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Show THE ALLIED DRIVE GIGANTIGJHDUSTRY OPERATIONS EXCEED IN MAGNITUDE MAGNI-TUDE THOSE OF LARGEST INDUSTRIAL IN-DUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE. Preparations for Present Operations of Allies Along the Somme Took Four Months Britons Claim Heavy Gains. Paris. The official report regarding regard-ing the latest attack against the Germans Ger-mans lays stress on the complexity of the preparations for a military operation opera-tion on a grand scale, exceeding in its multiplicity of detail that of the largest larg-est industrial enterprise. Besides the plan of attack and the choice of the battle ground, an estimate of the number of effectives is necessary. There also are a hundred contributory details to be studied, such as the enemy's system of defense, the placing plac-ing of artillery in co-ordinating relation, rela-tion, the building of roads, bridges and ferries where none existed before, and the accumulation of material, munitions mu-nitions and stores. The observer says that the preparations oft his character char-acter for the present operations along the Somme took four months. After the enemy's front had been cleared of observation balloons and aircraft, air-craft, French aeroplanes made a complete com-plete photographic survey of the whole front every day, so that each evening a map was drawn showing the state of the enemy's trenches and the progress prog-ress made in their destruction. The result of the artillery fire was checked check-ed up carefully, every hour, and it was a principle not to start an infantry attack except on favorable ground. Every variety of gun has its special work to do. Some sweep away the barbed wire, others destroy trenches, and still others deal with the assemblages assem-blages of enemy troops. Summing up the results of fifteen days of fighting on the Somme front, the observer says: "The French troops were able to advance on a front of ten miles and a half to a maximum depth of six miles, taking from the Germans eighty-square eighty-square kilometers of highly organized and fortified field works, resembling fortresses. We have already gathered from the field eighty-five guns, many of large caliber, a hundred machine guns, twenty-six mortars and quantities quanti-ties of material which it is not yet possible pos-sible to estimate. "We have taken 235 officers and 12,-000 12,-000 men, and this is only the start of the battle." |
