The "marks" of cartridge cases treated in Crewe Works were those appertaining to the 18-pounder gun and the 4·5 howitzer, and it so happened that just at the time of the formation of the Coalition Government in May, 1915, when, under the auspices of Mr. Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, in the words of Sir J. French, "to organise the nation's industrial resources upon a stupendous scale was the only way if we were to continue with success the great struggle which lay before us," cartridge cases, bruised, and mud-bespattered, first commenced to make their appearance at Crewe. The earliest arrivals were the 18-pounder long or shrapnel shell cartridge cases, and the 30,000 odd of these cases which were repaired may be regarded as a foretaste of what was to follow, and were to some extent indicative of the then prevailing position in regard to the supply of ammunition to the B.E.F. in France. "As early as the 29th of October," writes Sir John French in his remarkable production entitled "1914," "the War Office were officially told that during the most desperate period of the first battle of Ypres, when the average daily expenditure of 18-pounder ammunition had amounted to 81 rounds per gun, and in some cases the enormous total of 300 rounds, the state of the ammunition supply had necessitated the issue of an order restricting expenditure to 20 rounds, and that a further restriction to 10 rounds would be necessary if the supply did not improve." Actually during the winter 1914-1915 the number of rounds per 18-pounder gun fell to less than five! Shrapnel (which it is interesting to remember was first used in the Peninsular War of 1808-14, and of which the older form of shell was filled merely with gunpowder as compared with the modern filling of bullets) was, however, "ineffective against the occupants of trenches, breastworks, and buildings," consequently guns required 50 per cent. of high-explosive shell "to destroy many forms of fortified localities that the enemy constructs, more particularly his machine-gun emplacements"; and in a secret memorandum despatched by Sir John French to the War Office in the spring of 1915 it was urged that "large quantities of high-explosive shells for field guns have become essential owing to the form of warfare in which the Army is engaged." Evidently the "Talking Men" at the back were beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, if nothing else, in face of the reports which the "Fighting Men" at the front were sending home with a firm persistence, for in spite of "the disinclination of the War Office prior to the war to take up seriously the question of high explosives" due to the assumption that their true nature and the correct particulars which govern their construction were not properly understood, as they (the War Office) "had too little experience of them," and perhaps because of the fact, for instance, that "the battle (of Neuve Chapelle) had to be broken off after three