Evening star., 1922-12-07
Continued from First Page.D

What does France wish? To live.
She all but Succumbed under the
blows of the enemy. Four times she
wavered. four times she recovered
again. four times. despite all. she
managed to resist that last quarter
of an hour" which enabled her to
await the help of her allies. In
September, 1914. she had thrown her
self imprudently forward with in
sufficient war material Not enough
machine guns: no modern heavy ar
tillery- Our troops. repealed to their
.ardor, retreated back over the Marine,
and how diminished in numbers.
Then. with q tremendous effort. as n
the touch of Paris had galvanized
them. they turned round to face the
enemy and they hurled him back. EN-
hausted. the poilus proceeded to dig
themselves in. but in French soil A
considerable part of our territory re-
manned occupied for four years. This
produced disaster from the industrial
viewpoint. Coal production dlmln-
iShcd by ~ per cent. iron by - per
cent, linen by 20 per cent. and WOOL by
so per cent. If l give these figures. 1t
is because they illustrate the reason
OF our Indebtedness. Were We not
obliged to buy from outside the raw
materials which failed US? Were we
not compelled to construct substitute
factories of all kinds far removed
from the front. once the war had set
tied down into a conflict of slow at
triton instead of an affair of three
weeks or three months. as fortold.
incidentally, We had no reserve OF
guns or of munitions. What better
proof could there be of our pacific
intentions Had We only been able
to continue supplying shells for our
.js perhaps our pursuit of the Ger
mans after the Marine might have
been much more efficacious.
Shell-MakinE Speeds Up.
No expense was spared in order to
lay all the arms possible. By the end
of March. 1915. our daily shell pro-
luction had grown to thirty five times
what it had been in December, 1914.
and we were turning out machine
guns at a rate ninety-eight times
quicker. We had hundred old
heavy guns upon mobilization; we
possessed 2,130 heavy pieces two
years later.
How did we finance this effort?
Without a murmur. the civilian
population did it's duty by bringing
to the treasury In the year 1915
alone eighteen millardS of francs.
largely in national defense bonds. We
obtained credit in the United States
permitting US to pay for the orders
for war materials which We placed
there. In october. 1915. the Anglo
French loan placed 1,250. 100000 francs
at our disposal France and England.
solidly linked on the battlefield. guar
anteed this loan. 1t was the first
economic scheme of the war affecting
the three allied countries and it was
an urgent and necessary one for
solidarity. In 1916 France seemed her
old self again. She gave such an i'm
preston of resolve. of vitality and
energy that Germany decided to
strike her to the heart. to kill her
could get together to ward off the
decisive attack. Verdun followed.
They did not pass.
Lost Best Of Her Blood.
Despite their furious attacks. con-
tinuing for five months: despite
massing of guns such as history had
never before known. they did not
penetrate over the VauX-Douaumont
line. on the right bank of the Meuse.
nor did they take Hill 304 or Dead
Mans Crest, on the left bank. Every
division in our army came to Yer
dun to he decimated. France lost
there the best of her blood. Enfeebled
to a point of exhaustion. yet she re-
manned on her feet. sustained by those
young soldiers entering upon their
careers as our "Marseillaise" says,
their elders no more. Sending back
our wounded to the firing line direct
ly they left the hospital, sacrificing,
without considering a moment. an ir-
replaceable elite of character and
brains, leaving the cultivation of the
soil to women. old men and children
France succeeding In mobiliZing 80
per cent of her male population be-
tween the ages of eighteen and fifty.
\ prodigious effort and one only
equa1ed in the domain of war mate
rial production.
Meanwhile. on their side our Eng
lish comrades were organizing them
selves powerfully. The spring of 1917
Well. shall omit retrospective crit
icism. Let each one make his own
examination of conscience. l only
mention the offensive of the Chemin
des Danes to illustrate the terrible
shock France sustained. Germany
thought that the moment had come to
finish us. though circulating treach-
erous peace offers the while. Defeat
Petain restored confidence to the
armies. as he had restored the situa-
tion at Verdun. The nation dealt with
the pusillanimous and silenced bad
citizens. France breathed and lived
again.
America Hands Knockout.
In 1918 America had entered the
war The enemy grasped that the
arrival of your troops would mean
the knockout blow for him. He
would have to act beforehand.
lIindenburg announces to the world
that France had dug her own
grave" and brings back half a mil
ton men from the east, troops liber-
:.ted by the Russian debac1e. He
hombards Paris. He deluges the
English lines with mustard gas He
freaks through. We hurriedly stem
tho flood that threatens to submerge
u.s. None the less, we are paralyzed
by the loss of vital railroads. In
that terrible danger to our ally and
ourselves we assemble all our forces
under a single command The troops
are as always admirably heroic and
the nation retains its calm. The Ger
mans would cross the Marne. Large
strips of territory before Paris and
calais pass into their hands. But
the hour OF victory is about to ring
for the entente. In two months all
the lost ground is regained.
Such are the trials we have been
through. At the armistice France
was "all in." as you say, but she was
alive because she had willed that
she should survive.
The war cost our country $50 mill
lions of francs and q further 200
millions in damage to property and
individuals. Almost all our foreign
Investments. constituting a goodly
portion of our national wealth. had