ORGANISER OF MUNITIONS

Evening Post, Issue 2, 2 July 1932, Page 21

ORGANISER OF MUNITIONS

After a" few weeks' service at thai front, however, M. Thomas was summoned by M. Viviani: to organise the production of' munitions. He became Under-Secretary. of State for Munitions in May, 1915, and a year later, took over the newly constituted Minis-, try of Munitions. He succeeded admirably. The output of -shells sooa rose to the full capacity of French in- ' dustry, and arrangements were made with Great Britain for the co-ordina-tion of the munitions programmes of the two Allied Governments. This latter part of his work entailed frequent conferences" with Mr. Lloyd' George, and M. Thomas paid several visits to this country in 1915 and 1916; He remained at the head of the Ministry of Munitions until the formation of the Painleve Government in. 1917, when on the outbreak of the Bussian. Revolution he was sent as a sort o£ special Socialist envoy. to St Peters- | burg, where he was successful in persuading Kerensky to undertake the' great offensive of 1917, the last rally of the Bussian Army. The last twelve^years of his life: wer« devoted to the realisation of the ideala which inspired the establishment of thr International ! Labour ' Organisation. , Here he could exercise to the full his zeal for the'economic advancement ofthe industrial workers of the world, his: persuasive and propagandist skill, and his powers of organisation. Ho was never taken in by the - Bolsheviks, whose destruetiveness he: recognised! and exposed from the very first,