My War Memories, 1914-1918
proposals for increased munitions production, but included demands for more men and moral support.
It was clear that considerable time would be required for the carrying out of the Hindenburg programme; indeed, its very introduction produced a general dislocation which for the moment tended rather to reduce than to increase production. A whole series of inevitable obstacles had to bo surmounted. As soon as we could see clearly, we were met with the difficulty that the works which in peace time had been employed in the manufacture of locomotives, and had been transformed for war purposes, had to be given back again for locomotive manufacture. Our rolling stock was now in need of a thorough overhaul. Thoir munitions work had, of course, to be distributed among other factories, and all plant had to be used to the utmost. The increased output made the extension of factories necessary, and this took time. In other places works had to bo abandoned or amalgamated. The whole constituted a far-reaching interference with our industry, and all the more so as we had such leeway to make up.
A good deal of time was bound to elapse before work began on the Hindenburg programme, and still lungur before the raw material became war material. The programme itself, too,* had to be revised and cut down. As things became clearer, it could be seen that the necessary labour for tint whole programme could not be obtained without endangering the supply of men for the Army and Navy, At a later starts the view was expressed that the whole programme had been a mistake and that the G.H.Q. would have been bettor advised to leave the War Ministry to continue its work an before, merely making its demands on that Ministry. The Field-Marshal and 1 could, however, only deal with the situation we found, and that was a shortage of supply and equipment for the Army, in spite of the presence of the War Minister at General Headquarters, and of the fact that that shortage was an open secret. Of course it is obvious that instead of this sudden expansion of our war industries it would have been far better to have effected a timely but wholesale transformation of our peace industry into war industry, the former
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