Allies blockade

The Ostwald process is the basis for the modem family of processes that make nitric acid by the catalytic oxidation of ammonia. Wilhelm Ostwald, a German physical chemist, discovered it in 1900. The process was used by Germany during World War I to make explosives after the Allied blockade cut off the regular German supply of nitrites from Chile and other places96. 

Synthetic latex polymers got their first main push during WWI when the Allies blockaded Germany, cutting her off from the South American rubber plantations. It got its second big push in WWII when Japan occupied the South East Asian plantations. Today, manufacture of synthetic latex polymers is a 13 billion industry of which 5.5 billion is from the 604 million gallons of paint made annually. The paint manufacturing industry in 1993 employed 58,200 people in 800 to 900 plants. The average costs of a gallon of latex paint in 1993 were 9.15 wholesale and 13.25 retail. 

Much more important were the supplies of raw materials for munitions and for the "Ersatzindustrie", which were secured in cases by chemicals. Producing ammonia by the newly developed Haber-Bosch process (1911) and then turning it into explosives by oxidation of ammonia (Bosch, Mittasch, Beck, 1913) allowed Germany to continue the war despite the Allied blockade. 

Britain never again enjoyed the advantage of huge balance-of-payments surpluses that had marked the pre-1914 period. Victory had been achieved by a combination of Britain s traditional way of warfare -blockade, loans or subsidies to allies and maritime operations - and an unprecedented continental commitment, but it came at the price of a permanent weakening of British power. 

The American economy was drawn into the European conflict thirty months before the United States officially entered the war. Although the British blockade hurt certain sectors of U.S. transatlantic trade, it also created new opportunities for entrepreneurs. Moreover, unprecedented Allied spending greatly stimulated relevant sectors in the American economy. In the first year of the war. Allied purchasing produced a chaotic bliss for American suppliers. Allied governments sent armies of representatives to the United States in search of everything from mules, food, and leather to steel, artillery, and explosives. France, Britain, Russia, and Italy established offices to supervise purchasing and inspections." ... 

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