page_title: Camille Cavallier
section_title: Chief executive: Pre-war period (1899–1914)
hierarchical_section_title: Camille Cavallier / Chief executive: Pre-war period (1899–1914)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Une tour de Sondage de la société Joseph Vogt construite à Pont-à-Mousson.
context_page_description: Camille Cavallier was a French industrialist who directed the Pont-à-Mousson iron works in Lorraine in the first quarter of the 20th century, specializing in making cast iron pipes.
  He came from a poor family but obtained a good technical education and joined the iron maker as an employee in 1874.
  He rose rapidly through the ranks, and started to acquire shares.
  Soon after taking charge of the company he became the largest shareholder.
  He quadrupled production in the years leading up to World War I.
  The company was devastated by the war, but Cavallier managed to bring production back up to prewar levels before his death.
context_section_description: On 31 January 1899 Camille Cavallier was made joint administrator, and became sole administrator when Rogé retired the next year.
  On 31 March 1899 Cavallier obtained the Mairy concession in the Briey Basin for the company.
  Since becoming head of the company Cavallier devoted a large part of his salary to buying shares in the company.
  In 1900, Cavallier held only 8% of the capital of Pont-à-Mousson, with 236 shares.
  By the time of the meeting of 9 January 1901 he had become the largest shareholder with 816 shares, or 28%, due to acquisition of the shares of Xavier Rogé.
  By 1912 he controlled 36.8%, including the shares of his family members.
  By 1910 Cavallier was worth 10 million gold francs, a large but not huge amount.
  After World War I he controlled 43% of the company's capital.
  His motivation seems to have been primarily to build up the enterprise through hard work rather than to make a personal fortune.
  Cavallier built his house beside the factory on the Nancy–Metz road so that he could be "in the middle of his hive."
  He would work long hours, from 6 in the morning until late at night.
  A general strike started at Pont-à-Mousson in September 1905, the first, triggered by dismissal of the union's treasurer but caused by long-running grievances over pay.
  The strike was a shock to the management.
  Cavallier founded the Fête du travail (Labour Festival) in 1906 in an attempt to reunite the community.
  In 1910 the steelmaker François de Wendel ran for election as deputy in Briey, opposed by a local physician who was supported by the Fédération républicaine. 
  He lost by 3,506 votes to the doctor's 3,820.
  Wendel was convinced, perhaps correctly, that Cavallier had engineered his defeat since he distrusted Wendel's dealings with union leaders and thought he had encouraged the strike .
  Unlike self-made men such as Cavallier and Alexandre Dreux of the Aciéries de Longwy, Wendel was aristocratic, which did not endear him with the other industrialists.
  Cavallier transformed the moderately sized cast iron pipe manufacturer into a giant, always concentrating on making pipes.
  Annual cast iron production rose from 80,000 to 183,000 tons between 1900 and 1913.
  Cavallier studied use of blast furnace gas for production of electrical power, built a test station, then built a large central power station.
  He continued to increase the percent of pipes in the company output.
  In 1903 he installed blast furnaces at Auboué.
  In 1905 he built a foundry at Foug, throwing up the building and furnaces in a month.
  In 1905 Cavallier purchased the Moineville concession, which was later merged with the Auboué concession.
  The company acquired control of the Bayard foundries in Haute-Marne.
  It also took stakes in the Micheville and Marine-Homécourt steel makers, and after the war would take interests in steelworks in Lorraine and the Saar.
  At the 23 January 1900 meeting Cavallier pointed out the importance of securing a supply of coke, and proposed to acquire a concession to open a new coal mine.
  In January 1902 Cavallier began to discuss a joint operation with the Société de Micheville and the Société du Nord et de l'Est to exploit coal deposits in northern Belgium, leading to incorporation of the Société Campinoise on 11 April 1902.
  The Beeringen-Coursel concession was granted to a group of three exploration companies on 26 November 1906, and Pont-à-Mousson participated in creation of the Société des Charbonnages de Beeringen (Beringen Coal Company) on 23 February 1907.
  The Beringen deposit was rich, but covered by a layer 550–700 metres (1,800–2,300 ft) thick of sands containing aquifers. It was not until after World War I (1914–18) that the first pit was opened on 26 December 1921.
  In Lorraine Cavallier explored for a continuation of the Saarbrücken coalfield.
  A test drill of 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) near the central station of the Pont-à-Mousson plant found several layers of coal, but only at great depth.
  The company took an interest in coal mines in several other parts of northern France.
caption: Exploratory drilling shaft for coal built in 1905 by the Société Joseph Vogt for the Société des Fonderies de Pont-à-Mousson
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