November 7, 1918 
LAND fe? WATER 
The Struggle for Iron: By John Murray 
THERE are certain aspects of Germany's political 
desires on her Western frontiers which it is well 
not to forget at the present juncture, and of 
which, most probably, the public requires to be 
reminded. For it is certain — it is, indeed, a 
threadbare truism — that the peace of Europe and the con- 
tentrrient of the French will greatly depend on the way in 
which the question of Alsace-Lorraine is settled. This 
question is no simple issue for either France or Germany. 
The border country west of the Rhine has been fought for 
by its great neighbours many a time since Charlemagne, 
and has been too often the prize of war : its possession a 
symbol of military prestige, a pledge of national self-respect. 
Besides the militarj' and the political motives, there are 
others. . On both sides of the frontier there exist great 
deposits of iron ore, the French deposits being the better 
in quality. Iron lands, wherever they may lie, are apt 
to be a bone of contention. As regards Lorraine, the 
economic motive in this specific form of the "will to iron," 
whatever may have been its force in the past, is to-day of 
the utmost importance. These are, indeed, "iron times," 
as the Germans say ; for it is with iron that nations fight, 
just as it is by iron, more than by any other material, that 
victories may be turned to account in peace. 
France is well supplied by nature with iron ores of rela- 
tively high grade. Of the various deposits something has 
been heard during the war, e.g., those of Normandy, which 
were under German exploitation when the war began, and 
those of the mining basin of Briey and Longwy, which, 
being for the moment within the German lines, ire useless 
to France. There are important beds in Anjou and the 
Pyrenees, and less important in various other parts, not 
to mention the ores of North Africa. The future of the 
iron industry in France is well assured for a long time to 
come. The conditions, indeed, favour a significant expan- 
sion on the lines which have been adopted during the war. 
\ It is not thus with Germany. - The facts as to deposits 
can be gathered from any reference-book. The bearing of 
these facts on German policy, while inherently plausible, 
must be established otherwise. Fortunately a document is 
available which leaves little room for doubt as to the relation 
between policy and iron ore. This document — a confidential 
memorandum presented to the German Government by the 
Ironmasters' Association in December, ' 1917 — was sum- 
marised in Staltl und Eisen on January 17th, 1918, and the 
simimary has been referred to in our own Press. 
The memorandum, which is lengthy, is now available 
in extenso. It is divided up under such headings as these : 
(i) The present dependence of Germany on foreign 
supplies of iron ore constitutes the gravest danger for 
industry, for the State, and for the nation. 
(2) The safeguarding of the future renders a change in 
« the Lorraine frontier unavoidably indispensable. 
Even more frank is the following ; 
(3) The value of the mining lands to be annexed is 
beyond calculation in money for the national economy of 
Germany and for the conduct of war in the future. ' 
The following tables, taken from the memorandum, illustrate 
the tendencies which have aroused so much alarm and cor- 
rupted so many consciences in Germany. In 1900 the 
figures were : 
Million tons Million tons Value in 
used, ' iron contents. million marks. 
Home ore 15-7 = 79-3% 5-2 = 7i-2% 657 = 46-6% 
Foreign ore 4-1 = 207% 2-i = 28-8% 75-2 = 53-4% 
Totals 19-8 
In 1913 they were : 
Home ore 
Foreign ore 
MilltoQ tons 
used. 
33-3 = 70-4% 
14-0 = 29-4% 
7-3 
Million tons 
iron contents. 
9-6 = 55-5% 
77 = 44-5% 
140-9 
Value in 
million marks. 
125-7 = 35-92% 
227-1 = 64-08% 
Totals 47-3 17-3 352-8 
It will be noted that, while the gross production of home 
ore rose between 1900 and 1913, its ratio of iron contents 
fell from practically a third (5-2 : 15-7) to little more than 
a quarter, viz., 28-8 per cent, (g-6 : 33-3). The gross imports, 
again, more than trebled, while home production was little 
above double. Germany, therefore, both as regards iron 
content and value, was depending increasingly on the 
foreigner. 
The war, by cutting off all foreign supplies, except Swedish, 
increased the difficulties of pig production. And the Swedes 
eventually placed a limit on their exports. The mines of 
Luxemburg remained available, but, as their total produc- 
tion jn 1913 appears from the memorandum to have been 
2-6 million tons, their help could not prevent a crisis. As 
against more than 17 million tons of iron contents got in 
1913, the production of pig fell to 11-8 million tons in 1915, 
rising again in 1916 to 13-3 million tons. Even these low 
figures could not have been reached but for the fortune of 
war. By the seizure of the Briey basin, with its workings 
and its blast furnaces practically intact, the Germans made 
good their deficiencies in other quarters. Ncr had the 
industry in this district, to judge frcm the memorandum, 
suffered seriously by warlike action at the date of the 
memorandum, December, 1917. "Happily for us," the 
memorandum proceeds, "the French have not succeeded in 
destroying the iron-working districts on both sides of the 
frontier : if they had, the war, in view of the consequent 
inadequate supply of our artillery with munitions, would 
have been decided against us in a few months." And, 
again : " Even though after the loss of Lorraine we had 
increased the production of our remaining mines, we should 
certainly have been in no position to carry on the war on' 
three fronts at once with four or five million tons of native 
iron and two or three millions of Austro-Hungarian." 
It is impossible to reflect without pain on what might 
have been had the Briey basin been held and the war carried 
over the Lorraine frontier. But the thoughts of any German, 
in the event of France extending her frontier to the line 
held prior to 1871, must be, in their way, just as painful. 
For at the present rate of exploitation the German iron 
deposits will not last long. "All the authorities," according 
to the memorandum, "scientists, landowners, and manufac- 
turers, are agreed on the point that from forty to fifty years 
hence the German mining industry will collapse because by 
then the ore deposits will be exhausted." At the invitation 
of the Ironmasters' Association, two mining experts, Dr. 
Byschlag and Dr. Krusch, have attempted to answer three 
fundamental questions, viz, : (i) What quantities of native 
material are available for the German iron and steel trades 
in the immediate future ; (2) what deposits ought to be 
preserved after the conclusion of peace to serve as a reserve 
against future wars ; (3) from what sources may ore be 
obtained in the future, and in particular what is the position 
as regards the ores of French Lorraine, the phosphoric ores 
of Krivoi-Rog, the Manganese ores of the Caucasus, and the 
Brazilian ores ? The answer to the first question, calcula- 
tions being based on the situation at the beginning of 1917, 
defines the life of the German mines as from forty to fifty 
years on the average. The shortness of this period, and 
the enormous consumption of iron in modern warfare — in 
the whole of the war of 1870-71 Germany used little over 
10,000 tons, while the first forty months of the present war 
she used over fifty million tons — determine the answer to 
the second question. It is not practicable for Germany to 
earmark a sufficiency of native ore for a war of any duration. 
The memorandum, moreover, e,xamines the possibility of 
partial supply ^through the reworking of old material, and 
rejects it. " For our military preparation and our military 
economy, just as for our power of making war, it is of decisive 
importance that the transport of ores should be no less fully 
assured to us in time of war. No such assurance can possibly 
be obtained through paper treaties, but only by occupation 
of territory and by military control ; but as regards Ger- 
many in particular, this is possible only by the annexation 
of French Lorraine to the German Empire." 
As if this were not enough, the memorandum proceeds 
to show that even in peace the French mineowners in Lor- 
raine disoblige their German customers. The French, for 
instance, dislike exploitation by German companies, and, 
equally, German shareholders in their own companies. They 
dislike the building of railways from French pits to German 
blast furnaces, and in general the growth of cross-frontier 
railways and connections. They even put duties and limits 
upon exports ! 
There follow boasts about the immense labour spent by 
Germans on the iron deposits of Normandy, which were 
coming into bearing when war broke out. But no harm 
has been done to Germany, for "the German firms have 
kept absolutely secret the information they have gained 
exclusively in the last years before the war. ..." "It is 
quite obvious that France must re-establish the Germans 
in the rights which they had acquired before the war in 
Normandy and elsewhere." 
