Scientific Union in Karlsruhe,
22 Haber’s previous reticence regarding fixation
had disappeared and he now pronounced that in Germany there was;
… an extraordinary need for bound nitrogen, mainly for agricultural purposes
and to a much smaller extent for the explosives industry and the chemical
industry ….
As a partner to Haber, Robert from the outset must have been aware of the
link between his work and the ‘explosives industry’ because Haber was not
expounding anything new here. As early as the summer of 1903 Ostwald had
already written to the newspaper Schwäbische Merkur
23 describing why he had
become involved with the problem of ammonia synthesis in the first place
and why he and his son-in-law Ernst Brauer
24 had developed a process that
oxidised ammonia to form nitric acid—an essential ingredient in the production of the major explosives and propellants of the day viz, TNT (2, 4, 6
tri-nitro toluene), picric acid (2, 4, 6 tri-nitro phenol), and ‘cordite’—a
mixture of ‘gun cotton’ (nitrocellulose), nitro-glycerine and ‘Vaseline’.
Ostwald declared that;
The significance of bound nitrogen … is especially high for both war and
peace.
In the article he described its agricultural significance but went on to develop
its importance in military terms;
There is another agency with a vital interest, the administration of the armed
forces. Without saltpetre the best military is almost helpless … Were a war to
break out today between two great powers, one of which was able to prevent
the export of saltpetre from Chile’s few harbours, that ability alone would allow
it to render its opponent almost incapable of fighting.
Ostwald would not have to look far to find ‘two great powers’ at the time.
Europe was awash with them. Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia,
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire. The smaller but
none-the-less troublesome states of Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia had caused
tensions in Europe for generations and throughout the 19th century the
major players had tried to maintain a balance of power through a complex but
unstable network of political and military alliances. Robert would have been
politically naïve not to have been aware of these tensions and the possibility of
war, but he was just a minor scientist, and with Europe at peace the
7 Taking Care of Business
151
22 Haber’s previous reticence regarding fixation
had disappeared and he now pronounced that in Germany there was;
… an extraordinary need for bound nitrogen, mainly for agricultural purposes
and to a much smaller extent for the explosives industry and the chemical
industry ….
As a partner to Haber, Robert from the outset must have been aware of the
link between his work and the ‘explosives industry’ because Haber was not
expounding anything new here. As early as the summer of 1903 Ostwald had
already written to the newspaper Schwäbische Merkur
23 describing why he had
become involved with the problem of ammonia synthesis in the first place
and why he and his son-in-law Ernst Brauer
24 had developed a process that
oxidised ammonia to form nitric acid—an essential ingredient in the production of the major explosives and propellants of the day viz, TNT (2, 4, 6
tri-nitro toluene), picric acid (2, 4, 6 tri-nitro phenol), and ‘cordite’—a
mixture of ‘gun cotton’ (nitrocellulose), nitro-glycerine and ‘Vaseline’.
Ostwald declared that;
The significance of bound nitrogen … is especially high for both war and
peace.
In the article he described its agricultural significance but went on to develop
its importance in military terms;
There is another agency with a vital interest, the administration of the armed
forces. Without saltpetre the best military is almost helpless … Were a war to
break out today between two great powers, one of which was able to prevent
the export of saltpetre from Chile’s few harbours, that ability alone would allow
it to render its opponent almost incapable of fighting.
Ostwald would not have to look far to find ‘two great powers’ at the time.
Europe was awash with them. Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia,
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire. The smaller but
none-the-less troublesome states of Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia had caused
tensions in Europe for generations and throughout the 19th century the
major players had tried to maintain a balance of power through a complex but
unstable network of political and military alliances. Robert would have been
politically naïve not to have been aware of these tensions and the possibility of
war, but he was just a minor scientist, and with Europe at peace the
7 Taking Care of Business
151