RESERVES CROSSING A RIVER ON THE WAY TO VERDUN 



"They shall not pass" is a phrase which for all time will be associated with the heroic 

 defense of Verdun. To future generations of French people it will bring a thrill of pride 

 even surpassing that enkindled by the glorious "The Old Guard dies, it never surrenders." 

 The guardians of the great fortress on the Meuse have proved themselves invincible in 

 attack, invulnerable in defense. 



which they are mounted move, bridges, 

 culverts, even the road-bed itself, of the 

 railroad line must be strengthened to sup- 

 port the load. 



Further, in order that the giant cannon 

 shall have the mobility for effective use, 

 new sections of railroad must be built 

 whenever the army advances. 



If you analyze the process of manu- 

 facture and the details of transportation 

 involved in the creating and bringing of 

 each one of the new heavy field guns to 

 the front, you arrive at an understanding 

 of the important part played in the war 

 by the French industrial organizations. 



A WONDERFUL PRODUCTION OF SHELLS 



I was witness to another phase of the 

 effectiveness of this organization, as 

 shown in the munition industry in France. 

 Taking the number of units produced 

 daily as a standard, the greatest single 

 business of the war is the making of 

 shells. This comes about through the 



enormous disproportion in the time con- 

 sumed in the production and the distribu- 

 tion of shells compared with the time 

 needed to expend them. 



Consider the making and the breaking 

 of the shell. One is a tedious, toilsome, 

 exacting, and complicated process, begin- 

 ning with the digging of iron ore from 

 the earth, its transportation to steel mills, 

 its transfusion and casting into ingots. 



These ingots are the raw material of 

 the shell casing only. The production of 

 the explosive that serves as the bursting 

 charge is an industry in itself, while the 

 construction of the mechanism of the 

 fuses requires almost as much skill as 

 watch-making. 



In the first year of the war, the critical 

 period of the conflict, France led all the 

 Entente nations in the production of 

 shells. As was the case with guns, France 

 had to supply her ally, Russia, with the 

 munitions so necessary to the effective- 

 ness of the armies fighting in Poland and 



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