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Errors and Omissions in Franco–British Co-operation over Munitions Production, 1914–1918

The opening weeks of the First World War depleted stocks of guns and munitions for all belligerents. For Britain and France the potential existed for co-operation to overcome the slow rate of the necessary industrial mobilization. French expertise combined with British resources might have given the two countries a vital advantage over the Central Powers, but national sentiment vitiated this potential. Although the two countries co-operated in less vital matters such as finance and coal imports, and the first munitions ministers of both countries worked well together, no big project (such as an Allied artillery reserve of heavy guns mounted on railway wagons to be used between Italy and the North Sea as required) ever materialized. When the USA joined the war, problems were compounded. The struggle for influence in arming the new American armies presented an unedifying spectacle. The bureaucratic successes in transport matters contrast sharply with the missed opportunities chronicled here.

War in History, Vol. 14, No. 2, 179-218 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0968344507075876


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