CONTRIBUTIONS OF METALLURGY 251 



guns. The gun itself weighs about 150 tons, and can send its 

 shell more than 30 miles. The total Hadfield production of 

 shells was equivalent to nearly 30 million i8-pounders, and 

 their total production of all kinds of steel was about 750,000 

 tons, valued at about $160,000,000. 



American Contributions. When we entered the war it was 

 wisely decided that our ordnance makers should concentrate 

 their attention first on making the products with which the 

 Allied armies as a whole were least well supplied; and second 

 and chiefly on laying the foundations for an overwhelming 

 production of ordnance for 1919 and 1920, even though this 

 meant deliberately restricting the joint production of the Allies 

 for 1918 to but little beyond their bare necessities. 



The former of these principles is illustrated by our throwing 

 the chief accent on the manufacture of explosives, propellants, 

 and certain specific kinds of shells, because the British and 

 French works already had capacity sufficient for supplying all 

 the Allied armies, including our own, with most kinds of guns 

 throughout 1918, and with most kinds of shells at least till 

 June of that year. 



If, as seems probable, the German general staff was allowed 

 to learn of the second of these two principles, our straining 

 everything to create establishments which could prepare the 

 vast quantities needed for an irresistible onslaught in 1919, it 

 would naturally do as it did, stake all on a series of titanic 

 efforts to break through the Allied line at all costs before our 

 help could come, and when these failed abandon hope. If 

 Chateau-Thierry could happen in our unreadiness, what would 

 we be when ready? Why fight and bleed till then? 



In order to weigh fairly what we did in gun making you must 

 understand our shameful situation in having before the war 

 only two establishments at which great guns of first rate quality 

 could be made. Think of that, the richest country in the world 

 in natural resources, in assets in general, and in power of 

 industrial organization, with a hundred million inhabitants 

 generous to prodigality, and only two establishments, public or 



