Toasters, Bulbs, And Bullets


   The social and political ramifications of the war were only just starting to take shape as the second anniversary drew near. They were obvious but, as of yet, no one had dreamed they would directly impact the on going military operations. That is not to imply that this was a new development in the annals of military history. Those factors had always been there but, were rarely noticed by military men who were very technical professionals and quite often oblivious to anything that was not an immediate concern on the battlefield. What had changed was not just the industrialization of war but, in the course of the 19th century, the art of mass killing had been turned into a science that wielded statistics, as a weapon, as often as it did a rifle. The men who crunched numbers were starting to see a few things that had been overlooked in the centuries past.
The factor that caught the attention of the military mathematicians first, and indeed greatly impacted the social climate, were the economic issues that were a direct result of the conflict. In this case, it was not because anyone had ignored or overlooked it. Every government had some kind of plan that dealt with the issues of protecting their economy while attacking that of the enemy. What no one had managed to do was to understand the scale and shape that this silent war would take. I choose the word silent because this aspect of the war was not being waged in the newspapers and this included the presses of the nations that were free to print what they chose.
That would also impact the social and it was a great irony of the war in that the only ones printing anything about it were social agitators and small political extremists groups who devoted much ink to hand bills that, with hindsight, seemed to be uncharacteristically accurate given the source. It was once noted, by former Confederate President James Longstreet, the easiest day for a propagandist is, “the day he only has to print the truth.” With this in mind, it must be noted, that the political and social agitators were having a very easy time with the war. It was also the reason no one listened to them. The best way to loose an argument is to overstate your case and that is exactly what these small groups had been doing for years. People no longer believed anything they had to say and this included things that were obviously true.
Yet with even more irony, the one group that knew these handbills were not only accurate but, barely scratched the surface of the growing problem, were the people that the authors of the bills wanted to replace. By the summer of 1900, the national leaders of every nation on Earth had already seen the facts and they did not wish to advertise any of it. This was as true for the remaining neutrals as it was for the belligerents. The fact was that severe shortages were on the way and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The problem was not one of production and this allowed the major powers to keep a lid on the information for some time. Despite many claims after the war, the increase in the military over civilian consumption had little to do with the shortages and rationing. The reason for this seems to be the pressure the war was putting on the industrialized infrastructure. Demand on manufacturers were increasing and the materials they had to work with were rapidly going in the opposite direction.
In a normal supply and demand market this would usually just result in extremely high prices but, this is not what happened or, at least, not on the military side. Governments held their industrialists to fixed prices and only increased them when it became clear that this situation would cause a business to collapse. In effect, even in nations that had a free market, their entire industrial infrastructure had become practically nationalized for the duration of the war. This gave some short term advantages to the belligerents powers but, these measures would result in long term social and economic turmoil that would echo for decades to come.
Needless to say, the situation forced the manufacturing sectors to imply new methods, try new ideas, and streamline their efforts in order to survive this new situation. If they did not then they were liable to become casualties of the war despite the fact that not a single explosive or attack had yet to strike a heavily industrialized region. That is how the industrialists became the first ones, beyond the governments, to really notice what the true problem was. The world transportation net was slowly breaking down.
While governments had expected such problems they had failed to grasp both the nature and scope. They understood that they would loose resources from regions that were now hostile. They understood that transportation would become more expensive as both raw materials and finished products would have to be rerouted. They knew they would loose considerably more transported materials than was common in peace time. What they did not count on was the naval quagmire.
After the battle of the Yellow Sea, no major power was willing to risk their primary battle fleets. Indeed, as we shall see, the only major naval actions after that point were forced on the belligerents out desperation as opposed to a carefully planned strikes. Too have a fleet crippled or destroyed could easily cost either side the war and it was a fact that everyone was all too aware of. This left the sea in a near state of anarchy. It also left both sides nipping at each other’s heels as they attempted to disrupt enemy merchant shipping while protecting their own.
As the major powers discovered, neither side in the war had a clear cut advantage as the strength’s and weaknesses were canceling each other out. It became a field day for commerce raiding, fast, attack cruisers that would wreak havoc on the unarmed merchant shipping that was too numerous and wide spread to be completely protected by anyone. In the first year of the war, nearly every unguarded sea lane, of which there were many, had come to a standstill.
This also included those of many neutral nations (and was most definitely a factor in Italy’s entrance into the war) who would loose far fewer ships than those of the belligerents but, it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. In most cases, their losses were not enough to warrant joining the conflict but, more than enough for them to have to stop their shipping. Most of these small nations also lacked the ability to form protective convoys which was the only real counter to the threat of privateers. As a result, a great deal of hauling tonnage would sit out the war in various neutral ports around the world.
The nations that did have the ability to offer protection to their shipping fleets faired only slightly better. There were never enough warships to adequately guard them all. Convoys almost always produced stray ships that could either not keep up or got lost for various reasons. Many enemy cruisers would follow the convoys and stay well within visual range but, just outside the range of the guns that protected it. These raiders would then quickly pounce on any vessel that got out of formation.
It proved to be impossible to hide the convoy schedules and, worst of all, they were terribly slow. The swift warships, that protected the cargo haulers, found themselves at the mercy of the slowest buckets in their small groups. Most of these civilian ships were built for cost and, as a result, were not terribly fast or adequately protected for even the most mundane conditions that were standard in combat operations. The speed of their engines was, also, only one factor in their general mobility. Convoy’s had to be assembled and doing this in the best of conditions is not so simple. When you’re dealing with many ships who all have their own time schedules and concerns there is no rushing it.
The ultimate result of this was that even when losses to the enemy did not slow down the transfer of goods, the simple rate of transfer was drastically reduced. Naturally, due to this situation, the governments took control of the cargo manifests and prioritized them according to their needs, with militarily significant goods getting priority over everything else. This would begin to exacerbate many of the problems on land as the war planners had yet to factor in the social disruptions, many of which were unforeseeable.
One fact that definitely escaped all of the collective information of the stasticians was the fact that most of the industrialized economies had grown into consumer markets that relied greatly on any number of highly specialized goods. There is no better product to illustrate this than something as simple, and taken for granted, as the light bulb. The market for electrical products, and it’s two competing forms, alternating and direct currents, was rapidly expanding and seemed limitless. Many an industrialist knew that this market was the key to untold wealth and were eager to get in on the ground floor. The light bulb was quite literally lighting the path to the future. The war was dimming it’s prospects.
Most major cities, in the industrialized nations, had active power plants by 1900. These were used to power any number of devices but, the most common was artificial lighting and that required the bulbs. The light bulb had become so common that it’s availability had already become taken for granted in cities. Even in modern times light bulbs have a reputation for quickly burning out and uneven quality. This was definitely the case at the turn of the 20th century. Without a constant supply of the bulbs, the wires hanging from most kitchen and common room ceilings were effectively useless to the average family.
The first shortages of the bulbs show up on the historical record in several adds that appeared in the New York Times in the spring of 1899. There was another feature that was becoming common to the consumer market, at the time, and this was the department store. Several of these, including the one of the most successful of the lot, Tiffany’s, placed competing advertisements announcing that they had a sale on light bulbs. This would not be so unusual except that none of these stores ever sold such items before now. Most people had become accustomed to buying this product at either hardware, general, or dry good stores along with the occasional specialty shop. Now it seemed the department stores had managed to grab a significant portion of the supply because, they reasoned, that supply was dwindling and high profits were too be made.
There was also another, and somewhat darker, reason that the big stores got into the electricity business and it was, perhaps, due to a little known casualty of the war. Macy’s had been the one store that started the light bulb wars in New York City and their reason for doing so had nothing to do with selling the actual bulbs. Macy’s had found a niche that boosted it’s sales at the end of every year. It was promoting a holiday that had been growing in popularity since the mid 19th century. It was an old holiday called Christams and one that had been largely ignored, in the English speaking world, for centuries.
It was a German Prince, who was married to Queen Victoria, that first made the holiday gain notoriety when he brought his boyhood traditions to Buckingham palace and put up a Christmas Tree that captivated the imagination of the public. Department stores on both sides of the Atlantic were quick to realize the implications of the gift giving aspect of the tradition and they would begin too heavily promote it. Within twenty years, Christmas was paired with new technologies, mainly electricity and the light bulb, which made it safe and affordable for everyone to light up a Christmas tree and even their homes and businesses. By the time of the war the fad was growing and the holiday was as popular as ever. It was not entirely standard in everyone’s mindset, however.
Macy’s Department store realized the implications of not having the ability to light up a Christmas tree which would disuade many from celebrating the holiday at all. Indeed, the war had already taken it’s toll just from the simple fact that people were now far more concerned with day to day issues. They could also ill afford the brand new cosumer products that were becoming ever more common before the war. Macy’s sales were taking a nose dive. Christmas was important to them because their name had become almost synonymous with the holiday.
Their plans to horde the bulbs did not work out either. Not only did the sudden influx of sales from the competitors force them to begin selling the supplies that they were stockpiling for December but, the US Government became involved. Eventually Macy’s had no choice but to sell off their supplies and, as a result, people were no longer decorating for the holiday. Christmas would eventually fizzle out like a bad bulb and, Macy’s right along with it. The department store would go out of business in less than ten years. Their plans for a parade, their annual pageantry, and their huge productions would all vanish into the annals of history and be forgotten. Christmas would go back to being the holiday of drunks and loafers as it had been a century before.
It was not just the fact that the bulb was an essential element to modern life (and war production). It was not that the bulb required a complex process to manufacture. The single biggest problem that created the shortages was the fact that many of the needed materials to create them, particularly in the fillament coils, had other more critical uses in the manufacture of war materials. While a good deal of the material was common in many nations, it only took the lack of one substance to make the product either cost more or, impossible to manufacture at all.
At least the light bulb survived. It’s utility was simply too valuable to everyone. Other products were not so lucky. The electric toaster was such a product. It was the result of much effort by those who were looking for ways to exploit the new technology for commercial purposes. It was very new just before the war but, had become something of a fad. The idea of deliberately burning ones bread had caught on. It had been done before the toaster but, was labor intense and took someone that new what they were doing. As a result, toast was only on the menu’s of the wealthy and pretty much a luxury item. The electric toaster, like the bulb to Christmas trees, had changed all of that, at least, until you could no longer find them for purchase.
The heating elements, the coils, and even the cases were all made of materials that were, for the time, very high tech. That was not even factoring in the insulation for the electric plugs which were made of rubber. The shortages of that particular substance, most of which came from nuetral Holland’s colony in the south Pacific, was almost universal in the industrialized nations. It also had multiple and critical military applications that would only grow as the war went on. This factor would doom any number of consumer products. As a result, the toaster, and the fad that it created would quickly vanish, never to return.
Such casualties of war seem like very small things. In fact, most of them were. The problem was, that while each change was small, their collective weight was enormous. They were impacting attitudes and perceptions. People were slowly realizing that the old days were gone and that the new century was going to be very different from the one they were leaving behind. This changed their behaviors which also included their spending habits. Just like with Macy’s, many businesses began to notice this only to discover one horrifying fact. They could not change to meet their customers new habbits. The war simply would not allow it.
It was a disaster waiting to happen and the only thing holding it back were the war policies of the various world governments. It meant that even after hositilies were concluded, like the child with his finger plugging the leak of a dam, they could not release the control of their infrastructure without it collapsing all around them. Above all else, this would set the tone for the next century and it became the most lasting, and least known, consequence of the world war.