Abstract
THE Fortnightly Review for November contains an important article headed “Coal and Iron in War: The Importance of Alsace and Lorraine,” which sets forth very clearly an aspect| of the European war that has received far too| little attention in this country, though its importance has been for some time fully recognised on ! the Continent. The article consists essentially of a statement as to one of the main causes of the origin of the war, and of a deduction showing the proper nature of the penalty that should be exacted from the originators. The contributory cause discussed is the intense desire of the German plutocratic group, the great German ironmasters, of which such firms as Krupp and the Deutscher Kaiser are representative, to obtain a monopoly of that vast deposit of iron ore which covers so large an area of Central Europe, and is known as “Minette.” The writer in the Fortnightly Review rests his presentation of the case very largely upon the 'strong evidence contained in a memorandum submitted on May 20, 1915, by the six leading industrial and agricultural societies of Germany to the Chancellor, in which their requirements and demands in regard to the terms of peace are set forth. The most important of these in the present connection is the demand that Germany should retain possession of the French coast region as far as the Somme, because “by the acquisition of the line of the Meuse and of the French coast the iron-producing district of Briey, as well as the coal-fields of the north and of the Pas de Calais, would be acquired.”
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LOUIS, H. Iron-Ore Deposits in Relation to the War. Nature 100, 244–245 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/100244c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/100244c0