The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-05-26
NEW FRENCH GUNS EXCEL
GERMAN 42=CENTIMETRE
Visit to Creusot Gun Works Reveal
Marvellous Organization of the
French for War Weapons.

Lincoln Eyre, a special correspond
ent of the New York World, writing
from Paris, says;
Holding back Germany's legions
is the task of the republics young
manhood, but it is all the people of
France who are making the NUM-
tions of war. Thousands upon thou
sands of them, men, women, even
children, all ages and all classes,
have hand in the ceaseless business
of supplying guns and shells and car
tridges to the French armies up in
the north.
"How this host of workers carries
out it's grim work, what the French
government is doing to surpass in the
manufacture of implements of death
it's wideawake competitors across the
Rhine, the correspondent of the
World has just been afforded an op-
portunity to study at the closest
range:
"On the invitation of the minister
of war, l have visited the three most
important armament works in
France, a privilege never before
granted to an American newspaper
man.
'The inevitable conclusion formed
from such an inspection is that the
work Of the Krupps may be good, but
it can not be better than that of the
Creusot plant. Although the official
name of the great French gunmakers
is Schneider & Co., the brand OF
death dealing instruments they pro-
duce is generally called Creusot, be-
cause their principal factory is in the
small town Of LIE Creusot, in the
Saone region.
"My visit included, besides this
monster plant, the French govern
ment's artillery construction shops
and the tSchoole Of Explosives at
Bourges. In the latter establish
ment shells made all over France re-
ceive their chal ges. Armament man
ufactures in France are not concen-
trated in one place, as at Essen, in
Germany. Roeder reported forty-six
thousand workers at Kr Ipp's. In
Schneider's, the government plants
and those affiliated with them, there
are well over fifty thousand, and still
this figure falls short by many thou
sands of the vast total of Frenchmen
and women laboring to provide Gen.
Joffre with cannon and other needs.
From the viewpoint of military
Importance the most interesting
thing saw was the sensational artil-
lery surprise France has in store, for
her enemy. Two mighty guns, neith-
er of which has yet been fired at the
German lines, are hidden away in
huge recesses Of the Creusot works,
waiting the psychological moment fix
ed by the French general staff for
their appearance.
Zone of them is massive howit-
zer, with a thirty-seyen-centimetre
muzzle, destined to hurl shells heavi-
er than a good sized office safe. Not
only the gun itself but the shell as
well is claimed by the French to be
far superior in every way to the
much vaunted German forty-two.
about their other prodigy the
Creusot management is even less
communicative. One is forbidden to
uSAlioA 40 SCl1Dl "1l1Nl 40 o&i0AStJ
less than that of it's big brother; but
perhaps one may state that its eff
cheney is spreading wholesale death is
even greater than that Of the thirty
seven.
"Of special interest was the spec
tacle of scores of American-made ma
chimes, bearing such names as the
Brown and Sharpe Manufacturing
company, Providence, R. l., and War
ner and Swassey company, Cleveland,
automatically grinding out fuses for
French shells in the big room from
which issue daily one hundred thou
sand fuses.
"The manufacture of fuses alone
keeps many hundreds busy. There
are four hundred machines engaged
on this work, and half of them are Of
American make. I saw a change
gear table, printed in English, on the
wall Of one loom made by the Acme
company of Cleveland. Much of the
lubricating oil that pours over them,
also comes from the United States"