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Show A MIGHTY ARMY OF VOLUNTEERS. Early this morning the British army in France, striking where the Standard Stand-ard has said a blow might be looked for, penetrated the German trenches from Arras to Lens, over a front of ten miles. This proves the power and efficiency of tho British forces in France. Frank H. Simond, the American war expert, has just returned from Europe, Eur-ope, after two months at headquarters of tho allies and along the trenches. Writing of the British army, ho says: "In all the things that are considered consid-ered the machinery of an army, the British have now passed both the Germans Ger-mans and the French. Their equipment, equip-ment, their armory of heavy artillery, their stocks of munitions, are un-equaled, un-equaled, and their soldiers are cared for and provided for as are no other troops about whom I know anything. In the mere matter of heavy artillery the British are now firing four shells to the Germans' one, and at tho Battle Bat-tle of tho Somme their air service took and retained' absolute control of the air. "In the first battles the British faced heavy artillery and machine guns with field artillery and rifles, they were destitute of all tho utensils uten-sils of trench war, and the Tommy was compelled to manufacture his bombs out of meat tins. Today the British have as many trench weapons as the Germans, .and many of their best weapons, tho products of American Ameri-can invention, surpass those of their opponents. .Nor can one fail to realize, real-ize, riding over tho roads, how many thousands of motor trucks have been brought over and what a wealth of transport has been assembled. Whole new railway lines have been double-tracked. double-tracked. Calais and Boulogne have become industrial cities given over to army work, and Havre outranks Liverpool Liv-erpool as a port of call for British ships. "Of the British army, one might say that It reminds an American of all that he has heard of the Army of the Potomac Po-tomac when Grant came to it in 1S64. It Is a volunteer army largely commanded com-manded by civilian officers, with its high commanders drawn from the old regular army, but proven by long test and representing tho survival of the fittest It represents in rank and file the best of the manhood not alone of the United Kingdom, but of Canada and Australia. "I do not think anyone "would claim for this army the military efficiency that belonged to the German army that entered Belgium in August, 1914; I do not believe anyone would claim' for its staff and army commanders quite the combination of ability and training which belonged to the army that halted tho Germans at the Marne and made the Battle of the Marnc the greatest battle in all French history. In tho same way one would not have compared Grant's army with the army of Moltke, which six years later disposed of the French imperial forces. "But tho new British army Is something some-thing of the same thing that Grant's army was; it is an immense sledge hammer, made up of men coming from tho best manhood of "the nation, and tho Germans, like the French, have already al-ready lost their best troops in battle. It is a volunteer army, because the troops raised by conscription havo only just begun to cross the Channel, and it Is a volunteer army led by men who have the experience of more than two years of war, and its ranks are filled with tho survivors of all tho bat-tlOB bat-tlOB from Mons to Bapaumo; it is a veteran army. "And tho spirit of the British army is this: For two years the men in the ranks havo fought off the Germans Ger-mans and held on while they lacked all the resources of modern warfare which belonged to Germany; they havo opposed bodies to shells, and rifles to machino guns. Having in this long time successfully held on, they are now conscious of having a superiority in all that machinery means in the war, and their spirit remains the spirit of the men who died at Ypres when tho odds wero five to one and the losses approached actual annihilation. "I have listened to the stories of young officers, whose duty it was to head forlorn hopes in tho old days, or to hold on under conditions that held out no chamco of victory, and In these stories I havo found the key to tho presont temper of the British army. In those days these soldiers, officers and men, knew that they had no chanco of victory, little chance of life; today tho whole British army feels that it has better than an even chance." |