The Leader, enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1915-1921, 1917-07-13
CONDITIONS
IN FRANCE

Paris, June 20 (By delayed mail) -
That the French army soon will be
too weak to effectively resist heavy
blow is the frank admission of per-
son III authority i'll the government.
France has no longer enough men to
maintain both her lines in the tren-
ches and her striking reserve. Nv in
dormant says that all French military
officers realize that France is beaten
already.
The arrival of American troops has
heartened the masses of the people,
but the high army command knows
well that the $4,000 American soldiers
in France are of little value, except
as an advertisement, and that it will
be impossible to get enough men to
/ France to be effective before several
months, by which time the French re-
sistance, will have crumpled by sheer
exhaustion.
1t is said here that in certain quar-
tiers there is much criticism OF iicll-
eral Peta;6s unauthorized cable to an
American newspaper asking for Am
erican troops, which was sent at the
request of a prominent American in
Paris l am also informed that Gen
Joffre denies that he ever asked for
American troops in Washington, but
that the report of his having done so
was the exaggeration of an American
newspaper man. The French govern
ment, as far as l can gather, has al
ways been distinctly opposed to the
sending of American troops to the
western front.
Rumors of peace continue to crop
UP here with great frequency. The
peace influence is being exerted in
two quarters-the radicals of the ex-
IRENE left in the Chamber of Deputies
and the haute banque, the great hnan-
cial interests. 1t was a representative
of Caillaux, chief exponent of the
politics of high finance, who lodged
the most vigorous protest against
Premier Ribot's action in forbidding
the Socialist deputies to go to Stock
holm.
Paris is different city from the
Paris of only six months ago. Things
are infinitely more tragic here; there
are more women in mourning on the
streets, more men with the faces of
children and idiots, gone mad from
shell shock. The attractive side of
Partisan night life has been trans
muted largely into sheer, ugly vice, as
is always the case in great catastro-
Plies.
The cost of living has risen enor-
mously. For instance, at the same
hotel where l stayed two years ago at
charge of 4 francs $50 cents) per
day, the same room now costs IS
francs (about $500. Tea and rolls in
modest cafe cost me francs; two
years ago the bill would have been
about Is cents.
The city is full of Americans who
are afraid to go home because of the
submarine campaign. Many of these
Americans are soldiers invalided from
the front or ambulance men whose
enlistment has run out; they have
been in battle under fire, and in the
greatest danger, but the thought OF
the submarine is too much for them
SO many passenger ships crossing
the. channel are now being DESTROYED
by torpedoes that it is considered
more dangerous to go from Paris to
London just now than to 90 from
Bordeaux to New York. 1t has also
become about half as expensive as the
translantic trip, and all the insurance
companies absolutely refuse to under
write the channel trip. This invasion
Of the channel by U-boats is the most