in its drive to increase output from companies already producing munitions was to assign production engineers to review their manufacturing practices. They quickly identified relatively minor changes to the design of munitions, such as removing the rim at the base of artillery shell casing, that would reduce costs, speed up production, and allow manufacturing by less specialised companies. However, when the Ministry attempted to introduce such changes, they ran into a brick wall. Any modifications to the design of a munition, or its method of manufacture, no matter how trivial, had to be approved by the Chief Inspector, who had to assure himself that the changes would not impair performance. If the Ministry was lucky, their suggested modification could be incorporated quite quickly by the Chief Inspector, tweaking the specification and informing the Inspectors of the change, so they would accept the modified item, but on occasion, the Chief Inspector required referral of the proposed change to the Ordnance Board, which could result in the issue of an entirely new set of drawings and specification incorporating the changes. Although this process could be completed relatively quickly, it was slower than necessary, as the entire War Office apparatus was unsympathetic to the Ministry of Munitions. Hence, the Ordnance Board adhered to its calendar of meetings, the timings of which were unresponsive to the Ministry of Munitions' urgent requests. When the Board did meet, its members gave the Ministry's requests low priority, dealing first with their own business and that of the War Office. This, combined with the massive backlog in the overworked Woolwich Drawing Office that produced the modified drawings, often introduced a further delay of several weeks before the Ministry could incorporate their proposed modifications into the manufacturing process, while the manufacturers, sensing the potential to increase their profits, insisted that changes to the original specification, and the issue of revised sealed drawings, required the negotiation of new contracts,  entailing even more delay. It was evident that the Ministry had to escape the thrall of the War Office by acquiring control of the Chief Inspector’s remaining responsibilities, relating to the design, testing, and standards of munitions. Lloyd George achieved this by the end of 1915.

(xii) The Challenges of Inspection.‍ ‍

a. The Inspectors. The staff of the Chief Inspector numbered about 1,300 in 1914, the majority of whom were labourers necessary to move items between different stores, or the semi-skilled inspectors trained to do little more than apply measuring gauges to samples of a munition, such as an artillery shell, to check the conformity of its physical characteristics, such as diameter and weight, against the approved specification. There was a small number of Senior Inspectors who were among the army's most knowledgeable and skilled officers, many national authorities on matters such as the properties of steel or optical glass, and their vast reservoir of expertise, built up through years of handling the inspection of munitions, made them ideally placed to undertake the development of the specifications for the materials used in manufacture, define the manufacturing process, and determine what criteria manufacturers were required to meet to satisfy the quality standards laid down for the final product. The outbreak of war found this small, specialised Inspectorate unprepared to respond to the increase in munitions production that commenced within days of first contact with the enemy. For many years, it had been the established policy of the Royal Arsenals to recruit into the semi-skilled positions men just completing their military service, as they were familiar with disciplined working and the handling of explosives, and, in July 1914, many of these men were still in their period of reserve service and mobilised on the declaration of war. The Chief Inspector made a strong representation that these men were more valuable to the war effort by remaining in their jobs in the Arsenal rather than serving in the ranks, shooting the enemy. Still, the War Office, considering it would not be politic to show preference to its employees while it was strictly enforcing the call-up of reservists in other vital areas, such as the munitions industry and the railway companies, refused. Somewhere in the background of its mobilisation orders, the War Office did have a contingency plan to expand the Inspection Department on the outbreak of war, but this was based upon the short war scenario and so modest in scope that it was pretty useless, and, with home-based officers clamouring for positions with the BEF, the Inspectorate could not even recruit the additional six officers visualised in the contingency plan.[5] The inspection process reached its first crisis at the beginning of 1915, when the number of staff employed could no longer keep pace with the increasing volume of munitions, particularly artillery ammunition, being brought forward for inspection. Recruitment of new staff was notoriously difficult, for the supply of military personnel had dried up for obvious reasons. It was almost impossible to recruit even moderately good civilian staff on the low wages offered by the War Office, especially as so many other opportunities were available for employment in companies expanding to meet wartime demands and already short of labour at all levels of skill.[6] In an attempt to cope, the Chief Inspector reduced sample sizes for the proofing of shells and issued batches without full inspection, each shell marked with a distinguishing colour so that if any serious defect was found in use, the whole batch could be quickly identified and removed. One possible solution to the staffing crisis was hiring women. Still, the conservatives in the Inspectorate resisted this until the early months of 1916 when they were taken over by the Ministry of Munitions and compelled to conform to its employment policies.[7]  The employment of women by the Inspectorate was a conspicuous success, taking about three weeks to train intelligent women to become reliable and accurate examiners. They were soon employed across all sections, including the perceived-difficult areas of optical instruments and heavy-calibre artillery shells. The number of female inspectors employed in some areas exceeded 50 per cent. The Woolwich Inspectorate informed the Minister of Munitions in July 1916 that the number of female employees had exceeded 15,000. There were, however, difficulties in retaining this skilled workforce, for women, no matter how experienced, were excluded from promotion to the higher ranks of the Inspectorate, and the wages on offer were lower than those for even semi-skilled work in the ordnance factories.[8]‍ ‍

b. The Process of Inspection. The War Office procedure for inspecting warlike stores before they were issued to the army was relatively straightforward. It started with the Chief Inspector being notified of which firms were to receive contracts to manufacture the item under consideration, along with a copy of the contract that should include details of the inspections to be carried out, and whether these were to be done on the manufacturer's premises or elsewhere. The Chief Inspector would then arrange for the specifications and a copy of the sealed drawings to be provided to each manufacturer, along with the standard measuring gauges, if required. With all of this in place, the Chief Inspector had the tools to monitor the manufacturing process, verify component compliance, and inspect the final product through periodic sampling. Interestingly, the output of the Royal Ordnance Factories was not subject to this inspection regime, as it was assumed that, since they were under the Chief Inspector's supervision, everything they did complied with the approved specifications. This well-tried and tested system worked well for approved munitions whose specifications did not change significantly over time and which were manufactured by companies specialising in the high standards of engineering required for the manufacture of munitions, and was adaptable enough to deal with the Inspection, though with some difficulty, with the high volumes of approved munitions produced by the Ministry of Munitions as long as uniformity of output was maintained by placing large orders with a relatively small number of companies. What it was not designed to do was cope with the production of the Trench Warfare Department, derived from small orders placed with a large number of suppliers for a range of munitions whose specifications were subject to almost continuous change. The vexations and arguments between the supply sections of the Directorate of Munitions Supply, which dealt with the manufacture of approved munitions, and the Chief Inspector, which comprises the majority of surviving documents relating to Inspection, are pretty trivial when compared to the problems that plagued the Trench Warfare Department. Mr A. P. Stocking, Head of the Trench Mortar Section, in his submission to the Historical Section of the Ministry of Munitions, characterised the Woolwich Inspection Department thus,

Any statement of value with regard to this section's relations with this Department is difficult to make, except at great length. From the Supply point of view, the policy of the lesser officials of this department appears to have been one of constant pin-pricks and obstruction. The attitude of the department seems to have been 'We do not care if there is a war on, we have spent our lives, and generations before us, in reducing the inspection of Munitions to a fine art, and we will not have our laws and customs broken for any war.' An ordinary point of view would be, is this gun, or that bomb serviceable? If so pass it; not so with Woolwich, granted it may be serviceable, but if it does not conform to a hairsbreath with the letter of the Woolwich law, it is rejected and the Army may wait in vain for its supplies.[9]‍ ‍

When first produced, Colonel Jackson's emergency grenades bypassed the Woolwich Inspectorate, as its role was to inspect munitions approved by the Army Council and did not bother with short-lived experimental weapons, and, from the scattered evidence we have about the early activities of Section FW3A, it would appear that authorisation for Jackson to issue his grenades to the army derived from the Master-General of the Ordnance. This emergency procedure was satisfactory when the output of emergency grenades was approximately 10,000 per week. The system changed in early 1915 as the munitions output by Section FW3A increased, and the grenades began to be inspected at Woolwich. However, it remains unclear whether Jackson was also required to obtain the Chief Inspector's approval before issuing specifications and drawings to his manufacturers. Whatever the practical arrangements between FW3A and the Chief Inspector's Department, the latter coped with the increased workload once FW3A transferred to the Ministry of Munitions, that is, until the introduction of the Ball grenade. The first batch of 25,000 Ball grenades, destined for the Dardanelles, was not inspected at Woolwich as a consequence of the extreme time-pressure imposed by the sailing date of the supply ship, but the Woolwich Inspectorate was soon to feel the impact of this grenade. Once it was confirmed that the Ball grenade was more effective and safer than the Pitcher grenade, the Trench Warfare Department planned an initial output of 100,000 a week, rising to just shy of 450,000 a week during preparations for the Battle of Loos. Inspecting such numbers presented an insurmountable challenge to the Inspection authorities at Woolwich, for the grenades were produced in dozens of different workshops and could not be inspected by sampling, as would have been the case if one manufacturer had made them. Instead, the output of each manufacturer had to be inspected, an additional workload that brought the Inspectorate to the brink of collapse, as it was already overburdened by the massive increase in artillery ammunition production resulting from Lloyd George's gun programme and preparations for the battle. When it became clear that the War Office did not have, or was unwilling to provide, the funding to recruit and train more inspectors, and with artillery remaining the top priority, some new procedure was going to be required to cope with the Inspection of grenades, mortar bombs, and other items of equipment coming forward in large numbers from the Trench Warfare Department.[10]‍ ‍

The Inspection crisis was aggravated by the layout of Woolwich Arsenal. Over the years, the storage facilities for munitions awaiting inspection, and for inspected items passing into the Ordnance Store had developed piecemeal, with new buildings put up as required in whatever space was available among the warren of factories, workshops, and stores that comprised the Royal Arsenal. The Chief Inspector's scattered estate had been tolerated before the war as an inconvenience; it had now become a recipe for chaos in accommodating the volume of munitions passing through the inspection process. Batches of munitions frequently went astray or were delivered to the wrong store, effectively becoming lost to the system. This situation was exacerbated by the loss of many experienced storemen through the call-up of army reservists. Even when munitions were delivered correctly, there were long delays before Inspection, followed by additional delays, sometimes a fortnight or more, before writing up the inspection reports that were essential before the items were released to the army, and the manufacturers informed that their output was meeting requirements.

This compounded the delays in trench warfare supplies, which were usually given low priority, as demonstrated by the treatment of rifle grenades. When the inspection report for the week ending the 27th of November 1915 showed that Woolwich had received no rifle grenades for Inspection but had issued 5,000 to the BEF the suspicions of the Grenade Section were aroused and digging deeper determined that the Cotton Powder Company had dispatched 20,000 rifle grenades to Woolwich that week and, concerned with the discrepancy in the information provided by Woolwich, prepared a chart showing the number of rifle grenades dispatched by the Cotton Powder Company against the number released to the BEF for November and found that, in that month alone, some 80,000 rifle grenades were held somewhere in Woolwich that had not yet been notified to the Chief Inspector.[11]

There was a similar, but more serious delay in the Inspection and issue of hand grenades. Before the Mills bomb became the standard service hand grenade in late 1915, many different grenades were in service, some manufactured by the Trench Warfare Department, others derived from successful patterns developed by the Royal Engineers in France and repatriated home for factory manufacture; the grenades falling into these categories were the No 6,7,8,9,12,13,14,15, and 16.[12] The Inspection of the completed grenades from all sources was carried out at Woolwich, but the variety of patterns coming forward added to the congestion in the Arsenal, and batches of grenades were passing into storage before Inspection, but so poorly documented that they were forgotten, perhaps never resurrected to undergo Inspection. To eliminate such delays, and ensure that the troops were receiving adequate supplies of trench warfare munitions, a meeting was held between the Director of Ordnance Stores for the BEF, the Deputy Director of Equipment and Ordnance Stores at Woolwich and Colonel Cargill for the Trench Warfare Department which agreed that certain trench warfare stores, predominately ammunition, could be inspected by the Outside Engineering Branch at sites other than Woolwich, typically the trench warfare filling factories, and once inspected could be delivered directly to the Ordnance Officers at the Port of Embarkation, bypassing the congestion and confusion that was developing at Woolwich. To satisfy the Chief Inspector, batches of the inspected items would be periodically sent to Woolwich for his Inspectors to verify that standards were maintained.[13] It is important to note that this radical concession regarding Inspection and direct issue to the army applied only to high-volume munitions, such as grenades and mortar bombs. All the other munitions produced by the Trench Warfare Department, such as the trench mortars, underwent the normal processes of proofing and Inspection at Woolwich until the whole system was changed again in late 1917.

On paper, this agreement seemed a sensible working compromise, but in practice, it was fraught with difficulties, leading to disputes between the Outside Engineering Branch and the Chief Inspector that were particularly acute in late 1915, a period when the final design of many trench warfare munitions was not yet settled. The fundamental problem was one of communication, the difficulty in keeping the Chief Inspector informed promptly of the changes in the floating population of small suppliers contracted to produce trench warfare munitions or their components which could result in batches of perfectly usable ammunitions arriving at Woolwich for Inspection from a supplier not notified to the Chief Inspector and this lack of information as to their origin, or details of their specification, led to automatic rejection to be followed by a time-consuming appeal process on the part of the relevant Outside Engineer. The majority of these procedural rejections were exacerbated by the lax administration that characterised the Trench Warfare Department at a time when it was recruiting large numbers of inexperienced staff into the Outside Engineering Branch. One outstanding example of system failure at this time was the initial production of bombs for the 3-inch Stokes mortar.

When the Ordnance Board finally approved the design of Jackson's fuse for the 3-inch Stokes mortar bomb the department, wishing to make up lost ground engendered by the delay in getting approval, rushed to activate the contracts it had placed to manufacture the bomb casings without informing the Chief Inspector who was kept entirely in the dark about what was happening until the first of the bomb casings came forward for Inspection, when he was suddenly asked to approve a list of 88 companies that had been awarded contracts to manufacture the bombs or their components. Worse was to follow. This was the time of the National shortage of measuring gauges essential for workers, such as lathe turners, to calibrate their work to ensure that it was meeting the specification and as the manufacture of the first batches of Stokes mortar bombs was an urgent priority to supply the mortars promised to the Dardanelles the Outside Engineers had told their manufactures to go ahead without gauges for they would be inspecting the bombs at the filling stations. A Stokes bomb was a relatively crude weapon, and reasonably generous tolerances were permitted for its manufacture. However, keeping within such tolerances without using measuring gauges was difficult. Quite quickly, the work at the filling stations ground to a halt as they became the depositories of thousands of rejected Stokes bombs. Panicking that they would not complete the emergency order on time, the Outside Engineering Branch sent a deputation to Woolwich to ask the Chief Inspector to send 88 Inspectors, complete with gauges, to their suppliers, a request he informed them was impossible to meet, with the result that no Stokes mortars were supplied to the Dardanelles Army through lack of ammunition.

c. The Woolwich Drawing Office. An essential component of the Chief Inspector’s department was the Drawing Office staffed by eight highly skilled draftsmen and their assistants who were responsible for preparing the final engineering drawings to be sealed by the Chief Inspector. This modest staffing may have been satisfactory in pre-war days, when the development and modification of munitions were leisurely processes and sealed drawings were provided only to the Royal Ordnance factories and a small number of private munitions companies, but it was inadequate once demand for munitions began to increase in September 1914.[14] For reasons now lost to us, the War Office did not attempt to increase the size of the Drawing Office, and even before trench warfare, munitions appeared on the scene, the office was already overwhelmed, preparing drawings for the numerous modifications required to equipment once it was subject to the strains and stresses of combat.

When Colonel Jackson started to produce his experimental grenades in January 1915 the constraints imposed upon him by the Master-General of the Ordnance prevented him from approaching the Woolwich office to prepare his engineering drawings and the first non-military addition to his staff was a draughtsman permitting Section FW3 to produce its own drawings and submit the equivalent of sealed drawings to the Chief Inspector to assist him in establishing the inspection regime for the trench warfare munition. In their drive to have the Trench Warfare Department conform to standard procedures the officials of the Ministry of Munitions, in partnership with the Chief Inspector, attempted to disrupt this arrangement by insisting that all drawings for trench warfare munitions should be sealed by the Chief Inspector and prepared in the Woolwich drawing office but once again practicalities got in the way giving rise to a compromise where the Chief Inspector approved and sealed the drawings for trench warfare munitions, with the department’s drawing office remaining responsible for issuing copies to the individual manufacturers. This scheme may have alleviated the manufacturing delays that had arisen from the Woolwich drawing office’s failure to produce drawings under pressure from other work, but, like the delegation of some munitions inspection to the Outside Engineering Branch, it was not without its problems. These arose from a form of mission creep when, in an attempt to speed up the assimilation of design changes into the manufacturing process, the department’s draughtsmen had started issuing modified drawings directly to manufacturers that differed slightly from the sealed drawing held by the Chief Inspector, so when batches of the weapon came forward for final inspection, they were rejected for not meeting the approved specification.

Such technical rejections led to much energy being expended by the Outside Engineers and the Chief Inspector’s department as they argued over detailed aspects of the design to get the weapons passed. The solution, as usual, was to improve communication by ensuring that the Chief Inspector’s office received copies of all modifications for his approval and in time for him to inform his inspectors which of the various versions the manufacturers were following, thereby preventing the rejection of perfectly usable weapons. This system coped well with the continual modification and development of equipment used in trench warfare until it was brought to a halt by the unrestrained egotistical behaviour of a senior manager. When Lloyd George created the Munitions Design Department, it absorbed the Woolwich Inspectorate and its Director-General, Major-General J. P. Du Cane, determined to retain control, informed the Chief Inspector that he could inspect only those items whose design he had formally approved. It is now early 1916, and many of the warlike stores produced by the Trench Warfare Department had been developed through trial and error outside the normal developmental processes of the War Office and thus had not been formally approved by the Chief Inspector before manufacture. Under Du Cane’s edict, the production of such items was stopped until they had gone through the formal approval process. Due to pressure on the Chief Inspector’s department, this could take several weeks, even though the drawings and specifications had already been used to manufacture items approved by the Woolwich Inspectorate. This ego trip on the part of General Du Cane delayed the release of large quantities of the new 2-inch medium trench mortar bombs for several weeks. Unfortunately, this was not the last occasion when Du Cane’s desire to demonstrate his authority held up the release of urgently required munitions.

General Du Cane’s behaviour was not the only difficulty to emerge following the reorganisation of departments in late 1915. In the competition game between the Departments of the Ministry of Munitions to demonstrate their importance to the war effort the staff of the Munitions Invention Department and the Design Department would often collaborate to draw up the specification for a new item of equipment for trench warfare and after the Design Department had approved their joint effort they would then issue the specification and sealed drawings to manufacturers without consulting the Trench Warfare Supply Department which both departments generally held in contempt as consisting of civilian amateurs. The problem with this procedure, besides highlighting the arrogance of the two departments involved, is that the prototype of the item they produced would be hand-modelled in one of the design workshops and fabricated to very high standards out of the best materials available, conditions that could not be replicated in the real world of manufacturing. The staff of the Design Department, the majority of whom were military officers with no manufacturing experience, would incorporate these materials and standards into the final specification, which often resulted in weeks of production delays as the staff of the Outside Engineering Branch worked laboriously through the changes in the specification necessary to arrive at the most practical and cost-effective means of manufacture.[15]‍ ‍

(xiii) The Munitions Invention Department. At the time of the formation of the Ministry of Munitions, in June 1915, the War Office was still trying to come to grips with the consequences of the German gas attacks in April, to which it seemed neither to have the means to protect its soldiers from repeated attack nor deliver retaliation. This position gave rise to gossip in the corridors of power that a significant weakness in the War Office’s approach to meeting the challenges of the war was a failure to embrace recent advances in science and technology, which, as the enemy had recently demonstrated, was a significant factor in achieving military success. Historically, the War Office had been cautious about involving civilian scientists and other experts too deeply in its affairs, tending to discount their input, even when offered by prominent organisations such as the Royal Society and the Institute of Engineers. The issue of civilian expertise was brought out into the open by the novelist, and prophet of the beneficial effects of science and technology, H. G. Wells who, incensed by what he saw as the War Office’s attitude opened up a public debate through the letters page of The Times newspaper in which he attacked the War Office and Admiralty for their lack of encouragement and support for scientists and engineers.[16] Although primarily directed at the War Office this correspondence was, by implication, a criticism of the Government and Winston Churchill, always ready to jump into the limelight, was the first to respond to the growing demand that something must be done by creating, within the Admiralty, an independent Board of Invention and Research, composed of sixteen eminent scientists and engineers, chaired by Admiral Lord Fisher, and charged to focus on ‘scientific problems the solution of which is of urgent importance to the naval service’ and by 1916 onwards, this Committee was primarily focused on one crucial Naval task: developing the means to find and kill submarines.

Lloyd George, as Minister of Munitions, was slower off the mark in responding, for he did not have the freedom of action of Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty and faced a more complex political situation with the War Office, but, determined not to be outdone by Churchill, he proposed the creation of a Munitions Invention Department within the Ministry of Munitions with Mr E.W. (later Sir Ernest) Moir, a distinguished civil engineer who was also a Captain in the Royal Engineers (Territorial), and currently employed by the Ministry in charge of machine gun production, to be Director-General. Created on 6th August 1915, it was to be the vehicle for evaluating all inventions covering land and aerial warfare submitted to the Ministry and for carrying out research and development of any that showed potential. The exceptions were for inventions relating to trench warfare and explosives, which already had separate research responsibilities within the Ministry.[17]‍ ‍

Ernest Moir, like all of Lloyd George’s men of Push and Go, was exceptionally competitive and ambitious, and saw gaining control over the ideas and inventions submitted to the Trench Warfare Department as one way to justify his department's existence. As his original role in the Ministry was to organise the production of machine guns in the Departments of Munitions Supply he would have been aware of the attempt by Sir Percy Girouard to split research from manufacturing in the nascent Trench Warfare Department so when Eric Geddes revived this idea he put his weight behind the proposal aware that if the move were successful there was a good chance that the inventions associated with trench warfare would fall into his lap for it was doubtful that any demands from the War Office for the repatriation of these functions would succeed.

(xiv) Department of Munitions Design. Following his appointment as Minister for Munitions of War, one of Lloyd George’s first acts was to propose a conference between the French and British Ministers of Munitions to compare notes and discuss the needs of a modern army concerning artillery and its ammunition to meet the changed circumstances on the battlefield. This meeting, known as the Boulogne Conference, took place in the Hotel Derveaux on the 19th and 20th of June and consisted of three sessions, all chaired by Lloyd George. In preparation for the Conference, he had asked Sir John French if he could send ‘his very best artillery expert’ to represent GHQ and provide him with technical support, and the person chosen was Major-General John Du Cane, the artillery advisor at GHQ.[18]‍ ‍

The first session, held on the evening of 19th June, was for the British delegates alone and was dominated by Lloyd George, who held forth on the role heavy artillery was to play in overcoming the German defences. In preparation for the session the following day with the French, Du Cane prepared a paper detailing his estimates of the artillery requirements that would meet Lloyd George's vision. These were accepted by the meeting and, after being substantially enlarged by Lloyd George, became the basis of the ‘Gun Programme’ that dominated the activities of the Ministry of Munitions, and determined, through its absorption of much of the engineering assets of the country, that the strategy of the BEF on the Western Front would become based around the effective utilisation of artillery.

Lloyd George has described Du Cane as ‘highly intelligent’ and ‘more accessible to the influence of fresh facts and new ideas than most men high up in his profession with whom I had business dealings.’[19] In his turn General Du Cane, an exceedingly vain and status-conscious individual, was flattered by Lloyd George’s attention through involving him in the development of the Government’s war policy and our wily politician quickly discerned that he could become ‘his man’ with the outcome that Du Cane became Lloyd George’s mole at GHQ providing him with copies of secret, or at least confidential, correspondence between GHQ and the War Office over munition supplies to be used by Lloyd George on his attacks upon the performance of the War Office. Lloyd George’s opportunity to take control over the design and approval of munitions from the War Office came with the initiation of his Gun Programme, an essential feature of which was a substantial increase in the manufacture of heavy howitzers, the ammunition for which the Research Department at Woolwich was having difficulty in developing a reliable fuse. Their most recent prototype had caused the shells to explode in the barrel, destroying it, and after eight weeks of investigations, the Research Department was no nearer explaining how this had happened. The failures of the Royal Laboratory were compounded by the knowledge that the French were offering one of their fuses that in their recent offences had performed well, but acceptance of this offer was not a function of the Ministry of Munitions but of the War Office and the Chief Superintendent of Ordnance Factories, with his well-known antipathy to anything foreign, had recommended a refusal because he did not have the resources to manufacture it and being French would be unfamiliar to the gunners who would require additional training. This decision infuriated Lloyd George, for the French fuse used one-eighth of the brass when compared to a British fuse, required less skilled labour to manufacture it, used less gain composed of the expensive and in short supply TNT to initiate the explosion, and savings in production costs and raw materials made the fuse very attractive to the Ministry of Munitions.

Determined to get control of the Woolwich establishment responsible for the design of munitions Lloyd George instructed Dr Addison to prepare a report detailing their failures over the provision of new fuses and any other issues surrounding the provision of artillery and its ammunition as detailed in the confidential information provided by Du Cane and, through a very selective choice of material, Addison prepared a highly damming report that claimed to expose the War Office’s incompetence in managing the development of new munitions and failing to carry out important modifications to those already in service. Lloyd George, upon receiving the report, did not use it immediately to attack the War Office but kept it in a drawer, waiting until he could use it to his maximum advantage. This came following the creation of the new Coalition Cabinet after the fall of Asquith’s Liberal Government. As is usual in such a new political set-up, individuals jockeyed for position and authority, and, in this ferment, Lloyd George, with the support of his new Conservative Party allies in the Cabinet, Lord Curzon and A. J. Balfour, plotted to oust Lord Kitchener from the War Office.[20] His opportunity came when Prime Minister Asquith asked Kitchener to assess the military situation in the Dardanelles and the potential for other military campaigns against the Ottomans. To allay Kitchener’s concerns about being away from London, Asquith agreed to protect his position in the Cabinet by assuming the responsibilities of the Minister for War in addition to his role as Prime Minister.

To execute this takeover of the War Office’s remaining functions, Lloyd George enlisted the help of Asquith, and the pair acted out a piece of political pantomime. Acting in his temporary role as Minister of State for War in the absence of Kitchener Asquith agreed to receive Dr Addison’s report and then, reverting to his role as Prime Minister, accepted all its recommendations and instructed that they were to be implemented immediately so when Kitchener returned to Britain at the end of October he found the War Office stripped of the functions of the Chief Inspector and control over the Ordnance Board and the experimental grounds at Woolwich, Shoeburyness and the Small Arms School at Hythe. While this represent a substantial increase in the authority of the Ministry of Munitions the changes within the system were political rather than practical for the only experts who exercised control over the design and quality of munitions were those officers already serving in the War Office who, when transferred to the Ministry of Munitions retained their conditions of service, including military rank, and on the whole continued to discharge their responsibilities in the same manner as they had always done.

In protest at the transfer of these important functions, Major-General von Donop relinquished his position as Master-General of the Ordnance and Lloyd George saw an opportunity to reward Du Cane and advocated that he fill the vacant post but this was too much for the army establishment who has no wish to give Lloyd George even more control over the War Office by placing his man in one of its most important positions. The Army Council moved swiftly to block the appointment. This left Lloyd George with the problem of how to award Du Cane, and his solution was an example of his political adroitness. He created a new Department in the Ministry of Munitions, the Department of Munitions Design, that conveniently solved two problems. It would provide a home for the Department of the Chief Inspector and associated functions transferred from the War Office, with General Du Cane appointed Director-General, discharging many of the functions that traditionally were the domain of the Master-General of the Ordnance. The appointment of Du Cane is another example of a politically astute military officer appointed to a high position in the Ministry of Munitions without the necessary experience or skills to work in a civilian environment where success was measured by the ability to motivate staff to succeed rather than exercise control and authority through the creation of a rigid hierarchy with oneself at the pinnacle.      
‍ ‍[1] The terms Supply and Design had slightly different values from those in contemporary use. Design, in general terms, encompasses all the steps from invention through research and development to the point at which manufacturing can commence. Supply describes all the processes associated with manufacturing and the delivery of the completed item to the end user.

[2] History of the Ministry of Munitions IX Part II

[3] History of the Ministry of Munitions IX Part II. p.12

[4] In 1915 a batch of artillery shells took over two months to complete the inspection process and with no substantial increase in the workforce the storage facilities at Woolwich allocated for shells waiting inspection became full, resulting in train loads of shell waiting for inspection heavily congesting the railway sidings, making it was difficult to move shells around the Arsenal significantly contributing to the delays in delivering artillery ammunition to the BEF.

[5] The Inspectorate did increase substantially during the war from 1300 in July 1914, to 9,000 in July 1915, and by November, to 63,800. These numbers do not include the inspectors employed directly by the Trench Warfare Supply Department, of which we have no information beyond their existence.

[6] Many of the complaints made by the Trench Warfare Supply Department against the Inspectorate’s decisions resulted from the poor educational standards of the men recruited to fill semi-skilled grades. Such Inspectors adhered rigorously to their brief and seemed incapable of understanding, or showing initiative, over the levels of tolerance permitted within the manufacturing standards.

[7] Such conservative attitudes on the part of the Chief Inspector are surprising, for women had always been part of the Arsenal's labour force, predominantly employed in shell filling.

[8] Men and women were paid the same rates; the problem in retaining women was the low wages on offer from the War Office when so many other opportunities were opening up to them in the wartime economy.

[9] TNA: MUN 5/384/1610/9. Personal Notes on the Work and History of TW3. (Supply of Trench Mortars and Ammunition. Oct. 1916-Nov 1916.Mr A P Stockings.

[10] TNA: MUN5/197/1640/5. Mr Richmond's Report on the situation as taken over from the War Office.

[11] Ms Addison c39 folio 394. Memo to Chief Inspector Woolwich from Head of Section TW1 (grenades).

[12] Rick Landers, Norman Bonney & Gary Oakley, 'Grenade' British and Commonwealth Hand and Rifle Grenades. (Dural (Australia): Landers Publishing, 2001.). p 47.

[13] TNA: MUN/5/382/1600/11. History of the Outside Engineering Branch of the Trench Warfare Supply Department.Captain Leeming.‍ ‍

[14] In 1916, one of these valuable draughtsmen was called up for military service, and the War Office refused to intervene to secure his release despite a powerful case put forward by the Chief Inspector and the Ministry of Munitions regarding his importance to the war effort.

[15] TNA: MUN 5/384/1610/12.Notes on the Work and History of Section TW 7. Supply of Trench Mortars and Ammunition Sept. 1915 – March 1917.Mr J Leevers. [

16] Pattison, M. The Munitions Inventions Department: a case study in the state management of military science.  PhD. Teeside Polytechnic. 1982.

  [17] TNA: MUN9/21. Inventions: coordination of Ministry of Munitions and War Office activities. 1915 Jul – Nov.

[18] Du Cane was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1884 and, without any outstanding events in his career, climbed the promotion ladder to serve throughout 1914 as Brigadier, Royal Artillery on the staff of III Corps, and when the BEF was reorganised into two armies at the end of the year, Sir John French promoted him to be artillery adviser at GHQ.  

[19] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of Lloyd George. New Edition 2 vols. (London: Odhams Press Ltd. 1938.). p 376.

[20] John Pollock, Kitchener. London: Constable, 2001, pp. 453-457.