aterialize -- The situation analogous to
that of a building -- The Ministry of Munitions took, and was
given, the credit for the expansion in output for the year
subsequent to its creation, which was in reality the work of the
War Office -- The Northcliffe Press stunt about shell shortage --
Its misleading character -- Sir H. Dalziel's attack upon General
von Donop in the House -- Mr. Lloyd George's reply -- A
discreditable episode -- Misapprehension on the subject of the
army's preparedness for war in respect to material --
Misunderstanding as to the machine-gun position -- Lord French's
attack upon the War Office with regard to munitions -- His
responsibility for the lack of heavy artillery -- The matter
taken up at the War Office before he ever raised it from G.H.Q.
-- His responsibility for the absence of high-explosive shell for
our field artillery -- A misconception, as to the role of the
General Staff -- The serious difficulty that arose with regard to
this ammunition owing to prematures -- The misstatements in
"_1914_" as to the amount of artillery ammunition which was sent
across France to the Dardanelles -- Exaggerated estimates by
factories as to what they would be able to turn out -- Their
estimates discounted as a result of later experiences -- The
Munitions Ministry not confined to its proper job -- The incident
of 400 Tanks -- Conclusion.

Who reads the platform addresses of political personages, even the
most eminent and the most plausible? Some people evidently do, or such
utterances would not fill the columns of our newspapers. If one had
ever felt tempted to peruse the reports of these harangues in the
piping times of peace, one assuredly had neither the inclination nor
yet the leisure to indulge in such practices during the early days of
the Great War. To skim off the cream of the morning's news while at
breakfast was about as much as a War Office mandarin could manage in
the way of reading the daily papers during that super-strenuous time.
One morning, however--it must have been the morning of the 22nd of
April 1915--I met an assistant with a journal in his hand, as I was
making my way along the corridor to my room in the War Office. "Seen
this what Squiff says about the shell, general?" he asked, handing me
the paper with his finger on the passage in the Prime Minister's
Newcastle speech