La Chimie et la Guerre, Science et Avenir

Abstract

THE well-known publishing house of Masson et Cie, Paris, is issuing a series of volumes under the general title of “Les Leçons de la Guerre,” with special reference to the experiences, circumstances, and prospects of France. The books which have already appeared deal with the military, naval, and aeronautical lessons of the war; with the effect of the war, immediate and prospective, on French industry; with alimentation and revictualling; and lastly with the influence of science, and particularly of chemistry, on the war, and, reciprocally, with the influence of the war on the present condition and future development of that science. The volume under review is the work of Prof. C. Moureu, member of the Institute of France, professor of the College de France, president of the Chemical Society of France and of the International Union of Chemistry. No one is better fitted to expound the mutual relations of chemistry and war than Prof. Moureu, for no one during its course took a more active part in placing all the resources of that science at the disposal of his country. As is now well recognised, all the Allies vied with Germany in enlisting the services of their chemists in the prosecution of the war, and their united energy, resourcefulness, and skill eventually crushed their adversary. As the war was conducted, military valour, tenacity, and intelligent direction would not alone have decided the issue. Germany had imported a new element into the struggle which gave her an enormous initial advantage. The services of her great chemical manufacturing establishments had been deliberately and sedulously linked up for years previously with the war which was being prepared for in such a manner that, on its outbreak, all their appointments and machinery could at once be made available for its ruthless prosecution by every means which the diabolical ingenuity of their chemists could suggest. La Chimie et la Guerre, Science et Avenir. By Prof. Charles Moureu. (“Les Leçons de la Guerre”.) Pp. iii + 384. (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1920.) 10 francs net.