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The Shell Crisis of 1915 brought down the government of the United Kingdom during World War I because it was widely perceived that the production of artillery shells for use by the British Army was inadequate.

After the failure of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Sir John French mentioned to The Times war correspondent, Colonel Charles Repington, that it failed due to a lack of shells. The Shell Scandal was reported back to the Home Front by The Times, which described the scandal in graphic detail, clearly pointing the finger of blame at the government.

This led to the Shell Crisis of 1915, which brought down the Liberal British government under the Premiership of Herbert Henry Asquith. He formed a new coalition government dominated by Liberals and appointed Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front.

Supplies and factories in British Commonwealth countries, particularly Canada, were reorganised under the Imperial Munitions Board, in order to supply adequate shells and other materiels for the remainder of the war.

A huge munitions factory, HM Factory, Gretna was built on the English-Scottish border to produce Cordite.

An idle part of a factory in Silvertown was pressed into service to manufacture TNT; this exploded, killing 73 and injuring 400.

While this article focuses on the UK, similar problems arose for all the combatants of 1914.

Firstly, consumption of field artillery ammunition, mostly the then standard shrapnel-shell was far higher than anticipated.

Time fused shrapnel shell fire was so effective that the war shifted very rapidly to trenches, and then siege conditions. It was not the Maxim gun that did this. Then the demand for shrapnel shell rapidly exceeded the available reserves and projected production. First crisis.

But then High Explosive (HE) shell became the preferred projectile, shrapnel being useless against dug-in targets. But the volume demanded was immense far exceeding available technical and human capacity. And, HE is a very different proposition to make and use, and was not then a well understood / 'mature' product. An out of specification HE shell - for example: high to gauge - is likely to explode in the gun barrel, (called a barrel premature); and, unlike a shrapnel shell, will destroy the gun and kill the gun's crew! The rate of these gun accidents rose sharply until 1918. More gun manufacturing capacity, needed too. Higher gunner casualties, too!

The problems were still not fully resolved when the great bombardment began for the Battle of the Somme.

• The Shell Scandal, 1915
• HM Factory, Gretna

• Adams, R.J.A., (1978). Arms and the Wizard: Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions 1915 -1916. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-29916-2.
• Carnegie, David (1925). The History of Munitions Supply in Canada 1914-1918. London: Longmans Green and Co.
• Lloyd George, David, (1933). War memoirs of David Lloyd George. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson.