Military Supplies Quotes
After the Confederate defeat at Roanoake Island, Norfolk, VA, in January, 1862:
This was the earliest version of a variant of the great WWII propaganda phrase, “Arsenal of Democracy”. See --{624746} and {624747} for quotations related to this famous phrase.
The pope attempted a boycott of weapons against the Ottomans who were threatening Crete, then controlled by Christian Venice. The French and others did not respect the boycott. As in modern times, boycotts were easily broken by those wishing to profit from trade. Crete fell. The Catholic boycott had actually started in the 16th Century with minimal effectiveness, but Clement IX made a vain effort to enforce it.
This quotation is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it shows the ineptness of the Continental Congress and the tendency not to want to spend money on the military even in a crisis. America really did not enthusiastically appropriate money for military until WWII and since then, military spending has dominated the American Federal budget. The second reason is that it shows the myth that Colonial America was full of men each armed with their gun and Americans were expert at using them. Most of the men joining Washington’s Army did not own a gun and had little or no skill with guns. See {613056}. Early America was not a gun culture. Guns were expensive, needed maintenance, took too long to reload, and were not as effective for most purposes as other weapons like hatchets and knives. American Colonial war was mostly hand to hand combat with relatively little shooting.
He later provided a copy to Hezekiah Niles, February 5, 1819 which is the source of the quotation since Henry never mentioned it.
The president had wanted to send large amounts of armament and other material to England—Lend Lease—to help stave off a German invasion. The leading military men argued against it. Conservative isolationists and Congress had prevented our own military from having enough supplies and equipment. Also the conclusion of the American military leadership of the time was that England was beyond help and would have to capitulate to Germany. Even with massive armaments they would not be able to defend themselves. Any arms that we might provide to England would then fall into German hands. Roosevelt then sent his civilian assistant, Harry Hopkins, to England to assess their ability to survive. Hopkins with no military experience told Roosevelt that with the arms and ammunition England would be able to forestall invasion. Roosevelt trusted Hopkins’ judgment and decided to arm England. Hopkins turned out to be exactly correct and the military leadership was wrong. See {642830}.
Lincoln and the Union leaders were still hopeful of ending the rebellion and getting things back to a pre-war footing economically. At this point they were trying to preserve components of the Southern Economy at no small cost. As that hope was shown to be futile, the Total War strategy of Grant and Sherman prevailed to the satisfaction of men like Opdycke. That actually ended the war quickly, but the Southern Economy was devastated in the process.
After Henry VIII changed England to a Protestant nation and left the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic countries of Europe, England’s traditional trading partners, were not as available as before. The English Economy was in great danger. Queen Elisabeth I however initiated policies to turn East for new markets and trading partners and found munitions a great export area. Since the Catholic Church was boycotting England, she seized their property and used much of it to capitalize and provide raw martial for her new industry.
“Those in power” referred to the Continental Congress and the Governors of the States. Washington, Hamilton, Greene and other senior officers throughout the war pleaded with Congress and the States to provide for the Army. The Governors and state legislatures cared little for a national government as it might reduce their authorities and powers, and the Continental Congress was extremely weak with its leaders very timid. As Greene reported, everyone realized that they might all be ruined but few would act especially if it would cost money. And the Continental Congress had few ways of raising money. It was this obvious failure of the States and the Continental Congress that led to the Constitution.
The Factory had been established by the State of Virginia in 1775 to make guns. America filled with armed Americans in the Colonial era was a myth. Early America was not a gun culture. Guns were expensive, needed maintenance, took too long to reload, and were not as effective for most purposes as other weapons like hatchets and knives. American Colonial war was mostly hand to hand combat with relatively little shooting. Less than one fourth of the men joining Washington’s army owned guns. Gun factories could not survive for want of customers and gunsmiths went into other occupations. See {613052}. With the rebellion, it was critical to manufacture guns to arm the soldiers who had not their own. But the efforts like this were relatively feeble. The factory director who made not a single gun in over a year was then promoted to Commissary General of Munitions in the Continental Army. He was married to George Washington’s sister. He did however finance much of the munitions he procured with his own personal funds so made up in wealth and patriotism what he lacked in manufacturing skill.
Switzerland stayed neutral because they initially feared a German invasion. Then they found that they were making a great deal of money from the war, including huge profits from dealing with the gold that Nazis had looted or taken from the fillings in the teeth of Holocaust victims. So long after there was no fear of German invasion, the Swiss still maintained neutrality but aided and made profits from the German war effort while they exterminated millions of people. At the end of WWII, Switzerland was the richest country in Europe. Later it was discovered that the Swiss hid the fact that they had many millions of dollars in deposits from Jews who had been killed by the Nazis and were making no effort to find the survivors or in the event of death giving the money to the nearest relatives. As a result of this report and a number of lawsuits filed in America against the Swiss Banks, a courageous Swiss member of Parliament who discovered the extent of the duplicity of the Swiss Banks, a bank employee who refused to destroy the records of all the illegal funds the Banks had, and political pressure applied to Switzerland from many other countries, a settlement was reached whereby the Swiss banks turned over large sums of money to non-Swiss organizations which tried to distribute the money to survivors and heirs.
In the American Civil War, civilian weapons production first became a factor in the outcome of a war. In WWI, it became a significant factor. And in WWII it was THE MAJOR factor when America became the “Arsenal of Democracy”. At one point, a single Ford factory was producing an entire B24 (our heaviest) bomber every single hour on a 24/7 schedule—over 600 every month.
