Photograph by Paul Thompson 

 A WAGON-LOAD OF HELMETS OR CASQUES FOR FRENCH SOLDIERS LEAVING THE 



FACTORY 



At the outbreak of the world war the French fighting man wore a long-visored, tall- 

 crowned cap, but this picturesque headgear soon yielded to the utility of the metal head- 

 piece, which furnishes a certain degree of protection from the shrapnel that bursts above 

 the trenches and sows the seeds of destruction in the furrows of death. 



the Carpathians. To meet this drain the 

 industries of the country were "reorgan- 

 ized. The products of peace gave way 

 before the demands of war. 



The concrete example of this is the 

 transformation of the plants of the Re- 

 nault automobile works to the making 

 of munitions. In one factory, formerly 

 wholly concerned with the forging and 

 fitting of motor machinery, 15,000 men 

 and 4,000 women are now employed 24 

 hours of each day grinding and filling 

 high-explosive shells. The work, divided 

 into shifts, never halts, and from this one 

 plant 11,000 projectiles are daily sent for- 

 ward to the front. 



The vastness oe the expenditure oE 



STEEL 



But during periods of heavy fighting, 

 when the cannon is playing its important 

 part in the tragedy of battle, the calcu- 

 lated average expenditure of ammunition 



by one army corps is 29,000 shells per 

 day. So the total effort of 19,000 work- 

 ers employed during 24 hours furnishes 

 somewhat more than one-third the am- 

 munition used by a small part of the 

 army. 



The number of army corps holding the 

 front in France is a military secret, and 

 as the United States is now ranged on the 

 side of France in the war, it would be 

 injudicious to try and probe that secret. 

 We violate no> confidence when we state 

 that it is more than thirty. This figure 

 will give us a basis for calculating the 

 number of shells produced by the muni- 

 tions factories of France. 



There are long periods when the ex- 

 penditure of ammunition in no way ap- 

 proximates the figures given above, and 

 it is during these periods when the guns 

 are comparatively silent that production 

 catches up with consumption. 



It may be true that England is grad- 



339 



