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Show NEW BATTLE TACTICS. i I General Ni voile, who has replaced General J off re in chief command in the field, has congratulated his troops , upon their victory at Verdun and has taken occasion to declare that the French tactics have been proved correct. cor-rect. Inasmuch as tactics have changed from time to time during the course of the war General Xivelle's speech leads to the inquiry have tactics been al- tered radically in the last year? Are the French fighting their battle of Ver- dun with methods greatly different from those used by the Germans last winter and spring ? In the last year small units of troops have been trained to do many kinds of specialized things. Formerly there were regiments of bomb throwers, sharpshooters, miners and sappers, etc. Only certain contingents knew how to handle the machine gun and its ammunition. ammu-nition. Now each company has become a little army. Within the company are men trained to use the machine gun, to throw bombs and to do many things that formerly were held to be the work of separate and large units. This is an evolution that has come to its perfection per-fection only in the last year. After the first drive at A'erdun the German attacks became spasmodic. Infantry In-fantry were sent forward without careful care-ful artillery preparation. Tho rushes were foredoomed to failure. The German Ger-man lines swept up against barb-wire entanglements and other obstacles which should have been levelled by shellfire. With the German failures at Ver-duu Ver-duu in their minds the entente generals decided that an offensive must proceed pro-ceed by stages and that every attack must be prepared for with the same exhaustive care. Apparently General Cadorna, the Italian commander, was the first to observe the merits of such tactics. In his advance on Gorizia he sometimes waited for months before renewing re-newing the offensive. All the time be was piling up ammunition so that when he again bombarded the enemy lines no obstacle could possibly continue to exist. His attacks have taken him forward for-ward far into a defenso line which was as st rong as anything confronting the English or French. Several times his attacks failed, but that was due rather to the poverty of his country than to any mistake on his own part. He piled up as many shells as the war depart- ment would give him, but still he did i not have enough. I The English and French improved j upon Cadorna 's tactics because their j supplies were more adequate. When thev I drove forward on the Snmme thev were able to coordinate their efforts so as to keep a constant pressure on the enemy en-emy at one point or another. And so it has been at Verdun. The pressure at the Sommc front permitted General Nivelle to assemble sufficient guns and ammunition at Verdun to assure a successful suc-cessful drive whenever attempted. Berlin, commenting on the French drive, remarks that such drives are always al-ways "successful at first." The difference dif-ference between General Nivcllc's offensive of-fensive and that of the Germans last spring lies in this Nivelle sets before himself a certain limited objective and attains it; after that he makes no new-drive new-drive until he - is perfectly prepared. By this means he conserves his forces. His men are not employed in hopeless rushes after -the first onset. He contents con-tents himself with winning a certain goal and then waiting until he can deliver de-liver a new blow that has in it as much power as any which has preceded it. |