Shopping malls are like battlefields.
In 1914, however, people were never satisfied with the happiness of the present, listening to the trumpet of war, the conflict of fighters not only failed to stop the industrialist Andrei, but opened up a new world for him - weapons manufacturing, which injected him with a lot of resources.
At this time, Andrea Citroën had just founded a new company specializing in the production of internal combustion engine vaporizers, but now was not the time to build cars, and the government began to mobilize employees in the industry, asking them to contribute their own technology and production tools for wartime munitions manufacturing. The war, which was supposed to end quickly, was prolonged, requiring more tanks, military vehicles and ammunition.
André Citroën had joined the army in August 1914, serving as a lieutenant and then as an infantry captain in the Second Artillery Regiment of Metz. In January 1915, he proposed to General Louis Bacquet, then chief of artillery of the Ministry of War Affairs, who was also an alumnus of the Polytechnic School, to open a production plant for 75-mm artillery shells (with built-in grenazer projectiles), with a standard production of 10,000 shells per day.
Alumni talked, speculation, and Andrea Citroen won the first order for one million shells, but the construction of the factory did not rule out that the government only invested limited funds, so the burden of financing the construction of the factory fell on Andrea Citroen. He took out his assets and raised money from family and friends, including his father-in-law, Lazard's bank partner, banker Packve Bingen, and wealthy diamond magnate Atanic Eknayan, their cacm, known for his diamond-cutting skills.
His work includes two mysterious diamonds: the Indian pear-shaped diamond and the Blue Heart diamond. In this way, Andrea Citroën bought land in the quay district of Yavel and built his own factory, which he knew very well. Because the Morse factory at 45 rue Teatro and the Citroen gear factory at 31 Quay Street in Grenell are nearby, the land acquired consisted mainly of about 12 hectares of vegetable fields, as well as workshops in the French steel mills. He planned to keep part of the workshop, and three months later the 55,000-square-meter factory was completed, with workers pouring concrete floors, supporting roof frames and metal roof trusses.
As soon as the roofers began to work, the machines in the factory were already in place, and Andrea Citroën, after decades of hardship and difficulty, finally determined that he was stable and stable in the face of unfinished economic means, and decided how to start construction.
And before the brick wall was built, these machines were already spitting out parts of seventy-five mm shells. Taylor's Taylor and Ford's American manufacturing methods have long been engraved in Andrea Citroën's mind, leading him to pursue the rationalization of production. He imported manufacturing machines from the United States, handled conveyors and loading and unloading trucks, and eliminated the transportation of parts from the production process.
The historian Charles Rocherand of Charles Rocherand of Rocherand wrote: "A cut piece of steel follows what the boss at the time called 'section'. After deformation, processing and inspection, it turned into a shell at the end of this process, and soon the production of the factory reached 5,000 shells per day, then climbed to 10,000 and jumped to 40,000, until the soldier was near the end of the factory, which produced a total of 26 million shells.
Andrea Citroën won the war that belonged to him.
