Macleod Roy, Johnson Jeffrey Allan (eds.) Frontline and Factory: Comparative Perspectives on the Chemical Industry at War, 1914-1924

Springer, 2006. — 277 p. — (Archimedes, Vol. 16) — ISBN: 978-1-4020-5490-7.The First World War is often called the chemists war. But few realise precisely how, or the extent to which modern chemistry became a significant factor in the struggle, and would be in turn deeply shaped by it. Gathering momentum at first, by 1916, success in applying scientific knowledge to frontline and factory became a measure of a nation's capacity to win an industrial war. In the end, the titanic contest was won in large part through the command of raw materials and industrial output. This book represents a first considered attempt to study the factors that conditioned industrial chemistry for war in 1914-
18. Taking a comparative perspective, it reflects on the experience of France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Britain, Italy and Russia, and points to significant similarities and differences. It looks at changing patterns in the organisation of industry, and at the emerging symbiosis between science, industry and the military, which contributed to the first academic-military-industrial complex of the 20th century. At the same time, it reflects on the world's first, and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to monitor dual-use chemical technologies, and so restrict the proliferation of an important category of weapons of mass destruction.Mobilization and Industrial Policy
Technological Mobilization and Munitions Production: Comparative Perspectives on Germany and Austria (by Jeffrey Allan Johnson).
Mobilization and Industrial Policy: Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals in the French War Effort (by Sophie Chauveau).
First World War Explosives Manufacture: The British Experience (by Wayne D. Cocroft).
Transforming a Village into an Industrial Town: The Royal Prussian Powder Plant in Kirchmöser (Brandenburg) (by Sebastian Kinder).
Systems of Innovation: Allies and Neutrals
Wartime Chemistry in Italy: Industry, the Military, and the Professors (by Giuliano Pancaldi).
Munitions, the Military, and Chemistry in Russia (by Nathan M. Brooks).
Technical Expertise and U.S. Mobilization, 1917–18: High Explosives and War Gases (by Kathryn Steen).
Operating on Several Fronts: The Trans-National Activities of Royal Dutch/Shell, 1914–1918 (by Ernst Homburg).
Science and Industry at War: Contrasting Styles
Kuhlmann at War, 1914–1924 (by Erik Langlinay).
Organizing for Total War: DuPont and Smokeless Powder in World War I (by John Kenly Smith, Jr.).
Science and the Military: The Kaiser Wilhelm Foundation for Military-Technical Science (by Manfred Rasch).
Managing Chemical Expertise: The Laboratories of the French Artillery and the Service des Poudres (by Patrice Bret).
The War the Victors Lost: The Dilemmas of Chemical Disarmament, 1919–1926 (by Jeffrey Allan Johnson and Roy MacLeod).
Epilogue (by Seymour Mauskopf).