Blue Circle cement

[George Armstrong Custer]

Was there an embargo? I suspect that if one existed it was to ensure adequate supply for our own need given the increasing requirements of our own army. Nothing better than cement for road stabilisation etc.

Roop

Roop, unless he was making it up as he went along, the final sentence of Church's letter would seem to confirm that there was indeed an embargo in place:

Where there is the slightest suspicion that the export of cement to neutrals is helping the enemy, it is to be hoped that the Government will refuse to remove its embargo.

Not only does this seem to confirm the existence of an embargo at the time the letter was written (late 1917), but the same sentence makes it clearly implicit that that embargo is based upon a 'suspicion that the export of cement is helping the enemy...', rather than as a protectionist measure to preserve supplies for domestic use.

ciao,

GAC

[KONDOA]

See previous post (50) which seeems to explain all.

Roop

[George Armstrong Custer]

Roop my last overlapped with yours! This is good stuff that you've found! To save everyone having to link back and forwards to it, here's the gist of it:

Miscellaneous No.9 (1918): report on the export of cement from the United Kingdom to Holland

Short title: Export of cement from the United Kingdom to Holland

Corporate author: Committee

Personal author: Meux; Cockayne; Cockerill; Garrard

Abstract: 'To enquire whether it is desirable that the export of cement from this country to Holland should be resumed when the general embargo on exports to Holland is raised, and if so, upon what conditions.'

It was alleged that cement exported to Holland was being re-exported and used in the construction of German defences. The evidence for these suggestions was disproved and an analysis used in German fortifications showed that it did not come from British sources. The export of cement to Holland did not release equivalent quantities in Germany for military purposes, as Germany had no need to draw upon external sources of supply for her needs and was in fact exporting cement to Denmark. The supply of cement from the United Kingdom would prevent Germany using it as a means of putting pressure upon the Dutch Government. Cement exports to Holland, which had been discontinued in Oct. 1917, should be resume.

Date presented etc: Appointed November 1917, presented April 1918

Well, the date that Committee was appointed to enquire into the allegations - November 1917 - ties right in with the time Captain Church's letter was written. It also confirms his suggestion that the embargo put in place at that time was as a result of the allegations of British cement exports to Holland ending up in German hands. It would be interesting to access the full conclusions of the investigating Committee. I suppose, as these things usually do, the Committee's conclusion that British cement wasn't being forwarded to the Germans was regarded by some as a cover up! And who knows, maybe to some extent it was - there must have been an awful lot of powerful vested interest at play in ensuring that British exporters were in no way implicated in a chain of supply to the German military - particularly as the Report was produced in April 1918 when the war was still very much raging. This new information of Roop's also demonstrates that there's more to the stories of British cement going to the Germans than a few mistaken stories going round the trenches - a Government embargo and Parliamentary Committee investigation suggest that enough influential people thought there might be something in it in 1917.

Cheers Roop - excellent find!

ciao,

GAC

[auchonvillerssomme]

auchonvillerssomme,

You just stated and quoted the correct brand of cement which has been seen by eyewitnesses in the German trenches. APC it is ! And just that.

However there could be another explanation for APC : Antwerp Portland Cement which was also used by the Germans, next to Obourg, German cement which was delivered from Germany to Belgium over the Dutch rivers... 'used to reconstruct roads and houses behind the front'.

The article on the thread gives Antwerp Portland Cement as the explanation.

Royal Engineers reports on the construction of German Pillboxes discusses the poor quality of german cement and even goes as far as saying 'It is probable with british Portland cement and sand and gravel aggregate the thickness of concrete could be considerably reduced for equal strength'

mick

[centurion]

May I add - good digging Roop. As I suggested Germany had no need to bring in cement from Holland having more than ample domestic supplies.

Doesn't this just show how a suspicion (misfounded) can grow inro a fully fledged myth complete with eye witness accounts and identified villains.

Other WW1 unfounded suspicions that sparked off widespread rumour and resulted in actual actions included;

The British supplier of Maggi Soup was cooperating with the Germans and every enamel Maggi Soup advertisment contained important information about the locality where it was placed for the officers of an invading army/secret agents written on the back. There were large numbers of such adverisments on lamposts, boardings, walls etc. So widespread did the rumour become that parties were organised to go round unsrewing the signs. Needless to say no secret messages were found. This myt, it would seem, originally came from Belgium and a newspaper story that the Maggi signs had been used to provide information to the advancing German army. - no evidence has ever been found to support this.

German sympathisers had had concrete gun emplacements laid out in the guise of domestic tennis courts - again ready for an invading army. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of denunciations which persisted well into 1915 which had to be followed up by the police.

Sir Basil Thompson gives a perfect example of a more ridiculous myth that of the German Governess

"There were several variants of this story but the classic versionwas that the governess was missing from the mid day meal, and when the familycame to open her trunks they discovered under a false bottom a store of high explosive bombs. Everyone who told this story knew the woman's employer; some had even seen the governess herself in happier days - 'such a nice quiet person, so fond of the children, but now one comes to think of it there was a something in her face, impossibe to describe, but a something' "

In fact the story originated in a popular play "The man who stayed at home" whch was the origin of a number of other myths.

[auchonvillerssomme]

this is another excerpt

[auchonvillerssomme]

2

[PBI]

So Maybe David Watson of the 9th Royal Scots didnt suffer from False memorys after all when recounting His Eyewitness Account of Cement Bags at Y Ravine and at Rotterdam Harbour ?.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Can I just say what a marvellously informative thread I think this has turned out to be thanks to the efforts of all who have taken the trouble to contribute to it! It certainly didn't start off promisingly on the basis of something half remembered from either a book or a documentary, and cement production didn't seem a topic likely to set people's imaginations afire. And yet what has been unearthed by members research has revealed a forgotten public debate which had consequences at government level and upon which time and effort were spent in investigations by a special Commission. A nice little Great War footnote revealed!

I think, too, that this might be one of those cases where what people believed was true, or might be true at the time is at least as important in considering their actions as what we know with the benefit of hindsight and historical research to have actually been the case.

Here's a final thought, though. If the investigating Committee had found evidence of cement of British origins in the samples from German pillboxes, would their report have been suppressed? I can only imagine that if such evidence had been found at a time when British troops were still being killed assaulting these German emplacements, then the public outcry and political ramifications would have been enormous. I think, too, that although the Committee concluded that, in the case of cement at least, there was no evidence of British exports getting into the wrong hands via exports to neutral countries, yet we're all aware that in all wars there are those who emerge considerably wealthier as a result of not being too concerned where their products were sold to. Timothy West's character Bradley Hardacre in 'Brass' was a brilliant satire on this kind of big-business amorality!

ciao,

GAC

[AOK4]

If anybody would still be interested in this story, there's something in my book "Defending the Ypres Front 1914-1918. Trenches, Shelters & Bunkers of the German Army" about this.

 

Jan

[ilkley remembers]

There are a significant number of instances where British companies continued to trade with Germany during the war so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that cement from a British company was sent to a German customer.

[KONDOA]

On 27/05/2019 at 22:51, Appleby92 said:

A quick google search will show you that blue circle was founded in 1900... 

I wrote to the company and they sent me a hardback of the corporate history and Blue circle as a company didn't exist in WW1.

[durhamdave]

can i just add that i worked for blue circle for years the blue circle was the trade mark of one of the Kentish founder manuafcturers. In the 2000 published history of blue circle it is stated that the bags in question where from the Belgian company the Antwerp Portland Cement Company and that the bags in question where lead sealed and British bags where not. the company stated cement was selling in Holland at £6 per ton while Germany had ample cement at lower cost it should also be stated that cement was often sold in barrels at this time and that sacks where 2 cwt hessian both returnable

 

reguards dave.

 

 

[Moonraker]

On 27/05/2019 at 16:51, Appleby92 said:

A quick google search will show you that blue circle was founded in 1900... 

My quick Google led to Wikipedia:

 

"Blue Circle Industries was a British public company manufacturing cement.^[1] It was founded in 1900 as the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd through the fusion of 24 cement works, mostly located on the Thames and Medway estuaries, together having around a 70% market share of the British cement market. In 1911, the British Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd. was formed by the addition of a further 35 companies, creating a company with an initial 80% of the British cement market. Subsequently, the company expanded overseas, predominantly into commonwealth countries and South and Central America. The energy crisis of the 1970 caused the contraction of the company, and the sale of its overseas plants. In 1978, the company officially changed its name to Blue Circle."

 

Moonraker

[ilkley remembers]

Checked newspaper reports from the time and they seem to confirm what Durhamdave said.

 

It seems to have started as a November 1917 report by the 'Daily Mail' alleging that British cement being loaded for export to neutral Holland was being diverted for use the German army.

 

Other newspapers repeated the story and it was subsequently investigated by the Committee on the Export of Cement to Holland who stated that Germany had no shortage of its own cement but they had taken over a cement manufacturing plant in Antwerp and that the bags seen were marked 'Canon Brand' (see below). The committee also suggested that if British bags had been seen then it was likely that these could date from pre-war stock held at Antwerp. Cement from German pillboxes was also analysed and found not to contain British cement.

 

Britain continued to supply the Dutch with cement for the remainder of the war largely for the construction of sea defences, which must have been cheery news for that boy who stuck his finger in the dike. (deliberate use of alternative spelling to avoid any confusion)

 

The fact was however that a number of firms were prosecuted during WW1 for trading with the enemy and that fairly hefty terms of imprisonment were handed out to the various miscreants. There is also the oft repeated story of how early in the war the British Government considered swapping supplies of rubber for German binoculars

 

 

Edited 29 May , 2019 by ilkley remembers

[Guest]

These would suggest the Blue Circle cement company existed in 1925

 

https://www.ranchiartandbooks.co.uk/ourshop/prod_4194076-The-Blue-Circle-Magazine-Vol-1-July-1925-October-1926-Portland-House-1926-SOLD-05012017.html

 

https://www.lfchistory.net/Players/Player/Profile/770#otherclubs