Churchill, munitions and mechanical warfare: The politics of supply and strategy.

摘要

Winston Churchill held the post of Minister of Munitions from July 1917 to January 1919. His tenure coincided with the most critical period in the first world war. In the last years of the war, the Ministry competed for scarce tonnage space, materials, and skilled labor with other government departments and allied nations. Churchill defended the supply needs of the Ministry and advocated his own program of mechanical warfare.; Churchill' s strategic thought evolved throughout the war. By 1917 he had accepted the "western strategy"--which focused on the front in Flanders and France--but tempered it with an emphasis on mechanical warfare. Churchill was able to advance these views on both military and economic grounds. In the former case, mechanical warfare--using trench mortars, tanks, airplanes, and gas shells--offered an alternative to the bloody battles of attrition that were fought throughout the war. In the latter case, mechanical warfare made better use of the scarce resources available. The Ministry of Munitions provided Churchill the platform and power to present his arguments. By the late summer of 1918, the British Army was fighting, and preparing to fight, the war Churchill had envisioned two years earlier--mobile and mechanical.; The letters, diaries, and memoirs of Churchill and his colleagues were used, as were the memoranda and minutes of the War Cabinet, and the parliamentary debates and papers. The sources indicate Churchill's abiding interest in munitions and mechanical warfare, and in the politics of supply and strategy.