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Did the UK and Germany pre-WWI truly appreciate 'food security' as a military issue?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Eliza (U14650257) on Thursday, 18th November 2010

  
  ""Food shortages may have threatened Britain in the spring of 1917, but they already were a stark reality in Germany."
  
  Just lifting this quote from the v. long thread discussing two major topics together (American civil war and WWI!)....
  
  To what extent were politicians and military strategists aware, before WW1, that 'food security' was going to play a major role in any future European conflicts? Or did they not take on board how critically reliant Europe had become on imported foods and materials?
  
  Food security is, once again, rising up the agenda of our own contemporary concerns, but, as yet, it's not really seen as critical (to the point of doing anything much about it!).
  
  

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  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 19th November 2010

  Eliza
  
  Well food security had been very important in the wars 1793-1815: and the investment that was made in increasing home grown supplies was a factor in the Corn Law Act of 1815..though "food security" was not the prime consideration in the continuation of those restrictions on Free Trade..
  
  Once the Corn Laws were abolished in 1846 population growth in areas of previous supply meant that British producers faced no competition from cheap imports..
  
  But that situation changed with the Great Depression in Farming from the Mid-1870's which coincided with the ability of the British economy to benefit from the massive investment in the transport infrastructure that made agriculture in the North American mid-west, Argentian and Australasia economically worthwhile, while the UK adoption of Free Trade as a force for peace, was backed up by the industrial employers and workers in the Workshop of the World who argued that cheaper food meant higher real wages, which was generally the case up to c1900.
  
  After that "food security" was obviously bound up with the fact that Britain "Ruled the Waves" and regarded any threat to that situation- e.g. Kaiser Willhelm's decision to match the UK in Dreadnought building- as something that the UK could not tolerate.
  
  Of course the Battle of Tsushima c1904 had shown that conventional battleships could be exposed by small and fast torpedo boats; and in both World Wars the UK had to fight a "Battle of the Atlantic" against German submarines, with Lloyd George being credited with the idea of using a convoy system - safety in numbers.
  
  Of course, as has been pointed out on that thread, in the end the German U-Boat campaign was one of the elements that overcame US opposition to participation in the war.
  
  As for just establishing "Food Security"- the whole idea of being the Workshop of the World in line with Adam Smith's idea of specialisation in areas of Comparative Advantage had meant that Britain had come to rely on a large range of imported goods: and an important part of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ effort on the land and in other areas of economic activity was bound up with the need to "dilute" the Labour force with the Labour of women and young people because large numbers of men and horses went to The Front.
  
  In fact I was surprised, as I often am when reading books from the inter-war period, to read that it was commonly argued that the problems of the Thirties- the World Chaos etc- was strongly connected with a global oversupply of food and commodities capability, which meant that those who wanted to "get back to the garden" and live as healthy self-sufficient small-holders could not do so because the prices were both volatile and too low..
  
  Subsequently post-war the EU Common Agricultural Policy brought in a European system of price control and protectionism, allied with the building of surpluses that could be used like the Bank of England used the Gold Reserves. Thus, during a recent visit to France, when the TU's and others were trying to bring the country to a standstill by blocking oil imports, refineries and depots- while encouraging one way and another the French public to panic buy from petrol stations, the Government tapped into their strategic reserve.. I would imagine that there are similar food strategic reserves.. and, though people have made that mistake before, certainly in the Nuclear Age no-one expects a major war to go on for years.
  
  Cass
  
  

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  Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Saturday, 20th November 2010

  Eliza,
  
  The issue of food security had an impact on British attitudes during the American Civil War. Almost half of British grain imports came from the Federal States,any British involvement or recognition of the Confederacy would have resulted in these supplies being cut off. The position was exacerbated by crop failures in Western Europe during 1860/2. There was a Yankee jibe to the Confederates at the time that King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton.
  
  McPherson "The Battle Cry of Freedom"

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  Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Saturday, 20th November 2010

  Hello Eliza,
  
  I don’t think that military experts of the Entente were aware that β€œfood security” would play any role at all; both the Germans and the Entente had in mind to annihilate the enemy forces with one mighty blow. It was not until this strategy failed that a naval blockade of Germany became a part of the strategy of the Entente.
  On the other hand the German military was very much aware of the threat of a naval blockade; the β€œFlottenpolitik” of the German marine was aimed at making a British naval blockade impossible, but the Entente Cordial ensured British supremacy on the High Seas.
  
  Regards,
  Poldertijger
  

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