Abbeville progress. (Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, La.) 1913-1944, 1915-01-30


u a feed the warrior Time
WV was when the best cap
9 tain was he who best
Ivr&T0 could rob the country to
ssIA&IzEH fill the stOmachs of his
~>0-El---- fighting men; when arm
les lived off the land and grew fat
when the larders round about the bat
tlefield were well provided. or starved
when the fortunes OF war or TN needs
of strategy staged the fight far from
human habitatiOns. Not so today
Nictuals and victories so together. In
the long campaign big guns and high
powered rifles are less important than
good bread and beef. If a modern
army were to attempt to take its prov
ender from the territory over which
it travelled it would have to keep on
the move all the time. for in a few
days II would exhaust the provisions
of even the most fertile countryside.
Like a cloud of locusts it would eat
bare the fields it traversed.
A nation going to war must think
first how ii will feed its million men
in the field. = nation preparing over
a long period of years for life an
death struggle with its neighbors
must spend as much thought and
money on its lines of military COM
muniSation as on its fortresses and
ornaments. Science, which has revo-
lutionized every branch of warfare,
has evolved a commissary system
which transcends anything dreamed
of by the great leaders of other days.
And the men behind the fighting line,
the men whose business it is to see
that the army's Unsuitable NAV is sup
piled with a steady stream OF provi-
sions, are no less heroes than the
men facing death in the trenches. 1t
is quite as big a Job to feed as it is
to lead a million men. Indeed, the
mistakes of a general at the front may
be far less costly than. the mistakes
of a commissariat at the rear. Cour-
age and enterprise may make the
struggle even though officers blunder
and re-enforcements fail to arrive.
Imagine the vastness of the task of
feeding millions of men on a battle
line hundreds of miles long. The great
battle line in France for weeks ex-
tended over two hundred miles. Fac
ing each other on that vast line are
probably between three and four mil
lion soldiers. They must get three
square meals a day. They must
get plenty of food, nourishing food.
well-cooked and served hot. The
concentrated rations in use by all
governments and customarily carried
by soldiers on the march for emer-
gency purposes are not intended for
day -in-day-out use. The soldier must
have a varied diet, consisting OF meat
and bread and vegetables and some
thing to drink-and a little dessert
now and then-precisely as must the
clerk or the mechanic or the profess
sional man. How does he get 1t?
He wouldn't get it at ali If Il were
not for the railroad train and the mo-
tor truck. They have been laying their
railroads with the thought that some
day a great war would come in which
1t would be essential to mobilize all
their men without a moments delay,
and move them to some point on their
frontiers. Therefore they built many
and splendid railroad lines. Germany
especially saw the need for railroads
built for her army as much as for her
civilians. There was no sense in
arming and training a mighty host OF
men unless at the same time she built
great railroad lines to carry them to
the scene of war. and after they we're