91

This article briefly traces the phase of the overhaul of the French synthetic ammonia industry from the Treaty of Versailles to the approval of the law of 11 April 1924 establishing the country’s national industrial nitrogen office (ONIA), paving the way for the construction of the Toulouse plant over a period of four years. The first yield of ammonia was produced exactly three years later. Although Article 297 of the Treaty stipulated that Germany had to grant its patents to the Allies, it soon became clear that this necessary condition was not sufficient and that negotiations had to be held with the directors of BASF, the holder of the Haber-Bosch patent for the synthetic manufacture of ammonia, for the effective transfer of the complex practical processes involved in its manufacture. In addition, the debates between chemists, the heads of the main private chemical companies and the French government at war’s end delayed the initially hoped-for overhaul of an industry that was lagging far behind its German counterpart, which was cartelizing, uniting and developing. In this description, based on an abundant literature, special mention is made of one of the protagonists of this episode in the reconstruction of the national production infrastructure, Georges Patart (X 1889), Inspector General of the government department in charge of explosives and a chemist who invented methanol synthesis, who very early on defended the Haber-Bosch process and succeeded in imposing it as the national choice.JEL codes: I65, L52, I65, O31