ABSTRACT
The world markets were too small to support the costs of the new industrial technologies developed by William Armstrong, Alfred Krupp and the other large armaments manufacturers. Between 1880 and 1914, governments redefined their relationship with private industrialists in order to maintain the facilities necessary to conduct a major war. Government arsenals and shipyards were incorporated into a larger armaments industry led by private companies whose well-being acquired a national importance. The armaments companies were the source of technological innovation and had the industrial base upon which British and European governments relied to supply the means to carry out foreign policy. The technological rationalisation of the British armaments industry into a naval-industrial complex of which Elswick was a major part was accompanied by a close relationship between the managers of the company and the political managers of the British state.
