Show FIGHTING POWER OF THE FRENCH GROWS STEADILY stronger in artillery in 1 Is 1 and in morale than ever before PREPARED TO FIGHT IT OUT were able in four hours at verdun to regain nearly all that it cost the germans five mon months and ap appalling p ailing loss of life to win by ARNO DOSCH FLEUROT correspondent of df the new york world paris in four hours a portion of the french mobile army under general nivelle has regained nearly all the ground won by the crown prince before verdun during five months of continuous attack it Is a great arc french ch victory such a victory as the germans at this stage of the war would make the occasion of a celebration but here in france it has been received almost It hout demonstration more remarkable even than the victory Is the way it has been accepted by the people of france it lids has given a feeling of satisfaction and reassurance to be sure and it Is very timely as france has been having an hour dour of nervousness over the fate of her new ally roumania Rou manla narda but far from being any shouting about it there has been simply the ordinary interest in how it was vas accomplished nothing could express more plainly how the french feel about themselves and about the war it reveals tin nn unconscious attitude of success that characterizes all french thought thou glit nt at this stage of the war it is a new phase in the absorbing question of french morale there has certainly been no other time during the war when so signal a victory would have been accepted so calmly to me living here la in france and watching the state of feeling more closely than anything else it Is entirely unexpected went en off like e clock work the whole story of this attack Is in fact extraordinary the time of it was known to a day two weeks in advance the preparations were made with hardly any attempt at secrecy visiting correspondents were told by the commanding generals just what wits was going to happen here in paris it has been the talk of the boulevards the germans were so well informed of details that they were able to bring up re against the point whenever attacks attack ft took place and it Is to be presumed they did their best to check it but the advance went off like clockwork as scheduled it will be recalled that the germans a few months ago were able to do that kind bind of thing pretty much where they pleased now they are able to do it only against green troops such stich as roumania brought into the war to go 90 no further back in the history of the war the verdun advances were themselves heralded from time to time and except for the halt half dozen annoura announcements e made from berlin that verdun itself was about to fall they usually made good on their prophecies they were able to do so because they knew what their preparations were and ill that at the french had nothing to withstand them way round now now it Is cutting the other way the french had such preparations that they knew the germans could no not i t against them and no one wants to be deceived by the berlin claim that the french have retaken the ground at frightful cost it may have cost one tenth what it cost the germans to take it not more at this stage of the war human cost can be b figured accurately on the basis of shell ore fire and the number of hours the at tacking army ought fought in the open ground taken in a few hours Is bound to cost much less than ground groina captured after months of ceaseless attack the cost la in lives has not entered into the discussion here at all though the question of manpower man power Is the catchword of the day and there Is a reason for it everyone in france knows now that french troops are not ordered out of the trenches until the opposing german trenches have been wiped out by shell fire when the germans cry this Is not war it Is slaughter the french people simply rub their palms in self congratulation they know they have lia the job of driving the germans out of fir france ance a jump at a time and it if the germans will jump back ahead of their shell fire they are content they have reached the cheerful state of mind where they are willing to go on making shells in larger and larger numbers tor for an indefinite period verdun front secure things may go ahead for a while on other fronts but there is hardly bardl y it a frenchman living who thinks an anything y disastrous can happen again on this front I 1 am with them in that belief and soa so Is everybody who knows anything about the present strength of the french army in shells my confidence in the situation gathered from contact with ith the french people Is such that I 1 am willing to write this and confide it to the slow going mails when the french advance at verdun Is hardly more than under way and I 1 have no fear anything will wilf happen meanwhile to contradict it there is a common sense reason for this too for the first time there Is tin an adequate supply of big new nev modern artillery before verdun the germans nearly took verdun because france lid did not have a sufficient number of heavy to protect it it was saved by the small 75 millimeter guns the same guns that turned the germans on the marne and the germans were stopped only when the french succeeded ln in bringing up fortress guns from the foris forts on the italian frontier the french army was that badly olt off in artillery there was now new artillery enough for the somme but not for both the somme and verdun so they advanced with the new on the somme find and held the germans at verdun wilh the old now the french have enough new heavy artillery for both the somme and verdun st so they are advancing at both spots artillery the big factor it takes time to make artillery iut but it takes longer yet to remove used fixed ideas and even the brilliant men who have turned frances military fortunes could not foresee what nhat the war would be like at this stage and did not provide against the present necessity for beavy it was verdun that stirred things up verdun stands for many things but in close in military and political circles in france it means the point where here frang fran began to go in for heavy artillery on a big scale there are several different factions in france just n now ow claiming the credit for frances growing artillery superiority and without casting any discredit on the high command of the iirma army it Is generally conceded that the french parliament had an important hand in it it Is balm balm too to the feelings of french parliamentarians for they were certainly snubbed at the beginning of the war and they can point out now nov with perfect propriety especially the senators that they ordered and voted the fund stor heavy artillery when many mani military men in high position were inclined to think the thing was being overdone the credit for the new verdun advance at least that part not due to the soldiers and the brilliant french artil lery inen will have to go to a senatorial committee that got busy months ago when it was not very much encouraged cou raged and made the new supply of big guns possible this whole matter Is not talked about much here it Is simply a accepted one no longer hears scornful remarks from military men about meddling politicians and the members of parliament and all the civil side of the government they ie represent present are wearing their regal regained tied I 1 prest prestige lg rather modestly but anyone who ho ever feared a military dictatorship in france franc can now definitely put that fear aside rained crape on france at this time last year the more nervous parisians Pari were just beginning to believe ev that a the le germans armans would ifould never get to parts paris that had bad in tact fact been obvious since the battle of the marne nevertheless ti they I 1 ey had more confidence and the army itself had bad more confidence than the facts justified the germans could not break through perhaps but they showed at verdun that they could muke make it v very ry expensive for france to to hold its line verdun as a whole the lo 10 loss 19 and regaining of its outer circle of forts has cost the french nowhere near so much as it has cost the germans but there is not a french village hardly a french family where mourning Is iq not worn for someone lost at verdun those families thai escaped owe it to unusual luck on the luivie Nl iole verdun lins has been a very bloody business mue much I 1 borse orse than the somme the best pr profit r of this Is the comparatively lew jew deaths on the somme among ones personal acquaintances and connections verdun rain rained ed crape on prance france the somme has been no such slang laughter ahter house ouse tor for the french but it was there the germans G armans first began harping on oil the phrase tills this Is slaughter it was slaughter because the french for or the first time opposed them with as much artillery as they had and french artillerymen artilleryman artillery men are superior to any others at the battle of the marne itself before the artillerymen artilleryman artillery men had had all the the last two years his has given them they showed themselves thoroughly capable at every point where the germans tried to make stands on the and the marne the alie french artillery cleaned them out by the most systematic fire they dropped their shells as regularly as the squares on the checkerboard and blew the german batteries all to pieces so BO that immediately after the battle when I 1 passed that way the fields fieldi were littered with wrecked fieldpieces field pieces and limbers and dead artillery horses french superiority in those days france had one piece of artillery to germanas germanys Germ Geri anys tern tem ger many still has three or four to frances one but opposed to the french themselves germany can afford to only cannon for cannon the fact act that the french have consistently gained on a fair field with an even distribution of equipment shows the french to be not only superior artillerymen artilleryman artillery men but better in the infantry attacks in an article article last may I 1 called at to the construction of the french mobile army under general petain made up of divisions and carpi which had particularly distinguished themselves in attack this was the army which paid so heavy a price irl in saving verdun but was still in shape to make the somme offensive soini of the best of these corps happen to be having just now a well earned rest they have not been in either the later successes on the somme or at verdun it has not been necessary to use the very crack troops troops the football team of one of the most distinguished the twentieth army cork corps recently played a hot match lu in paris it was an excellent team hardly a member of which did no not wear every possible decoration but the rooters of the twentieth who came along were a sight in themselves they had been through verdun and the eight months of continuous attack but they were the fittest looking men you could ask tor for there was not one ne who to use our ov own n phrase did not look as it if lie he could lick his weight in wildcats and men of this kind in the midst of two big offensives are right now taking their case it shows that many other divisions have proved their mettle the mobile army of crack troops that numbered number id perhaps iS OOOO last may comes nearer ang ang a today it is not unit that the french army has grown in proportion the new men who iho have gone into action since last may number under a quarter of a million tie growth groth of the mobile anivy has come coie coi e from men who have we fiction since the beginning oi of the aar the whole army 1 is i showing a tn tendency dency to grow in fighting power it ts Is something lu in the rhe french race napoleon naab made himself by develon developing ing the sume same character char characteristic acte |