Ten Views of Artillery in the Great War

1.  A Poilu Observes Artillery Fire

The rumbling of the artillery became more and more frequent and ended up forming a single rumbling of the whole earth. From all sides, outgoing bursts and explosions threw forth their flashing beams which lit up the dark sky over our heads with strips of light in all directions. Then the bombing grew so heavy that the flashes became continuous. In the midst of the uninterrupted chain of thunder claps we could see each other directly, helmets streaming like the bodies of fish, gleaming black iron shovels, and the whitish drops of the endless rain, truly it was like moonlight created by cannon fire.

Henri Barbusse, Under Fire

2.  An Illustrator's View of the Big Guns

3.  AI's Answer to:  "What  can  you  tell  me  about artillery  in  WWI?"

Artillery was the dominant and most destructive weapon of World War I, completely shaping how the war was fought. It caused up to 70 percent of all battlefield casualties and dictated military tactics on both sides. 

       Destructiveness

• Massive Casualties: It caused the majority of deaths and physical trauma during the conflict.
• Shell Shock: The constant psychological terror of bombardment created severe psychological trauma.
• Landscape Alteration: Millions of shells blasted fields into muddy, cratered, and completely unrecognizable terrain.

Tactical Impact 

• Enforced Trench Warfare: Heavy fire forced soldiers underground into deep defensive trenches for survival.
• No Man's Land: Continuous bombardment destroyed all cover between opposing trenches.
• Barbed Wire Destruction: Armies used prolonged bombardments to cut wire before infantry charges. 

Evolution of Tactics

• Flash Spotting: New scientific methods located enemy guns by measuring sound and light flashes.
• Creeping Barrage: Artillery fired just ahead of advancing infantry to shield them from defenders.
• Counter-Battery Fire: Armies dedicated specific batteries solely to destroying enemy artillery pieces.     
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• From Gemini at Google Chrome
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4.  A Poet's View

5. The Human Body's Response to Being Bombarded

The first thing a soldier would experience would be the concussive force of the explosion, caused by the rapid release of energy compressing the air particles. This is often referred to as “over-pressure.” Soldiers feel like the air is sucked out of the area, causing a tightening of the skin and pulsating of the eyes.

Split milliseconds after the over-pressure strikes and radiates outwards, it is followed by shock waves that create a vacuum in the immediate area of the explosion. Oxygen is pushed out, sucked back in, and then immediately pushed out again into a gut-smashing wave of energy. The blast wave followed by the shock wave creates havoc on internal organs—brain, lungs, stomach—often pulverizing them if the soldier is too close to the point of impact. Air sucked out of the lungs leaves the soldier gasping for breath. The shock wave is felt strongly in the gut. Blood is forced out of organs and arteries upwards towards the brain. After successive blasts, eardrums could rupture causing bleeding out of the ears.

This is then followed by the outward force of the rapidly expanding gases that grabs anything in the nearby area and throws it outward with relentless force. Soldiers standing are the most vulnerable to this part of the blast, as if they are hurled into something solid—such as a tree or building—they can be killed by the impact. Lying on the ground can often mitigate this effect, as the pulse of the blast rolls over them and the shock is dissipated up and out.

The sound—or report—of the blast was incredibly loud, damaging eardrums. Heat from the explosion would burn those caught in the blast—although the over-pressure would have already killed them.

So much for the explosion itself.

Shells are encased with metal sheathing, which upon detonation is broken up into tiny fragments that are projected upwards and outwards at speeds of over 60 miles per hour. These shards embed in flesh or—if large enough—rip parts of the body away. Soldiers struck directly would explode in all directions, leaving nothing remaining of their existence other than blood and fragments of bone, flesh, organs, and uniform scraps. Soldiers entering Belleau Wood in 1918 remarked with disgust at the bodies and body parts hanging from high in the shattered trees. Shrapnel shredded trees, bushes, rocks, anything in the area, creating more deadly fragments.

Multiply this by the rate of in-coming fire. Say, one concussion every second, and bombardments could last for hours.

The Angry Staff Officer

6.  A Gunner's View of Loading and Firing a 60-pounder Field Heavy Gun

First of all you put the shell into the breech, then you have a long ramming tool, a drift they called it; you stand with your back to the gun and ram it home. When you’d put that in, you put the cartridge in. Then you closed the breech, which closed the breech block itself, had threads on it. Well then the lever had a link connecting it from the lever itself to the bottom of the breech block, and when you’ve closed the breech lever further, that link caused the breech block to revolve by sixty degrees, thereby locking all the threads together. Well then there was a hole right through the breech block by which means you ignited the cartridge.  You put in a little tube, revolved it ninety degrees, which locked it, and then there was a little loop on that, metal ring on that, and you hooked your lanyard into that and when you pulled that this caused a flash – almost like striking a match – and the flash went through and impinged on the red end of the cartridge, thereby igniting the cartridge, and that blew the shell out.

Leonard Ounsworth, Royal Garrison Artillery

7.  The Lives of Artillery Shells

8.  A Statistician's View

9.  Inside a 37 MM Shell

10. Roads to the Great War's Library of Artillery Articles, HERE

Henry Ford + Colorization Technology = Marvelous Images of the American Homefront at War

There was a time between 1915 and the mid-1920s when Henry Ford was a movie mogul, overseeing the largest motion picture production and distribution operation on the planet. Today, these motion pictures and other films produced or acquired by the Ford Motor Company between about 1914 and 1954 are preserved at the National Archives.   Almost every facet of the American experience from the mid-1910s through the early 1920s is portrayed, including business, city life, farming, manufacturing, news events, recreation, rural life, sports, transportation, and WORLD WAR ONE.  Further, modern digital artists have started to colorize them.  A reel covering America in the 1910s has been converted by Samuel Francois-Steininger of Paris-based Composite Films.   Here is a collection of stills I've captured from the National Archives. I don't think they require captions, but I should mention for anyone who doesn't recognize him, #4 is Teddy Roosevelt and the last is the Unknown Soldier. These are displayed at 560px width and can be enlarged to 800px by clicking on them. 

When Douglas MacArthur "Voted" for John J. Pershing as Commander of the AEF

Secretary of War Newton Baker & Captain Douglas MacArthur

By Brigadier General John S.D. Eisenhower

Command of the American Expeditionary Force  was one of the most important decisions that Secretary of War Newton Baker and President Wilson would ever make, as the officer selected would have to be capable of carrying tremendous responsibility on his own. Secretary Baker could not look over the shoulder of the man sent to command in Europe.

Pershing, who had recently commanded the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, had not always been Baker's first choice. In early 1917 the most prestigious field officer in the United States Army was Major General Frederick Funston, commanding the Southern Department at San Antonio, Texas. A Medal of Honor recipient and seventeen years a general officer, Funston was expected to lead any force the United States would put into the field. It was not to be. The command picture changed drastically during the evening of 19 February 1917. Army duty officers Brigadier General Peyton March and Major Douglas MacArthur received a message disclosing that General Funston had died of a massive heart attack that evening while dining out at a local hotel in San Antonio. MacArthur, the junior of the pair, was detailed to deliver the message to Secretary of War Baker who was with the President at a dinner party. 

MacArthur with His Staff During the St. Mihiel Offensive

Wilson and Baker, though somewhat shaken, took the news in stride. As MacArthur waited for instructions, they beckoned for him to follow as they went into an adjacent room. First the President dictated a message of sympathy to Mrs. Funston. Then turning to Baker, he asked, ''What now, Newton, who will take the Army over [there]?'

Baker, perhaps stalling for time, turned to  MacArthur, "Whom do you think the Army would choose, Major?" ''I cannot, of course, speak for the Army, but for myself the choice would unquestionably be General Pershing." 

Wilson looked at the young officer for a long moment. Then he said quietly, "It would be a good choice." 

Wilson's reaction was widely shared, and almost certainly would have been reached without MacArthur's contribution. Even though Funston had been Pershing's superior, Pershing might have been selected in any case, for Baker and Scott had come to realize that Pershing possessed certain qualities that Funston lacked. The most obvious of these was an ability to deal with people who held opposing views. Pershing was no diplomat, but compared to the impetuous Funston, he was a model of self-restraint. With Funston out of contention, the choice would be even easier.

General Pershing Decorates Bg. Gen. MacArthur for His War Service

Foremost among Pershing's remaining competitors was Major General Leonard Wood, the Army chief of staff between 1910 and 1914. In that position, Wood had been highly effective. But despite his stellar performance, Wood had shortcomings, one of which was a genius for stirring up controversy. He advocated military preparedness so blatantly that the Wilson administration-always determined to avoid saber-rattling-had become alarmed. . .When he provided a rostrum from which Roosevelt attacked the Wilson administration on the preparedness issue, Secretary Baker transferred him to command the Southeastern Department, with headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. 

(Editor's Comment:  From the moment in 1903 in San Francisco that Lt. Douglas MacArthur and Captain John J. Pershing were introduced, the two men had a friendly/hostile, hot/cold,  friendship/rivalry. It lasted right up to Pershing's death in 1948. I might write an article about it for Roads some day. It's probably worth a book, though. MH) 

From Yanks by Bg. General John S.D. Eisenhower

Map Series #30 The Famine of 1918

 

Click on Map to Enlarge

Famine with the accompanying civilian deaths and civil disorder on the homefronts was a primary driving force behind the collapse of the Central Powers. The severe food shortages stemmed from multiple causes. 

1)The British Royal Navy’s blockade cut off essential food imports and agricultural fertilizers to Germany and Austria-Hungary.

2) Manpower shortages due to military conscription.

3) Crop failures, especially with potatoes that led to the Turnip Winter of 1916–1917.

4) Threats of revolution in both the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires as actually happened in Russia. (Russia's February 1917 Revolution began with food riots.)

Also, see our articles on The Food War (HERE)

Sources: Vox from data provided by "Food Guide for War Service at Home" and d-maps.com

Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis

  

By Bryan Alexander

John Hopkins University Press, 2026

Reviewed by David F. Beer

Editor’s Note:  Readers probably recognize that this work is somewhat distant from our usual material. However,  author and futurist Bryan Alexander is one of our regular reviewers and contributors, and I always try to support their work. Also, Bryan's book covers a topic of great importance to all of us. MH

Bryan Alexander at a Georgetown University Event

In the week since getting Bryan Alexander’s latest book on higher education I have noticed four articles in our local newspaper on topics Bryan seriously and methodically explores in one way or another. The first article was on how graduating seniors at the University of Texas are having a tougher time finding jobs this spring and another was on how universities are becoming concerned about grade inflation. In another, a local reporter described a mock funeral, complete with ancient horse-driven hearse, which took place one recent afternoon near our campus protesting how politicians and administrators are "killing" the university. The fourth article was a charming but bittersweet piece by a father whose young daughter had anxiously asked him if “everyone has to go to college.” The dad, who a few years back would have answered with a definite yes, realized now he isn’t so sure.

These incidental bits of information probably caught my attention due to having spent almost all my working life as a teacher in a university. So reading Bryan Alexander’s Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis has turned out to be what I feel is the most accurate and impactful study on the futures of higher education that any of us could hope to currently encounter. This is a recent publication by the author, and his previous books have pointed to what he so elegantly deals with in this one: the possible futures of the Academy—namely, where our endangered universities and colleges are headed and how we will survive and hopefully prosper within new circumstances and forces.

Order HERE

In eight chapters, with a full introduction and copious notes (plus an index) the author examines the current state of America’s higher education and admits that all is not well. Simply put, we have over-built and over-extended. So where do we go from here and what possibilities does the future hold? These two questions are analytically described, investigated, evaluated, and (in my opinion) as thoroughly processed and answered as is possible at this time. Read the book and you will see what I mean.

David F. Beer

P.S.  If you would like to see how America's higher ed responded to the challenge of the First World War, read our articles on the experiences of Penn State HERE and Clemson HERE 

Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Dana Coates, 11th Aero Squadron, USAS

 

Cadet Pilot Dana Coates with Sopwith F1 Camel

By Gareth Morgan, Western Front Association

Dana Edmond Coates was born in Lodgepole, Nebraska, in 1894, the third of ten children. He was descended from one Charles Coates, a British soldier sent to America during the Seven Years War (1756–1763—although hostilities started two years earlier in North America) who settled in the country after hostilities ended. Charles's descendants fought in the American War of Independence and in the Civil War. His mother was born in true pioneer style in a "soddy" (a house made of earth sod) in Nebraska. At the time of Dana's birth, the Coates family ran the train depot and the telegraph station in Lodgepole. The family later moved to Denver, Colorado, where his father ran a telegraph school, and two of his sisters were noted as being exceptional in their mastery of the telegraph. 

Dana served in the Colorado National Guard Signal Corps and saw service on the Mexican border during the U.S. Army's 1916 campaign against the revolutionary Pancho Villa. We can only wonder if he saw the Curtiss JN-3 aeroplanes flown by the U.S. Army during the campaign and decided then that aviation was the way that he'd like to wage war.

Following the U.S. entry into the Great War in April 1917, Dana enlisted in the army on 15 August 1917 and volunteered for the air service, then a branch of his old regiment, the Signal Corps. James Sloan, in his book Wings of Honor, lists Dana Coates as a member of the second group of 204 American cadets sent to England in August and September of 1917, known as the Oxford Group. They were selected from the group of graduates from the Schools of Military Aeronautics at Princeton, the Universities of Illinois, Texas, and California. These cadets were originally informed they would be sent to Italy. An undated newspaper article (probably in the Denver Post) announced that "1st Lieutenant Coates has been sent to Italy to serve with the American squadron of aviators."

Photos From the Coates Family Collection

After transport across the Atlantic Ocean, and arrival in England, Cadet Coates and his traveling companions were informed that they would be sent to Oxford, along with other potential pilots from the US. Army, to commence flying training with the British RFC. His flying clothing was issued on 15 November 1917 at No 44 Training Squadron at Waddington, Lincolnshire, where he may have undergone some basic flying training. He then attended the School of Military Aeronautics at Oxford University, with Squad 20, Course No. 6, and was billeted in Exeter and King's Colleges. 

During his time at Exeter College he was invited out for afternoon tea by Sir William and Lady Osler, the Canadian-born Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford (Sir William was a descendant of American War of Independence hero Paul Revere and died during the influenza pandemic of 1919; his son, Lt Revere Osler, was killed in action while serving with the 16th Canadian Infantry Battalion in October 1916). . . 

After ground training at Oxford, Dana moved back to Waddington for flying training at No. 47 Training Sqn about February 1918. It appears that he had flown his first solo prior to this date, but, unfortunately, his logbook has suffered some damage and the first two pages are no longer legible.

In September 1918, 1Lt Coates was posted to the 11th Aero Squadron USAS, in France. The squadron was originally formed at San Antonio, Texas, in May 1917 and transported to the UK from New York in December. After being split up for training at various locations in the UK it was reunited at Waddington (where Dana Coates trained) in late July. After a period at Waddington, the unit moved to Delouse in France on 26 August to be equipped with the U.S.-built DH-4 (the Airco DH-4, a two-seat light bomber) and to serve as a bombing squadron on the Lorraine-St Mihiel-Meuse-Argonne sector of the Western Front. Commanded by 1Lt Charles L Heater, it moved to Amanty aerodrome on 6 September and then to Maulan on 24 September. Maulan was also the home of the two other units in the First Day Bombardment Group, the 20th and 96th Aero Squadrons. Later they were joined by the 166th Aero Squadron, also a DH-4 unit. It was at Maulan that the 11th Aero Squadron adopted the cartoon character Mr. Jiggs (from the George McManus comic strip "Bringing Up Father") as its symbol, and commenced painting the little man on its aeroplanes.

The Aircrews and DH-4s of the 11th Aero Squadron

1Lt Coates had his first flight in a DH-4 at Amanty,  in AS 23292 (which he described as a "Liberty DH 4") on 24 September. He next flew AS 32808 to Maulan. After a navigation exercise to Ligny, Bar-le-Duc and St Dizier on 25 September, Dana flew his first combat mission on 26 September when, with 2Lt Lauren R. Thrall, from Bone Gap, Illinois, as observer, he flew DH-4 AS 33043 in a six-aeroplane bombing raid on Etain, flying at 12,000 feet. The raid was assessed as being very successful, and all the U.S. aircraft returned to Maulan. Coates didn't take part in a successful six-aeroplane raid on Grandpré, on the extreme left of the American sector of the front, on 29 September. 

On 1 October, the 11th and 20th Aero Sqns experimented with a large combined formation, with each unit forming one arm of a "V"; the 11th formed the left arm and the 20th the right arm. 1Lt Coates was flying DH-4 AS 32950, with Lt Jones as observer, when he suffered engine trouble after 15 minutes and had to return to Maulan. The rest of the unwieldy formation broke up shortly after and the raid was abandoned. The 11th Aero Sqn experienced many problems with the Liberty engines of its DH-4s, and it was very common for aircraft to turn back early from operations.

Coates's next effective combat mission was a bombing raid on St Juvin on 2 October when, with 2Lt Thrall as observer, he flew DH-4 AS 32605. The bombing was assessed as successful, and all the squadron aircraft returned to Maulan. Coates. Thrall had an active October, completing several successful missions, but sometimes being forces to abort due to problems with the aircraft or its fickle Liberty engine. 

On 4 November, 12 aircraft led by 1Lt Walter A Stahl took off to bomb Cheveney le Château from 12,000 feet, including Coates and Thrall in AS 32905, who were at the rear of the unit's formation. Three aircraft were forced to turn back before the formation reached the lines. Back at Maulan, 1Lt Cyrus J Gatton, from Bozeman, Montana, a flight commander and veteran of 12 missions with the French and 13 with the USAS, and 2Lt G E Bures, a four-mission veteran from Cicero, Illinois, both of whom had just returned to the squadron from leave, volunteered to reinforce the raiders. Five minutes after the departure of the main formation, they took off from Maulan in another DH-4 and endeavored to catch up with the formation, only to be shot down when in sight of the main body, probably by flak. Both airmen were killed.

After bombing, the formation was attacked by about 20 Fokker D VIIs from Jagdgeschwader 1's Jasta 11, one of which was flown by Lt. Friedrich Noltenius, an ace then credited with 20 victories. Noltenius concentrated on Coates's AS 32905, and hit the fuel tank, setting the aeroplane on fire. It was Noltenius's 21st, and last, victory of the war. Coates sideslipped in an effort to reduce the effect of the flames while Thrall continued to fire at the Fokkers, one of whom was reported to be shot down, though German records don't show a corresponding fighter loss, so it is likely that the pilot survived the encounter. The DH-4 crashed near the town of Stenay and both men were killed. They were buried by French civilians. Although the DH-4 was nicknamed "The Flaming Coffin," only eight of the 33 USAS DH-4s lost to enemy action were shot down in flames.

A raid on Mouzon by the 11th Aero Sqn on 5 November was abandoned due to adverse weather; it was the squadron's last operation of the war. If 1Lt Coates had survived the raid on 4 November, he would almost certainly have survived the war. 

1Lt Dana Coates now rests in Plot F Row 3, Grave 31, Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the WWI Victory Medal with battle clasp for Meuse-Argonne, and the WWI Bronze Victory Button. [Presumably Lt. Thrall received similar decorations, but we have been unable to confirm this detail, or determine his final resting location.]

Source: Abridged from Gareth Morgan's article "From Lodgepole to Stenay: First Lieutenant Dana E Coates, 11th Aero Squadron, USAS" at the Western Front Association's Online WWI Articles.  The full article with extensive details on Lt. Coates training and combat missions can be found HERE.

The Bats of Verdun

Bechstein’s Bat (Myotis bechsteinii)
 One of 15 Species of Bat Populating the Verdun Battlefield

During my days leading tours of the Western Front battlefields we were occasionally treated to subterranean bat sightings. This most often happened at the Verdun sector forts, but I've since learned that many species of bats have been identified at Verdun, and they've been found in all sorts of places. 

 

A Colony Inside a Verdun Fort

The reason for this vibrant population is twofold. First, the big forts—like Douaumont, Vaux, or Troyon—where I've personally seen the critters—plus the countless number of abandoned concrete bunkers, subterranean tunnels, and fortified military shelters scattered across the surrounding battlefield provide perfect habitats and hibernating quarters for bats. The rough brick and stone interiors of the shelters are ideal for roosting. 

Second, the millions of craters—found everywhere else around the battleground—provide a wonderful hunting ground for those delicacies of bat cuisine, insects and amphibians. Apparently, the—recently arrived to the area—rare yellow-bellied toad is particularly delectable for bats.

Bats' Hunting Ground

Furthermore in the 21st century, both the predator and their quarry have found powerful legal protection, at least from humans. The Verdun battlefield is protected by the European Union Habitats and Birds Directives, which designate the area as a Natura 2000 site. In France, these frameworks are enforced under the Environmental Code (Code de l'environnement), specifically restricting activities that might threaten rare amphibians (like the yellow-bellied toad) and bat colonies. Incidentally, much to the happiness of local farmers, insects as far as I can tell are not protected and the bats of Verdun are welcome neighbors.

Verdun Bat Food: The Delicious Yellow-Bellied Toad

Sources: "In France, a Bloody WWI Battlefield Has Become a Wildlife Refuge," Atlas Obscura; "100 Years After WWI, Nature Is Finally Reclaiming A Historic Battlefield," DiscoverMagazine.com; Verdun Tourism.

Lonesome Memorial #25 Memorial Germânico do Passo Pordoi

 

These Images Can All Be Enlarged by Clicking on Them

Fighting in the Dolomites during World War I was a brutal, high-altitude struggle against both the enemy and the elements. Soldiers faced freezing temperatures and harsh, unforgiving terrain. Avalanches were frequent killers. Combat involved intense artillery duels, cliffside tunnel warfare, and a never ending struggle to keep supplies arriving at the high altitudes. It's very fitting that the men who lost their lives in the "White War" should be honored at some of the highest war memorials in Europe. Those of the Central Powers are honored here at the Memorial Germânico do Passo Pordoi at altitude, 2,238m. sThe Italian equivalent memorial is farther east at Pocol,  near Cortina.

At Passo Pordoi, the second highest pass of Italy's Dolomite Mountains, is this ossuary and cemetery for the remains of the fallen of both World Wars. World War One casualties include 8,128 Austro-Hungarian and 454 German. There are also 847 German soldiers buried on the grounds who were killed during the Second World War. The detail that—despite having the majority of the fallen, neither Austria nor Hungary are mentioned in the name of the memorial—is due to postwar Nazi Germany being responsible for its construction, which did not begin until 1937. It was one product of a cemetery agreement concluded between the German Reich and the Kingdom of Italy in the same year. 

Designed by Robert Tischler,  the chief architect of the German War Graves Commission from 1926 until his death in 1959, the structure mimics a Totenburg (a Germanic "fortress of the dead"). It features an austere, circular, dark-stone design divided into three levels, with the center holding an octagonal crypt and a flaming bowl. On the side walls are larger-than-life figures of mourning soldiers. Among his other works, the most famous is the German Cemetery at Langemark, Belgium.

Getting There

The nearest city is Bolzano  to the west located on the Brenner Pass Motorway (A22).  Passo Pordoi is about 42 driving miles away on the Strada Dolomites (SS48).  It's a beautiful ride but somewhat complicated to get to, so have a map handy or some navigation aid with your car.  GPS coordinates are: 46°29'28.64"N; 11°49'41.35"E.  There is a small cluster of businesses at the Pordoi Pass (shown above), which includes a small war museum which is worth a stop. Just past the museum is a turn to the left marked "Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof". This will lead on to a narrow road  for .7 miles which ends in a parking lot. Then it's a short walk to the memorial.

Who Was John A. Hobson?

John A. Hobson (1858–1940) was a highly influential British economist, teacher (on the far outskirts of academia), elected official (twice Mayor of Derby), journalist, editor (Progressive Review) and social theorist whose critique of imperialism—later adopted by Lenin—fundamentally shaped intellectual debates surrounding the origins and aftermath of the First World War. His thinking on the war was greatly influenced by his time in South Africa as a war correspondent for the Manchester Guardian during the Boer War. Hobson concluded that the origins of the war lay in the operations of capitalist financiers, such as Cecil Rhodes, who were using their influence over both the press and the British government. 

His seminal work, Imperialism: A Study (published in 1902), through its core thesis provided a helpful, albeit radical, framework for understanding the economic "inter-imperialist" rivalries that led to the 1914 conflict. Applying his earlier analysis, he later argued that prior to the July Crisis of 1914:

• Wealthy elites had accumulated massive excess savings but lacked profitable domestic investment outlets due to stagnant local demand. Stagnant because  wealth inequality had left the working classes unable to buy the goods they produced. 

• This led to elites manipulating what we today would call the military-industrial complex to acquire foreign territories for securing overseas markets and investment opportunities.

• The aggressive state-backed expansion that followed inevitably forced European empires into a direct geopolitical collision course, triggering World War I. 

When the War Came

When the war erupted in 1914, the Liberal Hobson vocally opposed British involvement. He redirected his efforts toward anti-war activism and institutional reform. He became a founding and executive member of the Union of Democratic Control, a prominent British anti-war organization. The group fought against wartime conscription, opposed state censorship, and pushed for parliamentary oversight of foreign policy. He may have also influenced Woodrow Wilson with his wartime volume Towards International Government in which he recommended a global body to settle disputes peacefully

Despite his anti-war stance, Hobson was so respected he was asked to lend his expertise to civil stabilization. He loyally and constructively served on the government's Whitley Committee (1917–1918) to design industrial relations frameworks and worked alongside the Ministry of Reconstruction to plan post-war societal rebuilding.

John A. Hobson

Aftermath of War

At war's end he joined the Independent Labour Party and served on various think-tanks of the Party. According to an article in the Journal of Liberal History, as he aged, Hobson’s journalism became more infrequent, but conversely, his intellectual influence grew. Keynes later acknowledged a debt to Hobson for his ideas expressed in the  General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).  His 1938 autobiography's title, Confessions of an Economic Heretic, nicely summarized his career. Ever a British patriot in any case, he wrote his last article for the New Statesman in December 1939 where he expressed the hope that America would join the war, which he believed would shorten the conflict to his countries advantage. John Atkinson Hobson died on 1 April 1940.

Sources: John Atkinson Hobson (1858–1940), Journal of Liberal History; Biographical Sketch, University of Exeter; Spartacus Educational 

The Rise of the Arms Industry and the Coming of World War

By T. Hunt Tooley from "Merchants of Death Revisited: Armaments, Bankers and the First World War"

We may certainly say the First World War had many "causes," both proximate and distant. But arms manufacturers and salesmen were in the special position, both before and during the war, of playing the double role of monopolistic, rent-seeking, state-supported "bureaucrat-businessmen" at home, and freewheeling, all's-fair-in-love-and-war competitors abroad. In great measure because of this role, their influence on the coming and conduct of the war was enormous. Before the war, they helped create an increasingly unstable atmosphere in the world at large, first pushing in various ways for war, and later lobbying for its continuation, and eventually for American intervention once the Allies seemed exhausted enough to negotiate a peace. . .

Many of the arms merchants of the Great War had laid the basis for their twentieth-century wealth in the nineteenth century and even earlier. The Du Pont family arms business stemmed from a powder factory opened in 1802. The Krupps had a small steel business until the middle of the century. Thomas Vickers served an apprenticeship in the Krupp company and subsequently followed the Krupps in producing first peacetime products, and then, from the 1860s, armaments. The Vickers firm was as colorful and as sinister, perhaps, as any of the arms producers, at least after joining competition and the scandals produced by some of the company's leaders.  Most of the other great arms companies behaved in the same way.

As they did so, arms merchants almost always used the nature of their trade to achieve monopolistic relationships with governments and a free hand at fixing prices and delimiting markets throughout their industry. By 1905, Du Pont provided all the powder ordered by the United States government, and the company was able on its own to "fix" prices across the board. The government charged Du Pont with violating antitrust laws in 1907, calling for price-fixing and related practices to stop, but by this time, Du Pont had eliminated most American competitors with the assistance of the government. The company supplied an enormous share of the gunpowder used by the Allied forces in World War 1.

One key to the success of all the arms merchants was that they  held few national prejudices when it came to selling munitions and arms. So, for example, Irénée du Pont in some cases supplied both sides with munitions in the Latin American wars for liberation after the Napoleonic period. The Krupp family followed a similar pattern, as did Schneider-Creusot in France. The Vickers Company, the most politically powerful arms company in Britain, under Sir Basil Zaharoff's leadership supplied weapons to both sides in the Boer War, despite the company's position as a kind of national treasure.

[Banking connections were, of course, critical to both the survival and success of arms makers.] All arms makers have important financial connections. [For example, in America, the companies were a component of a larger economic universe.]  In the Morgan group were to be found the Du Pont Company, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the U.S. Steel Corporation, together with copper, oil, electric appliances, locomotive, telephone and telegraph interests. This tie-up also leads over into the great banks, including the National City, Corn Exchange, Chase National, etc. It was the Morgan group of corporation clients and banks which dominated the American arms industry.

Despite this tendency to supply all comers, the great arms companies all managed to secure a role as staunch patriots who enjoyed a special place in the "national" economy. Alfred Krupp had expanded the family steel business to arms production by the 1840s, and was selling cannon abroad. When the Prussian army underwent reorganization in the late 1850s and early 1860s, it adopted the new Krupp artillery. The company ballooned, through the Wars of Unification, from a small plant at Essen covering two and a half acres and employing a few dozen workers to a complex of 250 acres which employed 80,000 workers in 1914. The Krupp concern indeed, while continuing to sell weapons abroad, became a kind of unofficial part of Imperial Germany's government, protected from both economic competition and the scandals produced by some of the company's leaders.  Most of the other great arms companies behaved in the same way.

As they did so, arms merchants almost always used the nature of their trade to achieve monopolistic relationships with governments and a free hand at fixing prices and delimiting markets throughout their industry. By 1905, Du Pont provided all the powder ordered by the United States government, and the company was able on its own to "fix" prices across the board. The government charged Du Pont with violating antitrust laws in 1907, calling for price-fixing and related practices to stop, but by this time, Du Pont had eliminated most American competitors with the assistance of the government. The company supplied an enormous share of the gunpowder used by the Allied forces in World War 1.

Similarly, the Schneider family of the French company Schneider-Creusot came out of the French defeat at Prussia's hands in 1871 with huge profits. Having supported Napoleon III, the company was now equally supportive of the various Third Republic governments, especially those of a nationalist coloring. Meanwhile, the company relied on the state to suppress strikes and manage discontent at its factories, as it supplied the army with weapons. The Schneiders eventually managed to place one of their own, Eugene Schneider, in the Chamber of Deputies, where he served throughout a period crucial to arms makers: 1900 to 1925.  Hence, a pattern is clear: increasingly close association with the state, especially from the period of intense nationalism following the 1860s, and a tendency toward gaining access to public support for private profits.

Already high before World War I, profits soared during it. Before the third year of World War I, Krupp had more than doubled its huge profits of the immediate prewar period-to the level of 66 million marks annually. In Austria-Hungary, Škoda likewise doubled its profits during the early war years. On the other side of the Atlantic, profits surged still higher. U.S. Steel netted $105 million annually before the war, $239,653,000 during it. Du Pont's numbers in the same two categories were $6,092,000 annually before the war, to a staggering yearly average of $58,076,000 during the war. These results were repeated in dozens of smaller and subsidiary arms companies throughout the belligerent countries.

The internationalization of  boards and companies allowed banks and arms companies to have a purchase on any situation, no matter what ties of "loyalty" might be invoked. At the same time, their more-or-less constant relationship with any foreign government to which they sold arms allowed them easy access to the local press. Influencing the populace, and hence public policy, through propaganda became commonplace. When a war scare was needed, it was quite possible to create one by maximizing reports of existing tensions in the press.

[Did the arms lobby and their financial backers, the "Merchants of Death", cause World War One?]

A caricaturized version of the "Merchants of Death" thesis has tended to be the popularly known version, and in this version, arms merchants caused the war. Historians can and still do discuss the causes of World War I, but none would hold that any single cause could have touched off this great catastrophe. As Ludwig von Mises, a profound student of war and its causes, wrote in Human Action:

People do not drink intoxicating beverages in order to make the "alcohol capital" happy, and they do not go to war in order to increase the profits of the "merchants of death." The existence of the armaments industries is a consequence of the warlike spirit, not its cause.

Excerpted from Professor's Tooley's article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, Winter 2005. Full article HERE.

Also, see our earlier article on the Nye Committee's pursuit of the "Merchants of Death" HERE.