Note Back to Main Text — Chapter I

Purchases abroad. Any idea that may have existed that the ordnance factories and the trade would be able to meet all demands from week to week was quickly dispelled. The supply could not keep pace with the need, and in some cases the exhaustion of the home market necessitated large purchases in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Of rifles and other weapons at this time the store was ample, except in the case of sabres, of which, owing to a contemplated change in pattern, the reserve had been allowed to fall very low. There was a complete reserve of ball ammunition of the kinds approved for use in the earlier part of 1899, viz.: Mark II. and Mark IV., Mark IV. the latter having an expanding bullet. During the summer of 1899 it was found that under certain conditions the Mark IV. ammunition developed such serious defects that, apart from the inexpediency of using a bullet which the signatories to the Hague Convention[44] had condemned, it was deemed advisable to withdraw this particular kind of ammunition as unsuitable for war purposes. This meant that two-fifths of the reserve was unserviceable.