H D 
 
 .b IE FREEMAN PAMPHLETS 
 
 Qs 
 
 "WHERE IRON IS, THERE IS 
 
 THE FATHERLAND!" 
 
 h 
 
 Clarence K. Streit 
 
 uc-nrlf 
 
 $B 212 02A 
 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. 
 
 Publisher 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
that sector. Just a few miles behind them they knew the 
 French .iron mines! and smelters were working at top speed 
 for t\\6 productibn of raw' material for war munitions. And 
 they could Jcok' !©ver • the German lines into that part of 
 France held by the enemy and into Lorraine and see the 
 iron mines and smelters there at work for the production of 
 shells that they suspected were destined for them. And on 
 the front which separated the producers of munitions for 
 friend and foe reigned quiet. 
 
 The vital relation of iron, the basis of war munitions, to 
 success in a modern war is so generally known that a glance 
 at a mineral map and at statistics of France and Germany 
 will immediately demonstrate to any one the supreme stra- 
 tegical importance of this quiet sector. The principal iron 
 mines and smelters of both powers were situated close to that 
 front. From the province of Lorraine, then a part of Ger- 
 many, in 1 91 3 came 29,000,000 of the 36,000,000 tons of 
 iron ore produced in that country — 80 per cent, of her entire 
 production. From the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 
 separated from Lorraine only by the boundary of 1871, came 
 I9>8i3,572 of the 21,500,000 tons of iron ore produced in 
 France in 191 3, or 92 per cent, of her entire production. 
 
 Now, the German Lorraine iron district extended across 
 the political frontier, forming in France what is known as 
 the Basin of Briey. From this small basin, which is in the 
 department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, came 75 per cent, of the 
 iron ore mined in that department, and 70 per cent, of all 
 the iron ore produced in France. 
 
 The Germans, after they had won the war of 1870 which 
 was really fought for the control of the valuable Lorraine 
 iron basin, annexed Lorraine, but they left Briey to France 
 for, though the Lorraine vein extended under the boundary 
 into Briey, this ore field was then thought to be worthless. 
 But a few years later it was found that by use of the Thomas 
 process the iron ore in the French part of the basin could be 
 treated and was really superior in quality to the deposits ex- 
 isting in annexed Lorraine. That led to the rapid develop- 
 
 2 
 
ment of the iron mining and smelting industry in the Basin 
 of Briey. 
 
 When the war broke out in 19 14, the Germans imme- 
 diately invaded this Briey basin, and, encountering no re- 
 sistance, seized possession of it. They remained in control 
 of it to the end of the war. It was not until the Americans 
 launched an offensive in the direction of Briey late in 19 18 
 that the Allies threatened the German possession of the 
 basin which produced before the war 70 per cent, of the 
 iron ore of France. Previous to that time the Germans for 
 at least twenty-seven months of the war had exploited with 
 remarkable immunity not only their own iron district of 
 Lorraine but also the French Basin of Briey, which was 
 even closer to the front, being not twenty-five miles distant 
 from the trenches. For this was the quiet sector of the front. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the immense importance to 
 the Germans of the possession of Briey. Before the war, 
 Germany imported 14,000,000 tons of iron ore each year. 
 Before 1913, France stood third in furnishing this mineral 
 to Germany. That year France passed Spain and stood 
 second, exporting to Germany 3,811,000 tons from the Briey 
 basin, only 700,000 tons less than the amount which Ger- 
 many imported from Sweden that year. 
 
 The war enormously increased Germany's need for iron 
 ore as she had to produce munitions, not only for her own 
 armies but also for her allies. And then the British blockade 
 cut off her usual supply from Spain. Francis Laur, author 
 of the book, " La France, Reine de Fer " (France, the 
 Queen of Iron), in a letter to a daily newspaper of Paris, 
 L'GLuvre, published May 9, 19 16, cited official figures pub- 
 lished by the Union of German Iron Industries which 
 showed that the production of cast iron in Germany dropped 
 from 1,561,944 tons in July, 19 14, to 587,661 tons in Aug- 
 ust of that year. But in October, 19 14, the production be- 
 gan to increase steadily, until in August, 19 15, it had reached 
 the total of 1,050,610 tons — only 500,000 tons less than it 
 had been before the war when Germany had had to import 
 
 3 
 
u 
 
 Where Iron is, there 
 is the father land I ' ' 
 
a 
 
 Where Iron is, there 
 is the fatherland! 
 
 A NOTE ON THE RELA- 
 TION OF PRIVILEGE 
 AND MONOPOLY TO WAR 
 
 By Clarence K.j Streit 
 
 i /t 
 
 ft 
 
 New York B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc., Mcmxx 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. 
 
 • *••••••*•* •••••• • •' 
 
 
j*<- 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 the basin of briey, i 
 
 "where iron is, there is the fatherland!'* 8 
 
 interlocking directorates, 1 3 
 
 monopoly, 14 
 
 gold and iron, 1 5 
 
 LEAD, l6 
 
 NICKEL NOT CONTRABAND, 1 6 
 
 SUBLIME INNOCENCE, 1 7 
 
 THE FRENCH TRUST FAVORS KRUPPS, 1 8 
 
 BUSINESS IS BUSINESS, 20 
 
 ACROSS THE BLOCKADE, 22 
 
 HOW FRENCH METAL SUPPLIES WERE CONTROLLED, 23 
 
 PATRIOTEERS, 25 
 
 THE BRIEY INVESTIGATION, 26 
 
 ENTER THE CENSOR, 28 
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, 30 
 
 ECONOMIC MALTHUSIANISM OR — ? 32 
 
 WHEN IS A FORT NOT A FORT? 33 
 
 SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE, 35 
 
 THE AGREEMENT FOR A LORRAINE OFFENSIVE, 36 
 
 BRIEY IMMUNE, 39 
 
 GERMANY RECIPROCATES, 4 1 
 
 THE COURTEOUS GERMANS, 44 
 
 576367 
 
11 a gentlemen's agreement? " 45 
 the flag of big business, 46 
 pity the poor steel trust, 49 
 bloody profits, 50 
 stock and bond morality, 5 1 
 
" It is only for the poor devils that 
 war is not a gentleman's agreement." 
 — Pierre Renaudel, French Dep- 
 uty. 
 
 " I formally accuse the big cosmo- 
 politan banks, at least the owners of 
 mining rights, of having conceived, 
 prepared and let loose this horrible 
 tragedy with the monstrous thought 
 of world stock-jobbing. I accuse these 
 same money powers of having, before 
 and since the war, betrayed the inter- 
 ests of France." — Senator Gaudin 
 de Villaine (Conservative). 
 
" WHERE IRON IS, THERE IS THE 
 FATHERLAND!" 
 
 THE BASIN OF BRIEY 
 
 WHEN American troops first went into the front line 
 trenches in France they were given the quietest 
 sectors on the western front. 
 
 " Not a man had been killed in that part of the front 
 since the war began, the French troops whom we relieved 
 told us." 
 
 " At one place along that front there was a little wine- 
 shop out in No Man's Land. We used to patronize it dur- 
 ing the day while the Boches would get their liquor there 
 at night." 
 
 These are typical of statements made by Yank officers 
 and men who got their trench training in that sector. 
 
 As every one knows, this area whose quiet conditions made 
 it suitable for the training of new troops to trench life was 
 along the Lorraine front. Few people in the United 
 States, it seems, have been curious enough to ask why this 
 particular part of the western front should have been so 
 quiet. But not so in France where the importance of this 
 region is much more widely known than it is in this country. 
 A few months after the war began the tranquillity of the 
 Lorraine front aroused discussion in the press whose warmth, 
 dampened considerably by a vigilant censor, has since the 
 war brought about a long debate in the French Chamber 
 of Deputies, followed by an official investigation by a com- 
 mittee of the parliament. 
 
 It must be said also that the quietness of the Lorraine 
 front puzzled some of the American soldiers who were in 
 
 I 
 
that sector. Just a few miles behind them they knew the 
 French iron mfrie&|an;d .smelters were working at top speed 
 for the" produc'tidn of raw' material for war munitions. And 
 they cpTild Jcok' !©ver « th'e German lines into that part of 
 France held' by the ' enemy and into Lorraine and see the 
 iron mines and smelters there at work for the production of 
 shells that they suspected were destined for them. And on 
 the front which separated the producers of munitions for 
 friend and foe reigned quiet. 
 
 The vital relation of iron, the basis of war munitions, to 
 success in a modern war is so generally known that a glance 
 at a mineral map and at statistics of France and Germany 
 will immediately demonstrate to any one the supreme stra- 
 tegical importance of this quiet sector. The principal iron 
 mines and smelters of both powers were situated close to that 
 front. From the province of Lorraine, then a part of Ger- 
 many, in 1913 came 29,000,000 of the 36,000,000 tons of 
 iron ore produced in that country — 80 per cent, of her entire 
 production. From the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 
 separated from Lorraine only by the boundary of 1871, came 
 I9)8i3,572 of the 21,500,000 tons of iron ore produced in 
 France in 191 3, or 92 per cent, of her entire production. 
 
 Now, the German Lorraine iron district extended across 
 the political frontier, forming in France what is known as 
 the Basin of Briey. From this small basin, which is in the 
 department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, came 75 per cent, of the 
 iron ore mined in that department, and 70 per cent, of all 
 the iron ore produced in France. 
 
 The Germans, after they had won the war of 1870 which 
 was really fought for the control of the valuable Lorraine 
 iron basin, annexed Lorraine, but they left Briey to France 
 for, though the Lorraine vein extended under the boundary 
 into Briey, this ore field was then thought to be worthless. 
 But a few years later it was found that by use of the Thomas 
 process the iron ore in the French part of the basin could be 
 treated and was really superior in quality to the deposits ex- 
 isting in annexed Lorraine. That led to the rapid develop- 
 
 2 
 
ment of the iron mining and smelting industry in the Basin 
 of Briey. 
 
 When the war broke out in 19 14, the Germans imme- 
 diately invaded this Briey basin, and, encountering no re- 
 sistance, seized possession of it. They remained in control 
 of it to the end of the war. It was not until the Americans 
 launched an offensive in the direction of Briey late in 19 18 
 that the Allies threatened the German possession of the 
 basin which produced before the war 70 per cent, of the 
 iron ore of France. Previous to that time the Germans for 
 at least twenty-seven months of the war had exploited with 
 remarkable immunity not only their own iron district of 
 Lorraine but also the French Basin of Briey, which was 
 even closer to the front, being not twenty-five miles distant 
 from the trenches. For this was the quiet sector of the front. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the immense importance to 
 the Germans of the possession of Briey. Before the war, 
 Germany imported 14,000,000 tons of iron ore each year. 
 Before 19 13, France stood third in furnishing this mineral 
 to Germany. That year France passed Spain and stood 
 second, exporting to Germany 3,811,000 tons from the Briey 
 basin, only 700,000 tons less than the amount which Ger- 
 many imported from Sweden that year. 
 
 The war enormously increased Germany's need for iron 
 ore as she had to produce munitions, not only for her own 
 armies but also for her allies. And then the British blockade 
 cut off her usual supply from Spain. Francis Laur, author 
 of the book, "La France, Reine de Fer " (France, the 
 Queen of Iron), in a letter to a daily newspaper of Paris, 
 L'QLuvre, published May 9, 19 16, cited official figures pub- 
 lished by the Union of German Iron Industries which 
 showed that the production of cast iron in Germany dropped 
 from 1,561,944 tons in July, 1914, to 587,661 tons in Aug- 
 ust of that year. But in October, 19 14, the production be- 
 gan to increase steadily, until in August, 19 15, it had reached 
 the total of 1,050,610 tons — only 500,000 tons less than it 
 had been before the war when Germany had had to import 
 
 3 
 
44 per cent, of her iron ore from Sweden, France and Spain. 
 
 What was the cause of this increased production, despite 
 the blockade? For one thing, the war had given Germany 
 control of the French iron basin of Briey from which she 
 had imported, in 191 3, 3,811,000 tons of ore. How much 
 iron did Germany get from Briey during the war? Accord- 
 ing to a statement made on the floor of the French Chamber 
 of Deputies on Feb. 14, 19 19, by Mr. Loucheur, a 
 munition maker, who during the latter part of the war was 
 Minister of Munitions and who since the armistice has been 
 Minister of Industrial Reorganization, the Germans, by 
 their exploitation of the Briey basin during the war, took 
 14,000,000 tons of iron ore from its mines, only a little less 
 than they would have imported from it in normal times 
 of peace. 
 
 The Germans themselves during the war fully realized 
 how important to them was the possession and exploitation 
 of the Basin of Briey. Here is an extract from a confiden- 
 tial memorandum, addressed in May, 19 15, to Chancellor 
 Bethmann-Hollweg by the six great industrial and agricul- 
 tural associations of Germany: 
 
 " If the production of raw iron and steel had not been 
 doubled since the month of August, the continuation of the 
 war would have been impossible. ... As raw material 
 for the fabrication of these quantities of raw iron and steel, 
 the ore of Lorraine takes a place of more and more im- 
 portance. From this ore at present from 60 to 80 per cent, 
 of our raw iron and steel is made. If the production of the 
 Lorraine ore was disturbed, the war would be practically 
 lost." 
 
 In referring to " Lorraine ore " the Germans included 
 both the mineral of Lorraine proper and that of Briey, for 
 the two regions, geologically, form one basin. The memo- 
 randum goes on to say, with regard to peace terms : 
 
 " If the fortress of Longwy should be returned to the 
 French with the numerous blast furnaces of that region, 
 and if a new war should break out, the German blast fur- 
 
 4 
 
naces near there would be demolished in a few hours by a 
 few long range cannons. 
 
 " A glance at the map shows that, for instance, the mine 
 of Jarny (in the Briey basin) is 35 kilometers (about 20 
 miles) from Verdun and that the mineral concession the 
 fartherest west of Landres and Conflans begin, at the most, 
 only 15 miles from Verdun. Does any one really believe 
 that the French, in another war, would neglect to place long 
 range artillery at Longwy and at Verdun and by such care- 
 lessness permit us to continue to extract our iron ore? 
 
 " The security of the German empire demands then, im- 
 periously, the possession of all the iron mines of the Lor- 
 raine basin, with the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun, 
 without which this region cannot be defended." 
 
 It will be recalled that the famous offensive of the Crown 
 Prince's armies against the French fortress of Verdun was 
 launched the next year. Various reasons have been advanced 
 as to the purpose of this tremendous effort. According to 
 Hindenburg's version, Verdun was attacked in order to pre- 
 vent the French from striking at the Basin of Briey — the 
 Achilles' heel of the German front, which was but 20 miles 
 east of the fortress. Here is the official German com- 
 munique for October 27, 1916: 
 
 " Verdun, in the case of an allied offensive, would have 
 facilitated the re-capture of the mineral Basin of Briey 
 which is so precious to us, and would have resulted in men- 
 acing the fortress of Metz, the taking of which would 
 have permitted the conquest of the industrial and mining 
 regions of German Lorraine, thus depriving us of the most 
 vital part of our war industry." 
 
 In December, 19 16, the Popular Gazette of Cologne, 
 writing on war aims, declared : " The narrow band of ter- 
 ritory of the Briey basin is important to guarantee our mili- 
 tary and economic independence, especially in time of war. 
 We have need of Briey to assure us our necessary supply 
 of mineral, and we have the right and the duty to demand 
 it during the peace negotiations." 
 
 5 
 
Then Dr. Schenkler of the Sarrebruck Chamber of Com- 
 merce wrote a long study of the Basin of Briey which was 
 published in the Berlin Lokal Anzeiger, Feb. 13 and 25 
 and March 4, 19 17, in which, after pointing out that before 
 the war Germany imported 44 per cent, of her iron ore 
 and that since the war imports from Spain had been re- 
 duced to nothing and Sweden had been unable to furnish 
 her usual 28.55 P er cent - oi the normal German importations, 
 he went on to say: 
 
 " And so it must be regarded as extraordinary good luck 
 that Germany since the beginning of the war has been in 
 possession of the Basin of Briey, for without the French 
 mineral the German industry would have found it impossible 
 to make munitions enough for ourselves and allies. Natu- 
 rally, that which has been an advantage for us has been 
 on the contrary a disadvantage for France." 
 
 Finally, in 19 18, the Allies began an offensive against 
 Briey. And here is order No. 10,519 of the Fifth German 
 Army, dated Oct. 1, 19 18, and signed by General Von Der 
 Marvitz: 
 
 " After information which we possess, the enemy is going 
 to attack the Fifth Army to the east of the Meuse and try 
 to push on toward Longuyon. The aim of this attack is 
 to cut the Longuyon-Sedan line, the most important artery 
 of the Army of the West. What is more, the enemy intends 
 to make it impossible for us to exploit the Basin of Briey 
 on which depends, in large measure, our production of steel. 
 And so once more it is on the Fifth Army that falls the 
 heaviest task during the course of the fighting during the 
 next few weeks. It is upon it that the security of the 
 fatherland reposes. It is upon the immovable resistance of 
 the Verdun front that the fate of a great part of the west- 
 ern front, and perhaps the fate of our people, depends." 
 
 These citations show how vital to German success in the 
 war the Germans themselves considered the control of the 
 Basin of Briey. That the French Government realized the 
 
 6 
 
importance of this region is shown by the Bulletin des 
 Armies, published Dec. 6, 191 6, by the minister of war, 
 which said : " The Basin of Briey appears to constitute for 
 our enemies a precious reserve. It is indeed impossible not 
 to be struck by the fact that the quantity of mineral im- 
 ported by Germany from foreign countries before the war 
 represents just about the amount which the Basin of Briey 
 was then furnishing to us.'* 
 
 That General Pershing's staff was cognizant of the strate- 
 gic value of Briey may be seen from a conversation which I 
 had at Chaumont, April 14, 19 19, with Brigadier General 
 Conner, chief of the section of the American General Staff 
 which had charge of military operations during the war. 
 
 " Is it true," I asked him, " that this district of Briey 
 which the Germans held was so important to Germany for 
 munitions that she could not have lasted for six months had 
 the Allies taken it ? " He replied : 
 
 " I don't know about the six months' limit, but the capture 
 of it would have sounded the doom of Germany." 
 
 It is evident from these quotations that the Germans, the 
 French and the Americans all realized the tremendous im- 
 portance of the Briey iron basin during the war. And yet 
 the astounding fact remains that until the American offen- 
 sive in the last month of the war this vital sector of the 
 western front was the one noted for its continued tran- 
 quillity. Why ? 
 
 " WHERE IRON IS, THERE IS THE FATHERLAND ! " 
 
 Before attempting to take up in detail the question of why 
 the Lorraine front was so quiet during the war, it is neces- 
 sary for a good understanding of the problem to outline 
 more fully the iron industry in German and French Lor- 
 raine. As has already been pointed out, before the war 
 most of the iron mines and smelters of these two powers 
 were in the Lorraine basin, on both sides of the frontier. 
 Now, some of the French iron masters owned mining con- 
 cessions and smelters in German Lorraine as well as in 
 
 8 
 
France, and the Germans had heavy interests in French 
 Briey as well as in Lorraine proper. 
 
 The De Wendel family, for instance, owned one single 
 property of 9,000 hectares (about 22,500 acres) of iron 
 mining land, right on the boundary line, about half of it 
 in French Briey and the remainder in German Lorraine. 
 At Joeuf in the French Basin of Briey the family, with the 
 Creusot interests — the Krupps of France — owned eight 
 blast furnaces and also iron mines producing nearly a million 
 tons a year. On the German side of the line, the De Wendel 
 family owned mining concessions at Moyeuvre and Hayange, 
 producing 3,000,000 tons of iron ore a year and also the 
 blast furnaces and smelters established near these mines. 
 The political boundary of 1871 separated the property, but 
 underground tunnels connected the De Wendel mines on 
 both sides of the line. As the total area, in both Germany 
 and France, of this district which produced " minette," as 
 this particular iron ore is termed, was approximately 
 72,000 hectares it will be noted that the De Wendels con- 
 trolled one eighth of the entire basin. 
 
 And of what nationality is this De Wendel family? It 
 claims to be French. One member of the family, Francois 
 de Wendel, is president of the Comite des Forges (the 
 Committee of Forges) — the official name of the French 
 iron and steel combine. During the war, he was a con- 
 servative member of the French Chamber of Deputies, 
 representing the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. His 
 brother, Charles de Wendel, was a naturalized German and 
 a member of the German Reichstag. He resigned, however, 
 when the war broke out, and returned to France where he 
 offered his services to the Minister of War, who did not 
 make use of them. 
 
 On the German side, the steel magnate, Thyssen, in 1909 
 confided to Mr. Le Chatelier his intention of having one of 
 his sons become a naturalized Frenchman. Here is the way 
 Le Chatelier tells it in his book, " Metallurgy of Yester- 
 day and Tomorrow " (Metallurgie d'hier et de demain) : 
 
 9 
 
" For what reason did Mr. Thyssen wish to make us a gift 
 of one of his sons? Simply because he was going to do 
 us the honor of installing himself in Normandy in order to 
 exploit our iron mines, and followed the classic adage — 
 1 Where iron is, there is the fatherland.' " 
 
 But Thyssen had little need of such measures to protect 
 his interests, events of the war would seem to show. In 
 L'CEuvre of Paris of May 22, 191 7, Gustave Tery, the 
 editor, declared that in the minutes of the general meeting 
 held March 14, 191 6, by the blast furnace and steel mill 
 corporation of Caen, originally published in the financial 
 journal, L 'Information, March 18, 1916, " it is specified 
 that the Thyssen interests are carefully reserved in the new 
 organization. It is understood that a part of the profits 
 realized by this company in the making of war munitions 
 (for France) will be put aside for the Thyssen group, and 
 that after the war, automatically and legally, the Messrs. 
 Thyssen will receive this large sum. As it is certain that 
 those same Thyssens work also for the war in Germany, 
 these interesting metallurgists receive their profits then with 
 both hands, that is, from the two sides of the frontier, from 
 furnishing material to Germany and to France. If money 
 has no odor, steel has no fatherland." 
 
 And on Nov. 21, 19 16, Tery ran this question in big type 
 on the front page of L'CEuvre — a question that has yet 
 to be answered: 
 
 " Whom do the Germans pay for the mineral they are 
 extracting from the French mines in Briey?" 
 
 In all, the Germans owned eighteen mineral concessions 
 in the Briey and Longwy basins, and a few more in Nor- 
 mandy. The Thyssens controlled the mines of Bailly, 
 Jouaville and Souligny. The mines of Moutiers and of 
 Conflans were dominated by an international group, the 
 stock being distributed in this proportion: French, 100; 
 Germans, 70; and Belgians, 10. The German " Phonix " 
 group — Hasper and Koesch — controlled the French mines 
 at Jarny and at Sancy. The Gelsenkirchmer, — tht enter- 
 
 10 
 
prise the most considerable in the world, it is said, after the 
 United States Steel Corporation, — which produced three 
 times more steel than the Creusots, — owned in France 
 the mines of Saint-Pierremont, Sevey, Haut-Lay, Saint-Jean, 
 Sainte-Barbe, Crusne and Vallerupt. Other German iron 
 masters owned the mines of Murville and Valleroy. All of 
 these concessions were in the Basin of Briey, with the ex- 
 ception of those of Sancy, Crusnos and Vallerupt which 
 were in the adjoining French Basin of Longwy. From these 
 properties the Germans drew from four to five million tons of 
 iron ore each year before the war, and in addition they pur- 
 chased from the two districts of Briey and Longwy more 
 than three million tons annually. 
 
 That fact that France, rich in iron ore, was poor in coal, 
 while Germany had plenty of coal in the Sarre basin with 
 which to treat her minerals, accounts in part for this inter- 
 nationalization of the steel industry. It is interesting to 
 note in this connection how the German, Roechling, a sworn 
 enemy of France, arrested as soon as Lorraine was occupied 
 after the armistice, was able to get a foothold in the Briey 
 district before the war. The Longwy steel corporation, 
 which owned most of the 18,000 shares in the mines of 
 Valleroy, traded 8,000 of these shares to Roechling for 
 250 shares in the Carl Alexander coal mine at Roeswler, 
 Germany, of which there were in all 1,000 shares. Roech- 
 ling was the biggest individual share-holder in the Valleroy 
 mines, while the French company held only a quarter 
 interest in the German coal property as a result of the 
 trade. 
 
 Not only did the shortage of coal in France contribute 
 to internationalization, but so also did several other factors. 
 Germany was a country il on the make." Her business 
 was expanding rapidly, pushed by the initiative and enter- 
 prise of the German industrial leaders. They needed more 
 iron ore — France had plenty, and what was more natural 
 than to go to that country for the mineral. Especially since 
 the French mining and steel combine followed a policy 
 
 U 
 
of economic malthusianism, endeavoring to keep the supply 
 down so that prices would remain high. 
 
 In each of the European countries the mineral interests 
 were tending at a rapid rate, as in the United States, 
 toward combination, centralization and internationalization. 
 Above them all was the famous international banking family 
 of the Rothschilds, Jews by religion, barons of Germany, 
 England, France and Austria by business. And in the in- 
 ternational Rothschild group when the war began, 210 shares 
 were held by the Krupps. 
 
 In Germany there had risen in the mineral world the 
 Metallurgische Gesellschaft, or Metallgesellschaft. Ac- 
 cording to Professor Liefman-Lumonde of Fribourg-en- 
 Brigsau, this enterprise had founded the mineral company of 
 Liege, the auxiliary company of mines at Paris, the copper 
 and pyrite company; controlled, through the American Metal 
 company, the nickel company, and controlled the French 
 aluminum company and the lead industry. In addition, it 
 had infiltrated into a great number of other companies. It 
 was a world power. 
 
 Mr. Hughes, prime minister of Australia, speaking in 
 London in 191 8, declared: 
 
 " It is truly a tragic, menacing and threatening thing, that 
 here, in this city, in the heart of the empire, there exists an 
 oil agency which is at bottom German. 
 
 11 1 say then that the enemy agent here to whom I refer 
 is the English branch of one of the most powerful corpora- 
 tions the world has ever seen, a combination, an octopus 
 whose tentacles extended, before the war, over the entire 
 world and whose heart was on the Main at Frankfort. 
 
 " It is an organization which had its outposts everywhere 
 in the world, which affected not only the commercial and in- 
 dustrial life of the world but also its political life, which 
 worked incessantly for the commercial profit of Germany, 
 which reaped enormous profits to the benefit of Germany. 
 
 " It is called the Metallurgische Gesellschaft; the Ameri- 
 can Metallurgy company; The Australian Metallurgy com- 
 
 12 
 
pany; the African Metallurgy company; and finally, in 
 Switzerland, the Schweizerische Gesellschaft, a double name, 
 sometimes German, sometimes French, sometimes in another 
 language, but at bottom, it is always German. 
 
 " I accuse here only the Metallurgische Gesellschaft, the 
 great German octopus which dominated the world, which 
 remained here during four years of war, which remains here 
 after the war and which, I repeat, ought not to remain here 
 one hour longer." 
 
 INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES 
 
 The French iron and steel industries have, as elsewhere, 
 tended during the last generation toward combination and 
 centralization. In 1875 there were 383 iron smelters in 
 France; in 1912 there were only 208, although during that 
 period the production of iron and steel had quintupled, go- 
 ing from 900,000 tons to 4,900,000 tons a year. The aver- 
 age capacity of a smelter in 1875 was 2,350 tons and in 
 19 1 2 it was 21,700 tons. The industry was also concen- 
 trated geographically. In 1875 the production was scat- 
 tered over 57 departments of France. As we have seen, 
 when the war broke out, 92 per cent, of French iron ore was 
 taken from the single department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. 
 What is more, 75 per cent, of French cast iron was pro- 
 duced in this same department, and 75 per cent, of the steel 
 in it and the department of the Nord, on the Belgian frontier. 
 
 The great French steel foundries possessed their own iron 
 mines which they themselves exploited. And they were seek- 
 ing to own and operate mines to supply them with the coal 
 they needed. 
 
 The Comite des Forges (Committee of Forges, or more 
 freely, association of iron masters), was organized first in 
 1864. Twenty years later, in 1884, it was reorganized. Its 
 aim, according to its charter, was exclusively " the study 
 and defence of the economic, industrial and commercial 
 interests of the iron industry." 
 
 When the war began, the combine had 252 members, rep- 
 
 13 
 
resenting 97 per cent, of the French iron industry, 93 per 
 cent, of the steel industry and a total capital of $230,000,- 
 000. Its personnel numbered 200,000 workmen whose pay 
 for 19 1 2 amounted to a total of 400,000,000 francs, an 
 average of $400 a year for each employe. 
 
 But, of the 252 members of the association, 14 furnished 
 about three-fifths of the French cast iron and two-thirds of 
 the steel. The Acieries de la Marine and Denain et Anzin 
 were the leading producers of cast iron and steel, respectively, 
 with De Wendel et Cie second in both industries. The 
 big munition plant of Schneider et Cie stands seventh on the 
 list for production. The board of directors of the iron 
 and steel combine has 28 members, representing the big firms. 
 The honorary president is Eugene Schneider. The president 
 is Francois de Wendel and the secretary, Robert Pinot. 
 
 Subsidiary committees and associations have been organized 
 in the last 20 years for the makers of such specialties as 
 steel rails, armor plate, munitions, etc. Together they form 
 part of a broader federation, " L'Union des Industries Me- 
 tallurgiques et Minieres " (The Union of the Metallurgical 
 and Mining Industries). 
 
 MONOPOLY 
 
 Juxtaposed to the industrial organization is a commercial 
 association, whose functioning, though in form independent, 
 is in fact more or less solidly connected through interlocking 
 directorates with the Committee of Forges. These associa- 
 tions, called " comptoirs," are formed for the sale of specific 
 products. The Metallurgical Comptoir of Longwy, for in- 
 stance, sold only crude castings. When a comptoir is organ- 
 ized the productive capacity of each plant holding member- 
 ship in it is determined and orders are then pro-rated. All 
 orders for steel and iron must pass through the comptoirs. 
 Through this tight commercial and industrial organization, 
 the Committee of Forges has virtually an absolute monopoly 
 of the iron ai 4 steel business of France. 
 
 In the Cham t of Deputies, January 24, 19 1 9, the organ- 
 
 14 
 
ization was thus defined by Edouard Barthe, a Socialist 
 deputy: "The Committee of Forges is a powerful organiza- 
 tion which controls all the underground production and 
 can thus impose upon French consumers the draconian 
 prices which it is pleased to fix. It is made up of only a 
 few adherents." He went on to point out that the most 
 narrow connections united the war material and armor 
 plate trusts from which independent shops and the arsenals 
 of the state bought most of their raw materials. They have 
 the same office address — 63 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris, — 
 and the same general secretary, Mr. Robert Pinot, who at 
 the same time is general secretary for the Committee of 
 Forges, the syndicate of railway material producers, the syn- 
 dicate of hydraulic power plants, and finally of the confed- 
 eration which united all of these combines, the Union of 
 the Metallurgical and Mining Industries. 
 
 GOLD AND IRON 
 
 If one considers that all of these trusts are not only cen- 
 tered in the same man at the same address but that in 
 addition behind each of the great steel and iron enterprises 
 are one or two great banks — L'Union Parisienne behind 
 Creusot (the munition maker), the Credit Lyonnais behind 
 the Acieries de la Marine, the Comptoir d'Escompte be- 
 hind the Chantiers de la Mediterranee, etc. — it will be seen 
 what deep roots the industry of war has made in the entire 
 economic organization of France and on what formidable 
 allies it can count. 
 
 What was the policy of the Committee of Forges in the 
 years preceding the war ? Sheltered by a tariff which Deputy 
 George Chaulet declared was " not only protective but pro- 
 hibitive," the combine, according to Deputy Barthe, " prac- 
 tised an economic malthusianism of the sort the most danger- 
 ous for the nation. With France so well endowed — better 
 endowed even than foreign countries for the metal indus- 
 tries, — it voluntarily prevented the development of our me- 
 chanical industry by practising the dumping with raw 
 
 15 
 
material which the Germans practised with manufactured 
 products ; and so effectively that the dumping of the Commit- 
 tee of Forges has been as effective as the German dumping 
 in ruining French industry and developing the prosperity of 
 German industry. The Committee of Forges dumped raw 
 material, iron and cast iron, which it sold cheaper to the 
 Germans than to the French. Our raw materials returned 
 to us from Germany in the form of manufactured articles." 
 
 LEAD 
 
 And now turn from iron and steel to some of the other 
 minerals necessary in the war industries. Take lead. The 
 Penarroya mine in Spain furnishes most of this mineral in 
 Europe. Up to 1909 the Rothschild group controlled this 
 mine and nearly all of the Spanish production of lead. 
 After the Agadir incident of that year the Metallgesellschaft 
 took control, though a member of the French Rothschild 
 family still held membership in the council of administrators. 
 From then on to 19 14 the lead France needed for war pur- 
 poses came to it from Spain by way of Germany. 
 
 NICKEL NOT CONTRABAND 
 
 Not only did the Germans control lead but also zinc, and 
 what is truly strange and extraordinary is that, according to 
 Deputy Barthe, the Metallgesellschaft also controlled alum- 
 inum, a mineral which is found almost entirely in French 
 soil. What is more, the German international metal trust 
 had almost complete control of nickel. Nearly all of the 
 nickel of the world is possessed equally by two French 
 firms: the blast furnaces of Noumea and the Rothschild 
 group. But this nickel, in great part, was under the de- 
 pendance of the Metallgesellschaft for nearly all of it was 
 smelted in Germany. Nickel, it so happens, is one of the 
 products the most indispensable for the fabrication of steel 
 for heavy artillery. Such steel needs 2 per cent, nickel in it. 
 
 Deputy Ballande, president and founder of the Noumea 
 company — the only one independent of the international 
 
 16 
 
trust, represented in Europe before the war by the Metallge- 
 sellschaf t — on the floor of the French Chamber, Jan. 24, 
 19 19, urged that that body demand an explanation from 
 the government of the fact that " there was a ship, loaded 
 with nickel mineral, the property of the House of Krupp, 
 which was seized by the French navy and then released under 
 the most extraordinary conditions." 
 
 SUBLIME INNOCENCE 
 
 Here is the incident, as reported by Senator Henry Be- 
 renger in Paris-Midi in 191 5: 
 
 "The 21st of last September (1914), a three-masted 
 Norwegian boat, the Bennesloet, loaded with nickel sailed 
 for Hamburg, Germany, and the 24th of September it 
 was stopped by the French ship, Dupetit-Thouars, and 
 brought to Brest. Half of its cargo had been paid in advance 
 by Krupp. Despite the opinion of the prize court, this 
 ship was released and directed toward Copenhagen. From 
 where did the ship come? It came from New Caledonia, a 
 French colony ! " 
 
 The order to release the ship came from the central gov- 
 ernment. The administration explained that it was sent be- 
 cause the shipper of the cargo, the Mont Do company, had 
 promised to have it unloaded in Norway, and because nickel 
 then was not on the list of contraband. The decision served 
 as a precedent, and, according to Senator Berenger, a num- 
 ber of ships were allowed to pass, thus Oct. 6, 19 14, the 
 Rambeau; Oct. 12, the Martindick; Nov. 6, the Tubantia; 
 Nov. 24, the Beria, and the senator follows this enumera- 
 tion with an " etc." 
 
 Nickel was not contraband. Nor was cotton nor azotic 
 acid nor lead. Nickel and lead were not contraband of 
 war — and the Metallgesellschaft had a monopoly of their 
 production in Europe. But contrary to the French ruling, 
 Deputy Barthe says: "At the same period, September 24, 
 19 14, the English stopped a ship loaded with lead, en route 
 for Antwerp. The shipper was an English firm, the desti- 
 
 17 
 
nation was the Metallgesellschaft. The cargo was not con- 
 traband of war . . . but the English admiralty court or- 
 dered it held." 
 
 THE FRENCH TRUST FAVORS KRUPPS 
 
 Consider now the products of the hydro-electric industry 
 of France — f erro-silicon and cyanamide, both necessary in 
 the manufacture of munitions. The general secretary of 
 the hydro-electric trust, it will be remembered, was Robert 
 Pinot, the general secretary of the Committee of Forges, and 
 its head office was at the headquarters of the Committee of 
 Forges. This trust controlled 42,000 tons of the French 
 output, against 7,000 tons produced by independent concerns. 
 
 Germany, which lacked waterfalls, did not have a domes- 
 tic supply of ferro-silicon sufficient for its war industries. 
 And so on Feb. 23, 19 12, the French syndicate agreed to 
 furnish Germany with the ferro-silicon it needed for its war 
 stock. 
 
 " I have here the contract which was signed with Krupp 
 several years before the war and by which the big cannon 
 maker benefited by a reduction in price of 40 marks on the 
 ton," declared Deputy Barthe on the floor of the Chamber, 
 Jan. 24, 19 1 9, in speaking oi ferro-silicon. " What is serious, 
 is that when the French industry treated with the con- 
 structor of German cannon, it knew that it was contracting 
 for the production of war munitions. I will say more: It 
 knew that it was furnishing Krupp with stock for a war 
 that was coming. Better yet: it knew that the war would 
 break out about 1914." 
 
 This accusation drew a statement from former Premier 
 Viviani, who explained the case, which had come before 
 the court of assises during his administration, in these words 
 in the Chamber: 
 
 " The letters which had been seized at the homes of those 
 whom I had had indicted permit one to ask if they had not 
 negotiated with Germany, up to 19 14, if my memory is 
 exact, agreements from which it resulted: 
 
 18 
 
" i. That ferro-silicon was delivered; 
 
 " 2. That, on the demand of Krupp, this stock of ferro- 
 silicon was brought to the door of his plant, so that in case 
 of mobilization he would have almost immediate command 
 of it; 
 
 "3. That the French agents of the company who were 
 in Germany were forbidden to deliver this ferro-silicon to 
 Russian agents, that is to say, that our allies were deprived 
 of war materials of which they might have need; 
 
 " 4. That there was the customary stipulation that a 
 strike might annul the contract but that war between only 
 two nations was not considered an annulling cause, so 
 that, if war had existed between Germany and France alone, 
 or between Germany and Russia, the contract would have 
 continued in force." 
 
 It was in these conditions that the case came before the 
 court of assises, said Mr. Viviani, and then the advocate 
 general dropped it. And Mr. Viviani added: 
 
 " Although I am pleased to render homage to the Com- 
 missioner of the Government, Mr. de Meur (who repre- 
 sented the Administration), I regret nevertheless that the 
 advocate general, Mr. Wattine, had the accusation aban- 
 doned. [Warm applause from all parts of the Chamber.] 
 I know that the advocate general doesn't have to take orders 
 and that he finds in the traditions of our jurisprudence the 
 right to drop an accusation upon his own responsibility. I 
 only regret that Advocate General Wattine did not exer- 
 cise the right to read to the jury at any time during the 
 session, the letters held by the prosecuting attorney so that 
 — if no punishment seemed to him apposite — the country 
 might have derived that desirable benefit in wartime: the 
 placing by a magistrate of the stigma of moral shame upon 
 those who had signed such documents." 
 
 The correspondence to which Mr. Viviani referred was 
 that between the Frenchman Riva-Berni, and the repre- 
 sentatives of Krupp. Here is the analysis of the letters, as 
 made by the Government Commissioner: 
 
 19 
 
" The result was that Krupp had demanded that he be 
 assured of a permanent stock of 1,000 tons [of ferro-silicon] 
 in the vicinity of his mills, in view of a war which he con- 
 sidered was near; that Ehrensberger, the director of the 
 house of Krupp, had specifically stated that he wished to 
 be guaranteed in case of mobilization and in case of war. 
 Opinion in Germany seemed to have been that a war was 
 fatally coming in an indefinite future, but in any case, be- 
 fore the end of this Krupp contract, that is to say in 1916." 
 [Letter of Riva-Berni to Rosenbaum, February 14, 
 1912.] 
 
 " In his letter the previous day, the 14th of February, to 
 FLugo Koller, the same Riva-Berni had stated that in the 
 opinion of the Germans it was thought that a European war 
 would break out within two years (between 19 12 and 19 14) 
 and that in the general mobilization Krupp would have great 
 difficulty in getting his supplies. 
 
 11 Copies of these letters were communicated to Mr. 
 Giraud- Jordan in whose office they were found. 
 
 " Moreover, Riva-Berni did not hide at any time that he 
 believed in the certainty of a war, and that in the memoir 
 which he deposed, February 13, current year, on page 76, 
 he said that, habituated to travel in Germany, he had fore- 
 seen the war for a long time, that he knew the war was 
 near, as did all those who took the trouble to notice what 
 was happening." 
 
 BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 
 
 Thus, this French business man who knew the war was 
 coming none the less helped supply the Krupps with war 
 material. According to the contract with the French trust, 
 Krupp was to have a war stock of 1,000 tons of ferro-sili- 
 con delivered to him. UUsine, the official journal of the 
 Committee of Forges, says that Germany had need of only 
 2,000 tons of ferro-silicon a year. How much did the 
 Krupps get as a result of this contract? During the two 
 years preceding the war, up to July 28, 19 14, the German 
 
 20 
 
munition maker received 6,000 tons from France, 1,000 tons 
 each year more than was normally needed. Six thousand 
 tons of ferro-silicon is sufficient to treat 600,000 tons of 
 steel. The Krupps wanted a u war stock." Evidently they 
 got it. 
 
 The Frenchman, Giraud-Jordan, at whose office the above 
 letters were found, was a prominent member of the Com- 
 mittee of Forges and, according to his own statement made 
 during the war, he was ** the real representative at Paris 
 of the international group of which the Lonza was the 
 centre." 
 
 The Lonza is a hydro-electric company with headquarters 
 at Basel, Switzerland. Before the war Austro-German in- 
 fluences had gained control of the majority of its stock and 
 placed at its head a German named Freydel. French capi- 
 talists, among them Giraud- Jordan, still retained some stock 
 in the company. Giraud-Jordan was a member of the board 
 of directors of this company and, during the war, it is 
 charged he also remained a director of the Swiss company 
 of Hafslund, whose plant was in Norway and which, as a 
 neutral company, was selling its product to Germany. 
 
 When the war broke out the Lonza company sold its 
 product, chiefly cyanamide, to German munition makers. 
 The French hydro-electric trust was brought before a French 
 court martial on the charge of having shipped 600,000 
 pounds of cyanamide to the Lonza company in Switzerland 
 in January, 19 15. This case brought out a strong protest 
 from Robert Pinot, general secretary of the trust and of 
 the Committee of Forges, and it elicited this comment from 
 Giraud-Jordan, in a note written by him which was found 
 in his office: 
 
 " On leaving the Committee of Forges, I indicated to 
 Mr. Sautter that in my opinion, if the Lonza company or 
 the companies affiliated with it are indicted, it will be 
 necessary to make the Swiss government intervene through 
 diplomatic channels." 
 
 The causing of a diplomatic incident between two nations 
 
 21 -v 
 
apparently was but a trifle to the international financiers 
 during the war. 
 
 Other notes written by Giraud- Jordan indicated how the 
 trust had used its influence to bribe experts in the case. The 
 trust claimed that though the cyanamide had been shipped 
 it had first been denatured, making it useless in the produc- 
 tion of explosives. This was denied by others, but the trust 
 was acquitted. 
 
 ACROSS THE BLOCKADE 
 
 Finally, Giraud- Jordan resigned from the Board of Di- 
 rectors of the Lonza company. Here is his letter, dated 
 March 13, 19 15, addressed to the Electrical Plants of the 
 Lonza, incorporated: 
 
 " Gentlemen : 
 
 " I had at first hoped that our reciprocal relations 
 could have continued unchanged by this terrible war. But 
 I see today that duty forces me to reserve all my forces for 
 business in France and obliges me to leave the companies, 
 where my presence, in the present circumstances, could dis- 
 turb my action and diminish my influence in the sphere in 
 which they ought to be concentrated. . . . 
 
 u If, some day, international relations became better again, 
 perhaps we can resume the collaboration which was based 
 on times of peace." 
 
 And the same day, this Frenchman, who resigned with 
 such evident regret from a company controlled by and work- 
 ing for the Germans, wrote to a Mr. A. Vogt at Laupen- 
 strasse 4, Berne, as follows: 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 " Following the opinion of Dr. Koller (an Austrian) I 
 have sent to the Lonza a letter of resignation of which I 
 here include a copy. Nevertheless, I shall continue to be 
 greatly interested in the Lonza, of which I remain the larg- 
 
 22 
 
est shareholder after Mr. Wacker, and I have asked him to 
 continue to send me through you as intermediary the docu- 
 ments of the council of administration, such as the minutes, 
 reports and monthly balances, and I will be obliged to you 
 if you will receive them as in the past and transmit them to 
 me when you have the opportunity. 
 
 " In the same way, I am sending you in triplicate the 
 documents of the Bozel company, and I ask you to send two 
 copies to the Lonza, one of which should be addressed to 
 Dr. Koller, who has asked me to continue to keep him in- 
 formed of the business of our company." 
 
 On March 15th, 1915, Vogt answered by accepting the 
 commission. 
 
 Thus, while Giraud- Jordan resigned from the board of 
 directors, he remained one of the largest stockholders in the 
 Lonza company which was working for Germany. Under 
 cover of his resignation, the French financier continued to 
 keep in touch with the German and Austrian financiers. 
 
 HOW FRENCH METAL SUPPLIES WERE CONTROLLED 
 
 So much for the international organization of financial 
 and mining men. Now, to return to the iron and steel situ- 
 ation in France after the war had begun. With the Ger- 
 mans in possession of the Briey basin, the French were 
 forced to depend largely upon the small basin left in 
 Meurthe-et-Moselle. This was not at all sufficient for her 
 needs. The French iron and steel industry was disorgan- 
 ized and France was faced with the pressing need of im- 
 porting raw iron and steel. 
 
 The government charged the Committee of Forges with 
 the duty of importing 19,000 tons of metal from England 
 each month in order to supply the French concerns. Seven 
 months passed and not a ton had been imported by the steel 
 combine. Its announced policy at that time, as given in 
 a confidential circular, was opposed to the accumulation of 
 stocks for fear that this would hurt the resumption of busi- 
 
 23 
 
ness. It imported nothing from England, but some of the 
 independent concerns, tired of waiting, on their own initiative 
 and despite governmental restrictions, succeeded in import- 
 ing steel from the British Isles. 
 
 Then the system was changed. A single purchasing agent 
 at London was appointed by the French government. All 
 orders for importations of iron and steel went through his 
 hands. And who was he? Humbert de Wendel, a mem- 
 ber of the Committee of Forges and a brother of Francois 
 de Wendel. Who was the military attache at London, de- 
 tailed to check Mr. de Wendel, the purchasing agent? Gen- 
 eral de la Panouze, the brother-in-law of Mr. de Wendel. 
 
 Who was it in the ministry of munitions in France who 
 had the duty of checking every kilogram of metal which 
 came into the country? It was Captain Esbrayat, director 
 of the Demachy bank, an institution of the Committee of 
 Forges. Captain Esbrayat was mobilized in the department 
 of munitions where he held the office of general secretary of 
 the commission of woods and metals. 
 
 Who handled the distribution of the metal imported? A 
 branch of the Committee of Forges, the Comptoir d'exporta- 
 tion — bureau of exportation. And who was the director 
 of this bureau during a long period of the war up to Sept. 
 2 3> J 9i7? An under-director of the Committee of Forges, 
 a man named Goldsberger, born in Zurich, Switzerland, the 
 son of an industrial magnate of Berlin, Felix Goldsberger. 
 
 In the debates in the Chamber of Deputies, Feb. i, 19 19, 
 it was admitted by De Wendel and by Loucheur, minister of 
 industrial reorganization, that Goldsberger was of German 
 origin, but they both maintained that he was a naturalized 
 Swiss. Deputy Barthe declared that the French secret serv- 
 ice had never been able to find trace of his naturalization. 
 Goldsberger had been connected with the Committee of 
 Forges since 1904. 
 
 Shortly after Mr. Loucheur was appointed minister of 
 armament he gave this order, he said, on September 23, 
 1917: 
 
 24 
 
" I can not understand how the bureau (of exportation) 
 has taken a foreigner for so delicate a position. It is im- 
 possible to allow this situation to continue. Consequently 
 do what is necessary with the briefest delay and report to me." 
 
 And it was only then that this Goldsberger, a man of 
 undoubted German origin, was removed from the position 
 of acting chief of the French government monopoly of 
 metal. 
 
 PATRIOTEERS 
 
 Meanwhile, the Committee of Forges had been accused 
 of speculation and profiteering — of having artificially raised 
 the price of the steel it imported. The charges were re- 
 referred to the Committee of Markets of the French Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, late in 19 15. Now, Francois de Wendel, 
 the deputy, was a member of this particular committee. The 
 different matters referred to it were apportioned among the 
 members, each with a certain thing to investigate and re- 
 port on. De Wendel pointed out that his special experience 
 qualified him to investigate profiteering in steel better than 
 any of the other deputies. And he was told to look into the 
 charges which had been made and report. In the fall of 19 18, 
 after he had been elected president of the Committee of 
 Forges, he turned the matter over to another deputy. Three 
 years had passed — and not a report had been made by De 
 Wendel. 
 
 It was then a member of the Committee of Forges, Hum- 
 bert de Wendel, who was the sole purchasing agent of 
 France for iron and steel in London. It was his brother- 
 in-law and a banker of the Committee of Forges who 
 checked him. It was a branch of the Committee of Forges, 
 the bureau of exportation, with a Swiss of admitted Ger- 
 man origin at its head, which distributed the metal imported 
 by the single purchasing agent. And it was a deputy, an- 
 other member of the De Wendel family, who was a mem- 
 ber and later president of the Committee of Forges, to whom 
 was given the investigation of the charges that the steel trust 
 
 25 
 
was profiteering during the war and who kept the matter 
 pigeon-holed for three years. And these are not all of the 
 key positions which the Committee of Forges — the steel 
 combine — filled during the war, as will be shown later. 
 
 THE BRIEY INVESTIGATION 
 
 Such was the geological and industrial situation with re- 
 gard to iron and steel in France and Germany when the war 
 broke out — the iron mines and steel mills of both countries 
 grouped on the frontier which divides the two nations, a 
 powerful trust controlling the situation on each side of the 
 line, and Germans owning mines in France and the French 
 owning mineral properties in Germany, with the industrial 
 magnates of both powers working in more or less close 
 harmony. 
 
 Now, the fact that the Briey basin from which came nearly 
 all of France's iron was allowed to fall into the hands of the 
 Germans at the outbreak of the war and no attempts were 
 made to disturb their exploitation of the French mines for 
 more than two years, during which time the French steel 
 combine had a tight monopoly on all importations of metal 
 into France, has given rise in France to several questions. 
 They are, in brief: 
 
 1. Why was so much of the French mineral production 
 concentrated in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, on 
 the Lorraine boundary ? 
 
 2. Since it was concentrated there, why did not the 
 French fortify Briey? 
 
 3. Why was Briey not defended when the war broke 
 out? 
 
 4. Why was the Lorraine front so quiet a sector on the 
 French front? Why did not the French make an offensive 
 in the direction of Briey or at least bomb it from airplanes ? 
 
 Before attempting to answer these questions, a short re- 
 sume of how they were brought to public attention may be 
 of some interest. According to the story told by Fernand 
 Engerand, a Conservative deputy, in the Chamber on Feb. 
 
 26 
 
27 
 
I, 19 1 9, the Briey situation came to his notice in 1915 and 
 in February of that year he wrote an article concerning it 
 which was published in the Correspondent. He waited, but 
 it brought no response from those in authority. As he had 
 no connections with the General Staff, he sent a note to 
 it by a member of the French Academy (one of the Immor- 
 tals), calling attention to the importance of Briey. Still 
 nothing was done. He called it to the attention of the staff 
 three times — always in vain. And then he found that the 
 staff officer who received his notes was — an iron master, 
 mobilized on the General Staff! In despair, he lectured on 
 the subject and wrote concerning it for UEcho de Paris, a 
 conservative, not to say reactionary, daily of Paris. 
 
 About the same time in 1915 that Engerand began his 
 campaign, the question of Briey was taken up by Gustave 
 Tery, editor of the liberal Paris daily, UCEuvre. Later 
 the question was given more publicity by a conservative sen- 
 ator, Henry Berenger, in the daily Paris-Midi. In January, 
 1 919, the Socialist Deputy, Edouard Barthe, interpellated 
 the Government on the subject of the Briey basin and the 
 Committee of Forges for two days, and was sustained in 
 important parts of his charges by Deputies Engerand, Flan- 
 din and Eynac, all Conservatives, and by former Premier 
 Viviani, a Liberal. Minister Loucheur replied for the Gov- 
 ernment on Feb. 14 and agreed to Barthe's demand that 
 a parliamentary investigating committee be appointed to look 
 into the matter. Most of the information given in this pres- 
 ent article was obtained from the record in the Journal 
 Officiel — the Congressional Record of France — of these 
 debates, as the report of the investigating committee, if it 
 has been made, has not been received here. 
 
 ENTER THE CENSOR 
 
 Two things worked against those who raised the question 
 of Briey during the war. One was the censorship, the other, 
 a counter-campaign in the press. As an instance of the 
 censorship, on April 6, 19 16, Gustave Tery wrote an edi- 
 
 28 
 
torial in L'CEuvre on the Committee of Forges, entitled 
 " Alsace-Lorraine and Metallurgy." The censor formally 
 prohibited the publication of the article, save for the one 
 word, "metallurgy," in the title which he did not cut out! 
 As is usual in such cases, L'CEuvre went to press that morn- 
 ing with a blank space where the editorial was to have been 
 printed, headed by the word u Metallurgy," which had es- 
 caped the censor's shears. Just as the press was starting, 
 a squad of police under a government official appeared in 
 the shop and destroyed the whole front page form, simply 
 because of the single word " Metallurgy." The paper had 
 to make a new front page form and was several hours late 
 that morning with its deliveries. Such was the way the cen- 
 sorship worked. 
 
 Then, in June, 1916, there began in Le Temps a direct 
 counter-attack against those who pointed to the strategical 
 importance of Briey. Now, Le Temps is in France what 
 The Times is in England and what the New York Times 
 is in the United States. It is the largest and the most ex- 
 pensive newspaper published in Paris, costing three cents 
 the copy while all the others sell for two cents. It is very 
 conservative in policy and is the organ of the upper middle 
 class and of the financial interests. 
 
 These articles in Le Temps were signed by Max Hoschil- 
 ler. In them he ridiculed the arguments of Engerand and 
 Tery and the others who were demanding that Briey be at- 
 tacked and called their story the " legend of Briey." His 
 first article, published June 1, 19 16, began with these 
 words : 
 
 " There are some who affirm that the Germans have in- 
 stalled at Briey a veritable arsenal from which they draw 
 in profusion raw material for the fabrication of their muni- 
 tions. Behold the reality in all its brutality : To make their 
 munitions, the Germans have no need of a single ton of iron 
 ore from the Basin of Briey." [Italics in original.] 
 
 That gives the tenor of the whole series of articles. And 
 now, who was this Max Hoschiller, whose name sounds as 
 
 29 
 
French as Kelly sounds German? He was born in Odessa, 
 Russia, the son of an Austrian father of Polish origin, and 
 of a Russian mother. He was married to a French woman 
 and was allowed to remain in France during the war upon 
 presentation of a certificate of his origin by the committee 
 of Polish volunteers. He was not a soldier during the war, 
 although he says that he tried to enlist with the Allies. 
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 
 
 In an open letter to Deputy Barthe from A. Merrheim, 
 head of the miners' union in France and one of the revolu- 
 tionary French labor leaders, which was published in Bon- 
 soir, Feb. 8, 1919, Merrheim stated that Hoschiller was a 
 revolutionist and one of his close friends and that he, Merr- 
 heim, was the one who had urged Hoschiller to write the 
 articles in Le Temps and had furnished him the statistics 
 and data which he used. Merrheim believed that those who 
 were saying that possession of Briey would end the war 
 were deceiving the public and leading an extremely dan- 
 gerous campaign. 
 
 " I explained to Hoschiller," wrote Merrheim in Bonsoir, 
 " That the mineral of Briey represented a minimum part of 
 the needs of Germany for iron ore, and that the ore received 
 from Sweden was of a much greater indispensability to Ger- 
 many in the making of munitions and special steel. 
 
 " I insisted on the enormous number of thousands of men 
 whom one would have to sacrifice in order to retake and hold 
 this basin, because of the fortifications of Metz which could 
 bombard it with ease. With the figures of the production of 
 the Briey mines, I showed him that it was with difficulty 
 that the German production of cast iron could be reduced 
 and that that would have no influence on the duration of the 
 war. 
 
 " This conviction I still have today, for those who have 
 spoken of the Basin of Briey have often confounded the 
 richness underground with the existing production." 
 
 The war makes strange bedfellows. The publication of 
 
 30 
 
these articles in the grave and conservative Temps by Ho- 
 schiller at the instigation of Merrheim is fully as remarkable 
 as would be the publication in the New York Times of a 
 series of articles, the purpose of which was in close harmony 
 with the wishes of the financial interests, written by Emma 
 Goldman at the request of Bill Haywood. 
 
 As for the statements of Hoschiller and Merrheim with 
 regard to the value of Briey to the Germans, they are in 
 direct opposition to the opinions expressed by the Germans 
 themselves which I have already quoted. And in answer to 
 Hoschiller, Deputy Engerand declared: 
 
 " It is known that at the moment this affirmative was made 
 [that of Hoschiller quoted above] each day, and from only 
 three of the 18 mines of Briey, 6,000 tons of mineral were 
 being shipped into Germany. I have the written proof that 
 the [French] iron magnates interested knew that the Ger- 
 mans were exploiting their mines." 
 
 If any additional proof is needed of the falseness of Ho- 
 schiller's argument, it is supplied by Minister Loucheur, 
 whom I have already quoted as having admitted on the floor 
 of the Chamber, Feb. 14, 19 19 — after the war was over 
 and the French were again in possession of Briey — that 
 the Germans took 14,000,000 tons of ore from Briey dur- 
 ing the war. And that, he went on to say, " is the equiva- 
 lent of what we exported to Germany before the war." 
 
 When one considers the overwhelming evidence of the 
 vital importance of Briey to the Germans, it is not strange 
 that many Frenchmen suspected the presence of a " nigger 
 in the woodpile " of Le Temps. Especially if one remembers 
 that when the Hoschiller articles were appearing the Ger- 
 man offensive against Verdun had been practically broken 
 and the French general staff was considering plans for a 
 counter-offensive. It was to Hoschiller that the Socialist 
 Deputy Barthe had reference when he declared in the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies : 
 
 " I affirm that the manoeuvres and lies of an Austrian who 
 resided in France during the war were for the purpose of 
 
 3i 
 
turning away our military authorities from the project of 
 relieving Verdun and carrying on an offensive in the direction 
 of the Briey basin." 
 
 ECONOMIC MALTHUSIANISM OR 
 
 Such were the conditions in which the question of Briey 
 was brought to the attention of the French public. Let us 
 now examine this question, as I have divided it, in four parts. 
 First, why was the mineral production of France concen- 
 trated along the German frontier? The answer to that 
 seems easy — because the mineral deposits were situated on 
 that frontier. But listen to Deputy Engerand, who de- 
 clared in the French Chamber, Feb. i, 19 19: 
 
 " It was a blunder without name and without equal to 
 have left nearly all of our metallurgical and mineral pro- 
 duction concentrated on one frontier and on a frontier as 
 menaced as that of Lorraine. . . . And it was this blunder 
 which just failed to transform our sublime victory of the 
 Marne into a Pyrrhic victory, since our army was quickly 
 stopped through lack of munitions, and the Government in 
 this tragic situation could not provide it with any. There 
 is the origin of all our metallurgical and industrial difficulties 
 of the war, and it is a great miracle, and perhaps the great- 
 est miracle, that we have been able to keep from succumb- 
 ing to them, and have even — but at what a price ! — tri- 
 umphed over them. We must never lose sight of this 
 situation when we wish to judge the men and events of that 
 epoch. [Cries of 'Well said! well said! '] 
 
 11 In the first place, France, before the war, was one of the 
 richest countries in iron ore. It had iron everywhere, east, 
 west, in the Pyrenees and in Normandy. The mills natu- 
 rally are situated near the mines, since the blast furnaces 
 consume twice as much mineral as coke. There was not 
 a country where the metallurgical industries could have been 
 more naturally and more easily deconcentrated than France. 
 
 11 Why, then, was all of our iron and steel production, the 
 essential elements in the national defense, left concentrated 
 
 32 
 
in the east, right on the frontier, under the cannon of 
 Metz?" 
 
 No reasons have been advanced for this dangerous concen- 
 tration, except that the Committee of Forges with its policy 
 of economic malthusianism was more concerned with the 
 making of profits than with the developing of the mining 
 industry throughout France so that the country might be 
 better protected when the war which everybody — and 
 especially the industrial magnates, as has been shown — ex- 
 pected finally began. 
 
 So much for that question. Now for the second: Since 
 the iron and steel industry was allowed to be concentrated 
 on this frontier, why was it not protected by fortifications? 
 The Germans, it should be recalled, had heavily fortified 
 the cities of Metz and Thionville in German Lorraine. The 
 French, before the war, had finished fortifying the region 
 surrounding Nancy near the Lorraine frontier. That city 
 was never taken by the Germans during the war. Why, 
 then, was not the region of Briey, far more important than 
 that of Nancy, fortified ? Listen again to Deputy Engerand : 
 
 " By fortifying and even simply by defending the vital 
 point (Briey) of the frontier, we would have held under our 
 cannon the raw material essential to German metallurgy. A 
 long war would have been rendered impossible for Germany. 
 The German metallurgists have themselves many times 
 recognized this fact; they have declared that if we had 
 guarded this corner of the frontier, the war would have 
 been finished in six months with the defeat of Germany." 
 
 WHEN IS A FORT NOT A FORT? 
 
 It has been argued that the treaty of Frankfort which 
 ended the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 prohibited the 
 French from building any new forts along the Alsace-Lor- 
 raine frontier. If that is so, how were the French able to 
 fortify Nancy? It is almost as close to the frontier as is 
 Briey. And if Nancy, why not Briey? 
 
 33 
 
But fortifications are of little use in modern warfare, 
 some argue. Yet the heavily fortified cities of Verdun and 
 Nancy held out in spite of all attack. And if fortifications 
 are of so little value, why was the presence of the fortifica- 
 tions at Metz used so often as an excuse for not making an of- 
 fensive in the direction of Briey? 
 
 In the old defensive military plan of General Sere de 
 Riviere the regions of Briey and Nancy were to be abandoned 
 at the outbreak of hostilities, for reasons of foreign policy. 
 But at that time, in 1875, the value of the mineral in the 
 Briey basin was not known and the mining industry had not 
 been installed there. Representatives of the French staff say 
 that it was ignorant of the economic importance of the basin. 
 This some generals deny, saying that they realized the stra- 
 tegic value of iron in war. But even so, the Committee of 
 Forges and the government bureau of mines knew the vital 
 relation of the basin to the making of war munitions. Why 
 didn't they inform the government and the general staff? 
 There is no record of their having done this. 
 
 The answers to these two questions remain clouded in 
 obscurity. Turn, then, from this ante-bellum period, and 
 consider the third question: When the war began, why was 
 not some attempt made by the French troops to defend the 
 Briey basin? Here is what Deputy Engerand has to say 
 with regard to it: 
 
 " This part of the frontier where lay the soul of our 
 mineral industry was open. It was without defense, it 
 was abandoned without a fight. The region of Briey before 
 the war was outside the zone of defense. There was only 
 a battalion of chasseurs (infantry) installed there, and that 
 was not done until 191 3, if I am not mistaken. This battal- 
 ion had its orders to fall back at the first alarm. It seems 
 established that the abandonment of Briey was part of the 
 plan of operation of our general staff. 
 
 " It is necessary to tell the truth and it is perfectly untrue 
 to pretend — I see Monsieur Viviani at his bench and he will 
 refute my statement if I am wrong — that it was the 
 
 34 
 
decision taken by the government the 30th of July, 19 14, 
 ordering our troops to drop back 10 kilometers from the 
 frontier, which caused Briey to be abandoned. No! The 
 abandonment of Briey had been decided upon before. 
 
 " It seems to me beyond doubt that our general staff had 
 not been informed on the economic importance of this cor- 
 ner of Briey and that it did not know what a strategic trump 
 card it constituted for France. 
 
 " The German general staff, however, knew its im- 
 portance, and two days before the declaration of war, it 
 occupied the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg; one day before 
 the declaration of war, it occupied Briey and the important 
 points in the basin. It realized that here was the feeble 
 point in Germany, the weakness in her armor. Indeed, it 
 was here that Germany found all of her mineral." 
 
 SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE 
 
 Viviani, who was premier of France when the war started, 
 addressed the Chamber at the close of Engerand's speech, 
 Feb. 1, 19 19, and in an eloquent explanation of his policy 
 during that epoch, said that the Government for the diplo- 
 matic reason of proving to the world that France was not 
 the aggressor had ordered its troops to drop back 10 kilo- 
 meters (8 miles) all along the German frontier. The plan 
 of the French general staff, he declared, was to have these 
 troops retire 25 kilometers from the frontier, so that the 
 Government's order really saved 15 kilometers which the 
 staff would have abandoned. 
 
 As Briey is very close to the frontier this order gave the 
 whole of the region to the Germans without a fight. Thus 
 it was that the Germans came into possession of it. 
 
 Then, when the war changed from one of movement to 
 one of position and both sides dug themselves in and settled 
 down to a war of attrition and of munitions, it was noted 
 by soldiers and civilians that Germany was getting from the 
 Lorraine basin — from French Briey as well as the German 
 side — most of the iron necessary for her war industries, 
 
 35 
 
and the fourth question arose: Why did this sector of all 
 sectors remain so quiet? Why was no offensive made in 
 the direction of Briey? Why was not some effort made to 
 disturb the exploitation of these mines by bombing them 
 from airplanes? 
 
 It seems obvious that in a war of munitions all possible 
 means should have been taken to prevent the enemy from 
 producing iron, especially when their iron district — the 
 Briey-Thionville basin — was within easy reach. But this 
 was not done. 
 
 Deputy Engerand went so far as to say on May 2, 19 16, 
 in UCEuvre: "The war would have been finished at one 
 stroke if, at the beginning, we had made in this region 
 (Briey) an advance of 7 kilometers on a front of 15. We 
 would have cut Germany from her mineral and she could 
 not have procured it elsewhere." 
 
 Why did not the French make an offensive in the direction 
 of Briey? I asked General Conner, Pershing's chief of staff 
 for military operations, that question. 
 
 " They never had the numerical superiority to undertake 
 an offensive there," he answered. 
 
 " A greater numerical superiority was needed, then, for an 
 attack on Lorraine than for one at the Chemin des Dames? " 
 
 " No." At that point, our conversation was unfortunately 
 interrupted. 
 
 THE AGREEMENT FOR A LORRAINE OFFENSIVE 
 
 Now, as Major General Verraux, who commanded the 
 42nd Division of the French Second Army on the Briey 
 front when the war began, pointed out in an article in 
 UCEuvre, Feb. 16, 1919, the French general staff tried its 
 fortune with offensives a little everywhere along the west- 
 ern front — Champagne, the Vosges, the central part of 
 the Woevre, the Argonne, the Artois — except in the region 
 of Briey. And this remarkable exception made him ask, 
 "Why?" — a question which he was unable to answer. 
 He went on to say, however, that on various occasions the 
 
 36 
 
officers from his army in liaison with the general staff had 
 called to its attention the feasibility of an offensive against 
 Briey. 
 
 General Sarrail, who was in command of this Second 
 Army on the Lorraine front in 19 14, had, indeed, projected 
 an offensive in the direction of Spincourt-Longuyon-Longwy, 
 the success of which would have given the French possession 
 of the Briey basin, or at least would have made difficult if 
 not impossible the exploitation of the Lorraine mines. But 
 General Sarrail, as General Verraux remarks, was not in 
 the good graces of the general staff. When the plan was 
 submitted, the staff sent back a voluminous refutation, based 
 chiefly on the argument that it was impossible to manoeuvre 
 in this region. This difficulty, however, had not prevented 
 the Germans from advancing 14 kilometers in two days in 
 this district. The upshot of it all was that the projected 
 offensive never materialized and on January 3, 19 15, Gen- 
 eral Sarrail was replaced by General Gerard. And the iron 
 mining Basin of Briey remained in tranquillity. 
 
 It is urged by some that the fortifications of Metz made 
 it impossible to capture Briey by an offensive. That may 
 or may not be true. French military authorities differ with 
 regard to this subject. 
 
 But, as General Verraux says, whether the offensive re- 
 sulted in the capture of Briey or not, such activity in that 
 sector would have had the vital effect of so disturbing and 
 disorganizing the work behind the German lines that it 
 would have been impossible for the Germans to continue 
 their exploitation not only of Briey but also of a large part 
 of the Lorraine mines and smelters across the frontier. 
 
 General Malleterre, who commanded a brigade along 
 this Briey front in 19 14 and has the distinction, notable 
 for an officer of his rank, of having been badly wounded in 
 action, made this comment in Le Temps, January 31, 1917: 
 " Perhaps it was thought dangerous to begin a premature 
 and uncertain battle in these industrial regions, resulting 
 in their immediate destruction. This destruction certainly 
 
 37 
 
would have been better than to leave them to be exploited 
 by the Germans." 
 
 Even if it be conceded that an offensive against Briey was 
 wholly impracticable, there remained still another method 
 by which the French could have disturbed the German ex- 
 ploitation of the Briey and Lorraine mines and smelters. 
 What is more, with very little injury to the mines them- 
 selves their production of ore for the Germans could have 
 been cut almost to nil. That statement is made on the au- 
 thority of the president of the Committee of Forges, Deputy 
 Francois de Wendel, himself. The method ? — Bombing the 
 mines very frequently from airplanes. 
 
 After having denied in the Chamber of Deputies on Feb. 
 I, 1 9 19, that because of his interests on the Lorraine frontier 
 he had ever intervened to prevent either an offensive against 
 Briey or the bombardment of the district, de Wendel de- 
 clared : 
 
 " On the contrary, I will say that it was I, myself, who, 
 by my own hand, pointed out on the maps and plans of 
 mines and smelters, in particular of those I direct, the vital 
 points which should be hit by bombardment. 
 
 " This bombardment," he added, " was evidently possible, 
 but could it attain the results which certain ones hoped from 
 it? " And he went on to say that the occupation of Briey 
 after the armistice showed that the mines and smelters there 
 had suffered little damage from the bombardments which 
 they did receive late in the war. And then he said : 
 
 " I do not want any one to deduce from my words that I 
 am opposed to these bombing expeditions. I say, on the 
 contrary, that they have rendered great service, and in par- 
 ticular I wish to point out, because I was able to notice the 
 effects in Lorraine, that they obtained important results in 
 the disorganization of the exploitation of the basin by the 
 use of the system of one of our colleagues, Mr. Laurent 
 Eynac. He told us, you remember, that bombardments from 
 time to time by powerful squadrons did not give the results 
 expected and that, if we substituted for them nightly bom- 
 
 38 
 
bardments multiplied at frequent intervals, we could com- 
 pletely disorganize work and render it practically impossible. 
 " This result has been obtained. ... I myself, a few 
 weeks before the speech by Mr. Laurent Eynac, received 
 through a repatriated citizen a communication from the di- 
 rector of one of our establishments in Lorraine in which he 
 told me of the negative result of the heavy bombardments 
 and pointed out the disorder and inquietude into which the 
 workmen were thrown by the frequently repeated bombing 
 expeditions. That was the system of Mr. Laurent Eynac. 
 I hastened to give this letter to General de Castelnau and I 
 do not hesitate to say that upon re-entering Alsace-Lorraine 
 I found a certain pleasure in hearing this director tell me 
 that he could notice the effect of his communition." 
 
 BRIEY IMMUNE 
 
 The bombardments of which de Wendel speaks were made 
 late in the war. Referring to the earlier years of the strug- 
 gle, Deputy Barthe declared in the Chamber on February 
 I : ** I have affirmed that, during the war, a general was of- 
 ficially reprimanded for having bombarded the district of 
 Briey by airplanes, and that at one period of the war the 
 military chiefs forbade the aviators to bomb this basin 
 (Briey). Among those who, not wishing to give in to such 
 orders because they noticed the activity of the Germans in 
 the Briey basin, went and bombarded it, I believe some have 
 been punished." 
 
 He was then interrupted by Deputy Flandin, a conserv- 
 ative who served at Verdun as an artillery officer, who 
 stated: " During this difficult period [the latter part of 1916] 
 we soldiers at this front often wondered why our aviation, 
 which was so active during the battle of Verdun, had not 
 been ordered to intervene and bombard the mines and smel- 
 ters, from which arose immense clouds of smoke which we 
 saw on clear days covering the horizon in the direction of 
 Conflans." 
 
 And so, Deputy Flandin said, on December 23, 19 16, he 
 
 39 
 
went to the headquarters of General Guillaumet, command- 
 ing the Second Army, and explained the situation, giving him 
 a detailed map of the Briey mines and smelters. A few days 
 later he and his comrades were overjoyed to see that a squad- 
 ron of the Second Army had bombarded the mines of de 
 Wendel at Joeuf. But no other such bombardments fol- 
 lowed. Puzzled, he returned to the army's headquarters. 
 There the chief of staff told him that the general had been 
 ordered to cease these operations for two reasons, which 
 Flandin gave as follows : " Because Joeuf, it seemed, was 
 not in the sector of the Second Army [laughter in the 
 Chamber] and because the general staff reserved to itself 
 alone the right to give orders of this kind to the bombing 
 squadrons. 
 
 .- I was profoundly astonished and chagrined, the more 
 so because I knew, from what my friends in the aviation 
 service who had bombarded Joeuf had told me, the opera- 
 tion had been done with relative ease, with efficacy and 
 without losses." 
 
 Deputy Flandin then met General Lyautey who had been 
 to the general staff headquarters and had found that the 
 value of bombing the Briey region finally had been recog- 
 nized and that 40 bombing expeditions had been sent over 
 it between November 22, 1916 and February 19, 19 17. He 
 closed his speech with these words : 
 
 " But during 27 months the Germans were able, without 
 being disturbed, to extract millions of tons of iron ore for 
 their munition factories." 
 
 Aristide Briand then intervened, and said that he was 
 premier during this period and that he and Albert Thomas, 
 Minister of Munitions, had on several occasions brought to 
 the attention of the general staff the importance of bombing 
 these war industries of Germany. 
 
 The startling fact remains that for the first 27 months of 
 the war the Briey basin was free from bombing, though, ac- 
 cording to Deputy Laurent Eynac, who during the war was 
 especially occupied with aviation bombing, only a few air- 
 
 40 
 
planes were needed to trouble efficaciously the German ex- 
 ploitation of Briey. In 19 17 the bombing of the district 
 began, Deputy Flandin said. But how was this bombing 
 carried on ? Speaking of the period between February 9 and 
 October 18, 191 7, Deputy Eynac said in the Chamber on 
 Feb. 14, 1919: 
 
 " The orders of the objectives to bombard were given to 
 the bombing group in execution of a bombing plan, a secret 
 document established under the direction of Lieutenant 
 Lejeune, at that time attached to the aviation section of the 
 group of armies of the East. This plan received the appro- 
 bation of the Grand General Staff. Frequently in telephone 
 messages or in visits to the bombing squadrons, Lieutenant 
 Lejeune, who indicated the objectives for the day or for the 
 moment, repeated the order prohibiting the aviators to at- 
 tack certain objectives situated within the blockaded railroad 
 lines." [Exclamations in the Chamber.] 
 
 Now, who was this Lieutenant Lejeune, who had the direc- 
 tion of the bombing operations against Briey when they 
 finally were begun? According to Deputy de Wendel's 
 own admission, Lejeune was an employe of the Committee 
 of Forges. 
 
 Always, it would seem, when iron and steel are con- 
 cerned, the strategical positions, be they governmental or 
 military, are filled by this same source, the Committee of 
 Forges. 
 
 GERMANY RECIPROCATES 
 
 Such, then, is the mystery of the iron Basin of Briey, but 
 it should not be considered alone. Coal is fully as important 
 to a nation at war as is iron, and if France delayed to attack 
 the Lorraine iron basin, Germany on the other hand made 
 little attempt, it seems, to disturb the exploitation by the 
 French of their coal mines in the Basin of Bruay in the de- 
 partment of Pas-de-Calais. In a letter published in 
 U Information, the Paris financial journal, February 16, 
 19 1 9, credited to Major de Grandmaison, a Conservative 
 
 4i 
 
member of the Chamber of Deputies, the significance of this 
 coal basin is made clear in these words: 
 
 " Indeed, our coal mines in that part of Pas-de-Calais 
 which was not invaded and which remained unhurt, pro- 
 duced 28,000 tons of coal a day, indispensible to our rail- 
 ways and war industries, particularly during the active sub- 
 marine campaign. The Germans on their side could ask 
 their government : ' Why were not Bruay and the coal 
 mines bombarded and destroyed? Why, instead of attempt- 
 ing an unfruitful effort against Verdun in February, 19 16, 
 didn't you make the same effort toward the coal basin of 
 Pas-de-Calais ? ' They surely could have pierced our lines, 
 since at that time the second and third trenches had not been 
 dug. 
 
 " It can be said today that the truly remarkable activity 
 of our coal mines of Pas-de-Calais and the willingness of our 
 miners working day and night, in proximity to the enemy 
 lines during the most critical hours of the war, have con- 
 tributed to save France from defeat. 
 
 " One can conclude that if our military chiefs and men in 
 power have committed a few errors in the conduct of the 
 war, our enemies have committed much greater ones and 
 that their having respected to the very end of the war the 
 uninvaded section of the coal mining district of Pas-de-Calais 
 was not the least among these errors." [Italics in original.] 
 
 This same point was brought out by Francois de Wendel, 
 head of the Committee of Forges, during the debates in the 
 Chamber of Deputies on February 1, 19 19, when he said: 
 " If it was so easy by bombarding the mines of Briey to obtain 
 the results that we hoped for, one can not conceive why the 
 Germans, who knew our coal situation and realized in what 
 difficulties we would have been thrown by the destruction of 
 the mines of Pas-de-Calais, did not destroy them. For these 
 mines of Pas-de-Calais were not 25 or 30 kilometers [15 
 to 20 miles] from the front as were those of Briey, but sim- 
 ply 15 or 17 kilometers." 
 
 This remark made by the president of the steel combine 
 
 42 
 
drew from Gustave Tery in L'GLuvre, February 7, 1919* 
 the following comment : " It is, indeed, inconceivable. 
 What! The Boches who bombarded Paris 120 kilometers 
 distant could not reach French Bruay which was only 15 
 kilometers from their lines? At the moment that I asked 
 myself that question — and it was not the first time that it 
 had come to me — I heard behind me a colleague ejaculate, 
 * By George ! They were in cahoots ! ' And it made me 
 shiver." 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Le Matin, a conservative French daily 
 with a circulation said to be over a million and a half a 
 day, printed on its front page, February 14, 19 19, a two col- 
 umn headline which read: 
 
 WHY WAS NOT BRIEY BOMBARDED? 
 
 Le Matin adds today to the debate the point 
 of view of the French high command. 
 
 Up to this time Le Matin had been " playing down " 
 the debate over Briey. But under this headline it published 
 a long letter, filling nearly a column and a half on the 
 front page, signed " General X," which throws illuminating 
 light on the working of the military mind. Here it is, in 
 part: 
 
 " Why was not an attempt made to destroy the smelters 
 of Briey, or at least prevent all work in them by bombard- 
 ing them continually? Here again we must look at the 
 question in its true setting. Despite all that may be said, 
 war is a matter of convention. For centuries it has been a 
 magnificent and terrible game between professionals. One 
 fought according to the rules of the game. 
 
 " In this war for the first time conventions, because it was 
 a war of nations, have been trodden under foot. . . . But 
 some tacit convention existed nevertheless. In some sectors 
 men could at certain hours attend to their private needs, wash 
 themselves and go look for water without hearing a gun 
 shot. . . . 
 
 43 
 
" In the same way, the bombardment of the staff head- 
 quarters, when they were not on an important route or at 
 a railhead where troops were concentrated, was most often 
 abstained from" 
 
 THE COURTEOUS GERMANS 
 
 "When Compiegne, after the 21st of March (1918), re- 
 ceived every night visits from the enemy gothas, the palace 
 where the Grand General Staff was installed, did not re- 
 ceive a bomb. The Germans bombarded the station, the 
 bridges over the Oise, the crossroads, — they visibly spared 
 the staff Headquarters. 
 
 " It should be noted that there is in these tacit conventions 
 a point of view of general interest which well shows how in 
 the most unreasonable enterprises, wisdom makes its voice 
 heard. 
 
 " Now, there was much of this wisdom in the question 
 of Briey. The Germans were exploiting the smelters in 
 range of our aviation, but we were exploiting others fully 
 as important in range of their artillery. As far as possible 
 the security of the one bought the security of the others. 
 And as everything is relative, there were not, as a matter 
 of fact, many bombs dropped on one side or the other. There 
 may have been a general order forbidding the bombing of the 
 Briey smelters. But this order ought to be interpreted in 
 this manner: ' Let them alone and let them leave us alone.' 
 
 " Do you wish another example of this conventional state 
 of spirit which will reign in war as long as it is carried on 
 by soldiers of career? The armistice will furnish it. It is 
 now asked, ' Why was not the immediate demobilization of 
 the German army demanded, since it was demanded of the 
 Austrian army?' Simply because, following the time hon- 
 ored rule of military dignity, any adversary who has proved 
 his bravery and tenacity, has the right to what are called ' the 
 honors of war,' — that is to say, to retire with his arms and 
 baggages. Marshal Foch judged that the German army had 
 merited this concession, while the Austrians, bad soldiers 
 
 44 
 
that they were, had not merited it. And I tell you that not 
 a military man has found Marshal Foch's decision wrong." 
 
 Three days later in another letter to Le Matin, replying 
 to Major de Grandmaison, M General X " spoke even more 
 plainly of the " tacit agreement " between the belligerents 
 for the mutual protection of staff headquarters, saying: 
 
 " We have even seen that the Grand General Staff after 
 the 2 ist of March, when the enemy suddenly came within 
 20 kilometers of it, was at Compiegne, through which troops 
 and artillery were continually passing. And so the Ger- 
 mans, who had never bombarded Chantilly nor Beauvais and 
 who later did not bombard Provins, multiplied at this time 
 their bombing expeditions to Compiegne. But as the pal- 
 ace — the headquarters of the general staff — was by its 
 size extremely visible and sufficiently distant from the road, 
 the bridges of the Oise and the railway station, it did not 
 receive any projectiles" [Italics mine.] 
 
 The explanation of this immunity, according to " General 
 X," was that from the military point of view, the results 
 obtainable from bombing staff headquarters were illusory 
 and not worth while. 
 
 "a gentlemen's agreement?" 
 
 It was the publication of the first of these two remarkable 
 letters .that caused Pierre Renaudel, Socialist deputy, to de- 
 clare during the debate in the Chamber that day: 
 
 " It is only for the poor devils that war is not a gentle- 
 men's agreement. Or, to put it more exactly, the only agree- 
 ment which they make is a convention with death." 
 
 " Was it then a ' gentlemen's agreement,' similar to the 
 one -that protected staff headquarters, which was the cause 
 of the remarkable immunity which the coal and iron mining 
 districts on both sides of the western front enjoyed during 
 most of the war? The letter in U Information, already 
 quoted, brings out this point succinctly. After referring to 
 the complaints of French aviation officers that they had been 
 forbidden to bomb Briey, the writer says: 
 
 45 
 
" The motive of this prohibition of which the aviation of- 
 ficers speak seems, according to rumors, to have been due 
 to a tacit agreement between the belligerents. It would 
 seem that we said to the Germans : ' We will not bombard 
 Briey from which you get your iron ore if you will respect, 
 on your side, Bruay and the coal basin of Pas-de-Calais.' " 
 [Italics in original.] 
 
 Who, at bottom, was responsible for the undeniable im- 
 munity accorded these iron and coal mines? 
 
 The international financial and mining interests, responds 
 Deputy Barthe, who, from the tribune of the Chamber on 
 January 24, 19 19, solemnly declared: 
 
 " I affirm that either by the fact of the international soli- 
 darity of the great metallurgy companies, or in order to 
 safeguard private business interests our military chiefs were 
 ordered not to bombard the establishments of the Briey 
 basin which were being exploited by the enemy during the 
 war. 
 
 " I affirm that our aviation service received instructions 
 to respect the blast furnaces in which the enemy steel was 
 being made, and that a general who had wished to bombard 
 them was reprimanded." 
 
 THE FLAG OF BIG BUSINESS 
 
 Gaudin de Villaine, a Conservative member of the French 
 Senate, went a step further in his brochure, " Le Fou de roi," 
 (The King's Fool), in which he cites page 18 of the French 
 Yellow Book: 
 
 " Fabricants of cannon and armor plate, great merchants 
 who demand the greatest markets ; bankers who speculate on 
 the age of gold and on the next indemnity, think (in Ger- 
 many) that the war should be good business." 
 
 Then he declares that the true profiteers of the war are 
 " the producers of the metals of the world brigaded under 
 the banner of the Metallgesellschaft of Frankfort." He con- 
 cludes : 
 
 " I formally accuse the big cosmopolitan banks, at least 
 
 46 v 
 
47 
 
the owners of mining rights, of having conceived, prepared 
 and let loose this horrible tragedy with the monstrous thought 
 of world stock- jobbing. I accuse these same money powers 
 of having, before and since the war, betrayed the interests of 
 France." 
 
 But, some will urge, it is absurd to think that the mineral 
 magnates of France or Germany should have brought about 
 a " tacit agreement " to protect their properties during the 
 war. Why, everybody knows that modern wars are fought 
 for the possession of coal and iron deposits. That's what 
 the Franco-Prussian war was over. It may be granted that 
 in 1 87 1 and for a country industrially "on the make," as 
 Germany was, such a motive may exist. And it would 
 seem that the same motive would hold good for the French 
 capitalists. Yet, as has been shown in this article, the flag 
 which flies over a mining district matters but little to capital 
 for the ownership of the mines is international. The Ger- 
 man empire took possession of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, but 
 we have seen that French capitalists still retained their 
 property rights in the Lorraine basin. 
 
 However obvious may seem the value to France of pos- 
 session of Alsace-Lorraine, the plain fact is that to the French 
 steel trust — the Committee of Forges — the return of these 
 two provinces was not regarded as an unmitigated blessing. 
 In a deposition made October 28, 191 5, before a committee 
 of the French Senate, Robert Pinot, general secretary of the 
 Committee of Forges — and a number of other big metallur- 
 gical combines — stated: 
 
 "The return of France to the frontiers of 19 15 (that is, 
 the return of Alsace-Lorraine) would place the French 
 metallurgical industry in an excessively critical situation, 
 and, in addition, would aggravate very seriously the depend- 
 ance of France on foreign countries for supplies of coal and 
 coke." 
 
 48 
 
PITY THE POOR STEEL TRUST 
 
 According to his figures, the addition of the Lorraine iron 
 basin to France would force the country to import 28,000,- 
 000 tons of coal each year. But there was the German coal 
 basin of the Sarre, which was included in France in the 
 boundaries of 1814, and Mr. Pinot then discussed the ef- 
 fect of France annexing the Sarre district. He said it would 
 reduce the coal importations 8,000,000 tons a year, but his 
 conclusion was: 
 
 11 But it must be remarked that if the general interest im- 
 periously commands the re-annexation of the Sarre coal 
 basin, the particular situation of the French metallurgical 
 industry will by this fact be made even more serious." 
 
 Why? The reason that Mr. Pinot gave was that the 
 return to France of the Lorraine iron district would in- 
 crease enormously the iron and steel production of France, 
 and, as there were some smelters in the Sarre basin, the an- 
 nexation of it would further increase this production. But 
 why should the French mineral trust oppose this increase in 
 production? Remember that the policy of the Committee 
 of Forges was one of economic malthusianism — keep pro- 
 duction down so as to keep prices up. Sheltered behind a 
 tariff which has been described as " prohibitive," the com- 
 bine was able to keep domestic prices up as high as it 
 pleased. 
 
 No one has better described the policy of the Committee 
 of Forges than Abbe Wetterle, the deputy from Alsace in 
 the French Chamber, who declared : 
 
 " I had understood nothing in those days of the mental 
 reservations of those who wished to deprive us of the fruit 
 of our long and sorrowful wait. I saw their game more 
 clearly, when, a few months later, their opposition crystal- 
 lized in more precise formulas. We find before us these 
 partisans of economic malthusianism, who, disdainful of the 
 national wealth, preoccupy themselves uniquely with rarify- 
 fying a product on the domestic market in order to sell it 
 
 49 
 
more dearly. They are the representatives of the least ef- 
 fort who are afraid of a crisis of over-production, persons, 
 either timorous or more often selfish to the point of forget- 
 ting patriotic duty, who consent to leave to Germany all of 
 her formidable advance, provided that they themselves, 
 sheltered behind a solid tariff wall on the frontier, can sell 
 at higher prices their decreasing production." 
 
 Since it realized that even it could not come out openly 
 against the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, the Com- 
 mittee of Forges hit upon a happy compromise policy and 
 called for the erection of a tariff frontier between the re- 
 turned provinces of Alsace-Lorraine and the rest of France. 
 It remains to be seen whether this boon will be granted them, 
 but they have made a good start in that direction. They are 
 still following their old policy of filling the strategical posi- 
 tions with their own henchmen. Little notice was taken in 
 this country of the announcement of February 21, 19 19, that 
 Mr. Millerand had been appointed governor-general of 
 Alsace-Lorraine. But in France it is known that Millerand 
 is the attorney of the steel combine — the Committee of 
 Forges. 
 
 BLOODY PROFITS 
 
 It will be seen from this exposure of the policy of the 
 Committee of Forges toward the return of Alsace-Lorraine, 
 if it has not already been sufficiently demonstrated in this 
 article, that the interests of a nation and the interests of 
 private property are two separate and distinct things. 
 Whether the money and mineral international did or did 
 not prepare and start the war, as Senator de Villaine charges, 
 it is certain that the 51 months during which millions of 
 men were killed was a most profitable era for these interests. 
 The wholesale slaughter of men, it cannot be denied, means 
 good business to those who furnish the instruments of 
 death. 
 
 When war does not exist, these interests seek to cause 
 it. That was shown by Liebknecht in 19 13 when he ex- 
 
 50 
 
posed before the German Reichstag the policy of the Krupps, 
 which was to subsidize French newspapers at Paris to at- 
 tack Germany and then use these editorial attacks to con- 
 vince the Reichstag that Germany for fear of France must 
 increase her armament. 
 
 STOCK AND BOND MORALITY 
 
 And when war does exist, we have seen what happens. 
 The " Red " International Socialists may be forbidden to 
 attend a Stockholm conference for the purpose of discussing 
 peace terms. But the " Yellow " International of the finan- 
 cial and mineral interests is not disturbed in its working dur- 
 ing even the time of war. Here is one last bit of evidence of 
 that fact. When the Socialists were being denounced be- 
 cause of the proposed Stockholm conference, this little 
 news dispatch was sent from Switzerland by the Havas 
 Agency and appeared on October 29, 19 17, in the columns 
 of Le Temps, the Paris organ of the French moneyed 
 interests : 
 
 " An examination of the rumors concerning the negotia- 
 tions for peace, which are said to have taken place among 
 the members of high finance from the two groups of powers 
 has shown that the story arose simply from the meetings 
 between financiers of the Entente and of the Central Powers 
 for the purpose of exchanging certain stocks and bonds." 
 
 Based on the facts which have been given in this article, 
 it is submitted that for those who own the mines and smelt- 
 ers, and who, despite the fact that their properties are situ- 
 ated in close proximity to the front, are permitted to exploit 
 them and reap the profits from them, war is not the fearful 
 calamity it is to the common men on the famous plains of 
 Picardy and the fields of Flanders who by the million are 
 slaughtered by the output of these mutually protected mines. 
 
 War, Sherman said, is hell. 
 
 But business, as Octave Mirbeau remarked, is business. 
 
 What, then is the conclusion to be drawn from these facts ? 
 
 5i 
 
I can do no better than reproduce the one expressed by Gus- 
 tave Tery, February 7, 19 19, in UCEuvre: 
 
 " No one can deny any longer the existence of the Metal- 
 lurgical International. It is for the nations now to see and 
 comprehend this fact. Consider an iron mine. Is it too 
 much to say that those who own it control peace and war? 
 What, in reality, is the most profitable way of handling iron 
 ore? It is in manufacturing it into armament. It is to the 
 interest of the maker of arms and munitions to increase arma- 
 ment, the excess of which inevitably provokes armed con- 
 flicts. Modern war is the natural and ever-recurring fruit 
 of metallurgy. 
 
 "If this one truth is known today, 20,000,000 men will 
 not have died in vain. But it must be inscribed in the minds 
 and hearts of all the survivors. They must thoroughly un- 
 derstand the simple relation of this simple effect to this sim- 
 ple cause: Remove the sabre from whatever kaiser threatens 
 to overrun the world; he will remain peaceful or become a 
 laughing stock. . . . Separate man from iron and coal and 
 he is powerless and war is impossible. 
 
 " The first article of the covenant of a true Society of 
 Nations ought not to be a naive appeal to fraternity nor a 
 declaration of ' immortal principles,' but simply this : Coal 
 and iron can no longer in any country remain private 
 property." 
 
 52 
 
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