e great
outstanding French and Russian contracts for shrapnel, which was
at that time still the chief shell used by the Allies. This was
done successfully, if on a small scale, by founding an undertaking
of our own, called the Bridgeport Projectile Company, and entering
into contracts to establish the most important machinery for the
manufacture of powder and shrapnel. Through this company, which
originally passed as entirely American, the special machinery required
for the manufacture of shrapnel was bought on a scale which seriously
affected the American output, and in particular hindered the acceptance
and carrying through of further contracts from the Allies for a
considerable time. Herr Albert assisted and advised the Military
Attache in making these contracts, arranged the financing of the
enterprise later on, and worked at its development after Herr von
Papen's departure.

Still more successful were the efforts to remove from the market
the surplus benzol, which is the raw product for the production
of picric acid. The benzol was bought up by a company specially
formed for the purpose, who sent it to a chemical works under German
management to be manufactured into salicylic preparations. These
products were sold for the most part for the American market, and
also, with the approval of the Ministry for War, exported to neutral
countries. The undertaking was eventually closed down after making
considerable profits for the Imperial Treasury. In the same way,
for some time, all the bromine coming on to the market, the products
of which were used to manufacture and increase the density of gas,
were bought up.

To these efforts to hamper and delay the supply of war material
belonged also the much-discussed agreement with the Bosch Magneto
Company, the American branch of the Stuttgart firm. The substance
of the arrangement was that this company, which was under German
direction, should not immediately refuse Allied contracts for fuses,
but should appear to accept them and delay their fulfilment, and, to
complete the deception, even occasionally deliver small quantities,
and finally, at the last moment, refuse to complete the contract. This
procedure was attacked at the time by a German-American journalist,
von Skal. On the strength of short notices which Herr von Skal
published in the German Press, in ignorance of the real state of
the case, public opinion in Germany turned against the parent firm,
the Bosch works i