13. German naval experts however were baffled as to why Spee attacked the base
—his ships were already fully ‘coaled up’ and how could the two squadrons
have met so coincidentally in so many thousands of square miles of open
water? It was generally believed at the time, that Spee was misled by the
German admiralty into attacking the Falklands—which acted as a coaling
station and wireless relay station for the British—as his intelligence, received
from the German wireless station at Valparaiso, reported the port to be free of
Royal Navy warships. The probable truth however is that von Spee was lured
towards the British battle cruiser squadron by means of a fake signal sent in a
German naval code broken by British cryptographers, and although such
deception would normally have been against the British Naval Staff’s policy,
the bizarre nature of Spee’s action may well have alerted the Germans to the
fact that their code had been broken. There were many in the British
Government that suggested that such information should be kept hidden for
much more important occasions. Bennett, op. cit. (note 11).
14. He was now to receive 1.5 pfennig for every kilogram of ammonia produced
by the BASF, and his royalties had already far exceeded his annual salary.
15. Daniel Charles, Between Genius and Genocide, Jonathan Cape, London,
(2005), pp. 175–6.
16. However, ammonia is flammable and burns in air to produce water and
nitrogen. Because of the lack of motor fuels, this was used in Belgium in the
Second World War to fuel buses. From Inside Science, BBC Radio Four, 04
September 2014, with Andreas Sella and William David.
17. Cordite’ consisted of nitroglycerine (58%), ‘gun cotton’ or nitrocellulose
(38%), and ‘Vaseline’ (4%). Cordite generates sufficient pressure to propel an
artillery shell to its target, but not enough to destroy the barrel of the gun.
18. Potash of course could have been used to produce potassium nitrate directly
according to K 2 CO 3 + 2HNO 3 = 2KNO 3 + H 2 O + CO 2 but ‘soda’ was far
more available. Together with the abundant source of Sylvite and the longstanding production of potassium nitrate from sodium nitrate by double
decomposition followed by fractional crystallisation, this route was more
sustainable and familiar, (Chap. 3).
19. In addition to their contribution to WW1, the ammonia plants were the
genesis of the German military-industrial complex which was soon to develop
other high-pressure techniques for the production of another essential
component of 20th century warfare, viz, oils and fuels, from Germany’s vast
coal reserves. The original high pressure ‘coal to oil’ process was created of
course by Bergius who worked at Karlsruhe with Haber and Le Rossignol for
one semester in 1907 (Chap. 2). The Fischer-Tropsch process however,
catalytically hydrogenated carbon monoxide at 200–300 °C and 10–60 atm
to create hydrocarbons. Both the carbon monoxide and the hydrogen being
obtained from coal. By November 1935, less than three years after
Germany’s Nazi government came to power and demanded petroleum
268
D. Sheppard
—his ships were already fully ‘coaled up’ and how could the two squadrons
have met so coincidentally in so many thousands of square miles of open
water? It was generally believed at the time, that Spee was misled by the
German admiralty into attacking the Falklands—which acted as a coaling
station and wireless relay station for the British—as his intelligence, received
from the German wireless station at Valparaiso, reported the port to be free of
Royal Navy warships. The probable truth however is that von Spee was lured
towards the British battle cruiser squadron by means of a fake signal sent in a
German naval code broken by British cryptographers, and although such
deception would normally have been against the British Naval Staff’s policy,
the bizarre nature of Spee’s action may well have alerted the Germans to the
fact that their code had been broken. There were many in the British
Government that suggested that such information should be kept hidden for
much more important occasions. Bennett, op. cit. (note 11).
14. He was now to receive 1.5 pfennig for every kilogram of ammonia produced
by the BASF, and his royalties had already far exceeded his annual salary.
15. Daniel Charles, Between Genius and Genocide, Jonathan Cape, London,
(2005), pp. 175–6.
16. However, ammonia is flammable and burns in air to produce water and
nitrogen. Because of the lack of motor fuels, this was used in Belgium in the
Second World War to fuel buses. From Inside Science, BBC Radio Four, 04
September 2014, with Andreas Sella and William David.
17. Cordite’ consisted of nitroglycerine (58%), ‘gun cotton’ or nitrocellulose
(38%), and ‘Vaseline’ (4%). Cordite generates sufficient pressure to propel an
artillery shell to its target, but not enough to destroy the barrel of the gun.
18. Potash of course could have been used to produce potassium nitrate directly
according to K 2 CO 3 + 2HNO 3 = 2KNO 3 + H 2 O + CO 2 but ‘soda’ was far
more available. Together with the abundant source of Sylvite and the longstanding production of potassium nitrate from sodium nitrate by double
decomposition followed by fractional crystallisation, this route was more
sustainable and familiar, (Chap. 3).
19. In addition to their contribution to WW1, the ammonia plants were the
genesis of the German military-industrial complex which was soon to develop
other high-pressure techniques for the production of another essential
component of 20th century warfare, viz, oils and fuels, from Germany’s vast
coal reserves. The original high pressure ‘coal to oil’ process was created of
course by Bergius who worked at Karlsruhe with Haber and Le Rossignol for
one semester in 1907 (Chap. 2). The Fischer-Tropsch process however,
catalytically hydrogenated carbon monoxide at 200–300 °C and 10–60 atm
to create hydrocarbons. Both the carbon monoxide and the hydrogen being
obtained from coal. By November 1935, less than three years after
Germany’s Nazi government came to power and demanded petroleum
268
D. Sheppard