Introduction.

The underlying cause of the difficulties and conflicts experienced by the Trench Warfare Department in the Ministry of Munitions was that it was the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

Throughout 1915 it differed from other departments in the Ministry in that it exercised the four primary functions in weapons production: research, design, manufacturing, and issue to the Army. Of the first three, the only other organisation that exercised those powers was the Ordnance Board, and the fourth was the prerogative of the Army Council. While there is no evidence that Major-General Jackson ever exercised, or abused, these powers, which in any case were administrative anomalies, they gave him the same legal authority and control over the supplies produced by his department as that exercised by the War Office over service munitions produced by the Ministry of Munitions. This exceeded the authority delegated by Parliament to Mr Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions of War and, while this never seemed to trouble the equanimity of Lloyd George, it was a source of great jealousy and hostility from other senior managers in the Ministry. From the day Section FW3A arrived, they plotted to dismember this peculiar department and make it conform to the Ministry’s procedures.

The issues that led to the destruction of the Trench Warfare Department in December 1915 originated in the War Office. When Jackson was authorised to produce emergency grenades in late 1914, the restrictions imposed upon him by the Master-General of the Ordnance effectively excluded him from the War Office procedures relating to munitions production, so, out of necessity, he had to take responsibility for the quality of the munitions produced by Section FW3. It is difficult for us to comprehend the significance of this. For the first time in its history, the War Office delegated oversight for the safety and effectiveness of equipment to be issued to the army to a single individual. At first, Jackson’s anomalous position seems to have been tolerated by the Directorate of Artillery, perhaps because it was seen as a temporary arrangement that, at best, would result in the issue of a small number of emergency hand grenades to assist the BEF while Woolwich developed something better.

By early 1915 things had moved on. Jackson was seen as the War Office’s local expert on trench warfare. This position was significantly enhanced in May when Lord Kitchener made him responsible for developing the army’s response to the April gas attack at Ypres. The size and importance of this task made it impossible for Jackson to continue in his role within the Directorate of Fortifications and Works, and the Master-General of the Ordnance, General von Donop, appointed him head of a new Section FW3A. With this increase in Jackson’s responsibilities, the Directorate of Artillery realised that FW3A, with its enhanced funding and expanding range of activities, was becoming a threat to its historical role as a sole arbiter of the production of munitions and began to lobby that the existence of Section FW3A was an anomaly, destabilising the administrative structure of the War Office by operating across the traditional boundaries that defined the responsibilities of its Directorates. The Director of Artillery also railed against the extemporised weapons produced by FW3A because they were ineffectual, poorly made, and in making them, Jackson was in breach of a whole raft of War Office regulations, including a failure to have his designs passed by the Ordnance Board and his munitions quality checked by the Chief Inspector before issue to the army. These issues were unresolved by the time Section FW3A transferred to the Ministry of Munitions but did not go away.

When Dr Christopher Addison decreed that Jacksons section, now turned the Trench Warfare Department, was to be a munitions manufacturing department independent of the Departments of Munitions Supply the staff of Munitions Supply, many transferred from the Directorate of Artillery objected, reviving the arguments that Jackson's department was an anomaly that disrupted the normal functions of the Ministry as the Institution that supplied the army with its munitions and that many of the functions of the Trench Warfare Department were outwith the role of the Ministry of Munitions as defined by Parliament.

Based on this argument, the department was vulnerable because the following activities were not within the remit of the Ministry of Munitions but were discharged by the War Office,

(i) Research and development of novel munitions.

(ii) Methods of production and inspection of the finished products.

(iii) Procedures for direct delivery to the army.

(iv) Direct contact with the armies in the Field.

(v) Provision of training in the use of the novel weapons it produced.

The other factor that inflamed the antagonism against the Trench Warfare Department was its rapid expansion after joining the Ministry of Munitions. This was partly due to the nature of trench warfare and the rapid expansion of the army, which was leading to an almost insatiable demand for grenades combined with the transfer of responsibility for the development and manufacture of the Mills bomb and trench mortars from the Directorate of Artillery. It was also assisting in developing an expanding range of chemical munitions, had established an additional research and testing ground at Wembley and an independent grenade filling station at Watford.