Munitions Men

War mongers had something new to talk about last week--nitrate shipments from Chile to Europe through the Panama Canal. In January 1933, 2,238 tons of the stuff that fires guns as well as fertilizes fields passed through the Canal. Last January nitrate shipments leaped up to 146,167 tons. For the first three weeks of February 93,604 tons were carried through in twelve ships, compared to 33,259 tons for the entire month last year. Half the shipments were under blind sailing orders to the Azores where they would be told their final destination. Westward through the Canal passed a string of empty freighters bound for Chile and more nitrate. Big buyers were France, England, and Russia. Also noted in the Canal Zone was a heavy movement of scrap iron, steel, lead, cotton--the makings of war--from the U. S. to Japan.

Last week a report was circulated in New York that Lloyds was laying 5-to-1 on war somewhere within six months. Massed troops around Austria might mean nothing--but that territory remained the powder box of Europe. More informative than such fearful talk was an article appearing last week in the March FORTUNE on the world's armament industry. In it were detailed the companies which make war possible and the men who sell the products of those companies internationally. Prime FORTUNE facts:

It cost $25,000 to kill one soldier in the World War. Krupp supplied many a gun with which Belgian and Russian soldiers slaughtered German troops at the outbreak of the War. Though forbidden by the Versailles Treaty from making armaments, this famed German company is today rearming Germany and doing a good-sized munitions export business to the Far East and South America.

Vickers-Armstrongs is Britain's big munitions exporter. It operates subsidiary plants in Italy, Japan, Rumania, Spain and The Netherlands. Stock in Vickers or allied enterprises has been held by such famed Peace Men as Sir Austen Chamberlain, Sir John Simon, Lord Balfour and Dean Inge of St. Paul's. Its greatest salesman was a Greek by the name of Basileios Zacharias, who now, in his dotage, is known to the world as Sir Basil Zaharoff. Sir Basil is responsible for the ultimate technique of armament salesmanship: Sell one country an order and use it as a talking point to sell a larger order to a potential enemy. After Sir Basil had sold Greece its first submarine, he promptly induced Turkey to buy two.

But compared to France's Schneider-Creusot most other armament makers are small fry. Through his company, M. Charles Prosper Eugene Schneider controls hundreds of armament firms, mines, smelters and foundries. As a bank director he finances armament loans. As the President of Union Europeenne Industriale et Financiere he has his finger in 230 armament and allied enterprises outside France. Chief of these is Czechoslovakia's Skoda. In this firm French, German, Czech and Polish directors come together in the friendliest spirit to discuss the problems of increasing European consumption of armaments.

Directors in this French-controlled armament firm joined with Fritz Thyssen, German steel man and armament maker, in contributing money which helped Hitler to power. Putative reason: because Hitler was the one man most likely to stir up war in Europe, thus increase armament orders, armament dividends. After Hitler became Chancellor, French newspapers controlled by armorers screamed for more armaments because he threatened French "security."

Above Schneider-Creusot stands the Comite des Forges and above this all-powerful iron and steel organization stands the shadowy figure of Frangois de Wendel. M. de Wendel is regent of the Bank of France. He is a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He owns most of Le Journal des Debats. His international connections during the War were so powerful that, when the Germans took the French iron mines in the Briey basin, the French Army was forbidden to bombard the source of a great part of the ore Germany consumed during the War. With all Governments as their custom ers, munitions men have only one thing to fight -- internationalism. As businessmen their aim is to keep each nation overarmed, to stir up nationalistic anxieties which only guns and shells and tanks can quiet. The de Wendels operate equally well on either side of an international bor der. One branch of the family uses a de in front of its name while the other uses a von.

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