ABSTRACT

The Somme was to prove a learning curve for the industrial warfare of 1917 and 1918, but it also raised an issue of considerable importance to the management of the war economy, and that was the cost of the trade-off between quantity and quality. As the military stalemate continued and industrial warfare accelerated, Britain's commitment to a sustained programme of industrial expansion following the Somme was to present the state with formidable challenges. Great industrial battles such as the Somme were hugely costly not only in terms of lives and the destruction of war material, but also in terms of money. Economics was certainly not one of Lloyd George's strengths, and it would seem that his government's attempt to create and implement a coordinated war economy was little more than piecemeal a missed opportunity that might have shortened the war and saved lives.