STARVING GERMAN GUNS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15138, 30 November 1914, Page 10

STARVING GERMAN GUNS.

1, I-MPORTi-NCE OF THE NITRATE SUPPLY. No violent explosive has over yet been invented that was without nitric acid as ono of its foundations (says tho "Standard"). Nitro-glyceri-ie, picric acid, tri-nitro-toluene gun-cot-ton, dynamite, nielinito, cordite, and I •all the rest of them would have nopos-'j siblo. existence without tho mother of j them all—nitric acid. International j science knows of two methods by which | this substance can bo made. Ono is j by using the nitrates imported from Chile, and tho other is by churning up atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates by electrical means. Possibly tho workmen of Essen know a great' deal moro ..bout producing nitrates by electrical means than anyone in England does. But this possibility is certainly not a probability. It then comes about that every Gorman nitrate ship taken on tho high seas was intended to help the making of explosives of every kind, and its loss will reduce the German power of supplying the ammunition that thoy are using so freely. It is very strange that this aspect of the strangling of - Germany's relisting power should havo Ih-cii left unnoticed. ■ Perhaps some of our British-newspapers did it of maliceaforethought, which means that they knew quito well that Germany could bo starved, but that they had no wish to talk about it. German guns, just like German stomachs, can be starved by the constant pressure of our Fleet. We know well enough that somewhere in Ger- : many there ai-e vast stores of food, and I .ie also know that Prussia has colossalj stores of {.mmuuition. The huge "Jack j Johnson" tholls and tho floating mines 'of tho North Sea represent several years of strenuous work. The point is that they cannot replace it. As has already been suggested, there is just a chance that (jcrmany can produco a certain amount of nitric acid by electrical means Neither Germany nor Austria has any quick means of getting this very coinage of war. Nitric acid is more fhnnVoiuage; it is tlie soul of warfare, the great chemical compound maI chine without which it cannot be waged. Cut off the supply of nitric acid ! from any country in the world, and | its inhabitants inii-t defend themselves I with bows and arrows. i The Navy knows all about it, so it takes particular cato that no nitrate ship finds its way to a German port. During the lie-t two months there have been several shipments of guano from certain islands to the German Fatherland. These .seem innocent enough, but some of the deposits contain hugo quantities of nitrates, mostly nitrate of lime. Other guano can quickly be turned into -nitrates and then into nitric acid —eventuilly into "Jack Johnson or "Black Maria" shells. It will not be easy to starve so great .. country as tbo German Empire. • ■ >. may starve it by taking away its food. We may do something of tho same kind by upsetting its trade, but for the present the kind of starvation that will appen! to any English father or mother 'will be the starvation of German guns. Cut off their supply of nitrates and they can make neither, cordite nor dyi uaiiiilo, uor the bombs that they use so freely. Of course, there are mnr.v oxplosives of a minor nature that do not depend on nitric acid as their source but from the time that the Chinese discovered gunpowder, far bade in the beginnings of history, until now, when a ton of "frightfully quick explosive can be slowly thrown ten miles by means of an entirely different explosive inside of a 12-inch gun. every efficient olement of destruction has depended for its explosive power on the ono substance —nitric acid.