Section 1: Transfer of Section FW3A to the Ministry of Munitions.
Chapter 5. History of the Trench Warfare Department. Part II[1]
The Transfer of Section FW3A to the Ministry of Munitions.
No Department in the Ministry provided such a succession of interesting and dramatic episodes as the Trench Warfare Department. Dr Christopher Addison.[2] (
i) Introduction. The Ministry of Munitions.
On Whit Monday, May 24th, 1915, in the Ypres salient, a violent German attack opened the Battle of Bellewaarde Ridge. Half a world away, on the Gallipoli peninsula, the Australians and Turks initiated a local truce to bury the hundreds of dead that littered the gullies around Quinn's Post and, in London, Mr Lloyd George ceased being Chancellor of the Exchequer to metamorphosed into the new Minister of Munitions for War, burning with ambition to become a great War Lord, the saviour of his country through the defeat of Germany. On May 26, he inaugurated his new Ministry by moving into a private house, 6 Whitehall Gardens, opposite the Horse Guards, and a previous home of the great Liberal Prime Minister, Gladstone. He chose the drawing room as his office and found it empty, except for two tables, one chair, and several mirrors, none of which were the property of the new Ministry and soon removed. Similarly, his staff was equally sparse. In addition to the Minister there was Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, Secretary to the Board of Trade, on secondment to assist setting up the new Ministry, Dr Christopher Addison, a protégée of Lloyd George, who had, until today, been Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education and was now Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions, and the Minister's two secretaries, Miss Frances Stevenson and Mr J. T. Davies. For the first few days of its existence the new Ministry was not engaged in the task for which it had been created, to increase munitions production, but in a much more important and delicate task of defining, as clearly as possible, its powers and responsibilities in relationship to those of the War Office to prevent conflicts of authority and turf wars breaking out between two great Departments of State. This was no easy task. The War Office was skilled in defending its prerogatives, often playing its trump card against civilian ministers, that only military professionals could deal with military matters, but, within weeks of its creation, this new Ministry would wrestle from the War Office almost all the responsibilities associated with the research, development, and manufacturing of munitions of war. In the broadest sense, the Ministry of Munitions was responsible for the manufacture of two classes of munitions. The first, and by far the largest group, were the approved service weapons, most of which had been designed and already in production before the outbreak of war, and to these can be added the heavy howitzers developed during the war, but based upon familiar technology, and infantry weapons such as the Lewis gun, which although new to the British army, were in production in other countries. To achieve this, it was necessary to transfer from the War Office those departments concerned with munitions manufacture, the largest and most important of which was Sir Percy Girouard’s Armaments Output Committee, which was to form the Department of Munitions Supply. Also transferred was the Explosives Supply Department under Lord Moulton. To accommodate the transfer of necessary administrative and financial functions from the War Office, the Ministry established the Secretariat and Labour Department under the leadership of William Beveridge. These three departments form the original configuration of the Ministry under the supervision of its General Secretary, Sir Herbert Llewellyn Smith.[3] The second category of munitions consisted of an unbelievable variety of equipment, the unexpected demand for which resulted from unforeseen developments in battlefield tactics that occurred during the war. These included almost everything needed for trench warfare, such as tanks, chemical warfare, the development of a new fighting force based around aircraft, and the huge advances in communications technology, along with thousands of other items necessary to fight the enemy, from steel helmets to advances in battlefield medicine.
(ii) The Negotiations.
The resolution of issues relating to the transfer of responsibilities from the War Office to the Ministry of Munitions can be viewed as occurring in two stages. The first, which occupied May and June 1915, ended quickly with agreement over the actual management of munitions production, with the Ministry assuming control over the allocation of labour, raw materials, the placement of orders with manufacturers, and the general allocation of industrial resources across the country to support the expansion in munitions production. Under the pressures of wartime necessity, the complex and politically charged discussions over the division of responsibilities had to be concluded with undue haste, resulting in decisions that were ragged and imprecise, giving rise to unintended consequences that were a source of irritation and frustration between the War Office and the Ministry in the months to come. These fed into the second stage, the areas where the War Office would not relinquish its authority. These included the research and design of new munitions, modifications to existing munitions, and the authority exercised by the Chief Inspector, Woolwich, over the engineering standards that manufacturers had to achieve and the quality assurance of the final product before issue to the army. These unresolved issues led to a period of guerrilla warfare between the two departments that lasted from the summer of 1915 to the early months of 1916 before ending in total victory for Ministry of Munitions when it acquired control over all the research and development functions of the Directorate of Artillery, the Ordnance Board, which it re-formulated as the Ordnance Committee, and all the functions associated with the Woolwich munitions inspectorate. This left the War Office with only two significant functions, both of which were agreed to be the responsibility of the military, not politicians. The Army Council was to be the sole authority to determine what equipment was required by the army and, secondly, to confirm that all items produced by the Ministry of Munitions were safe and effective before recommending their acceptance. It remained the function of the Master-General of the Ordnance to agree with GHQ which munitions were required to fight the war and inform the Ministry of Munitions how much of each type was needed and when it had to be delivered.
[1] The designation Ms Addison refers to Archive of Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison in the Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts. University of Oxford. Without these papers this History would not have been possible, and I am grateful to Viscount Addison for permission to access and quote from this archive.
[2] Christopher Addison, Politics From Within 1911-1918. Including Some Records of a Great National Effort. 2 Vols. (London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd., 1924.). Vol. 1. p.113
[3] History of the Ministry of Munitions II/I General Organisation of Munitions Supply. Part I. Administrative Policy and Organisation. p.109