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But—and just here lies the profound significance of it all—the French realized at once that in order to conquer the German machine they must create an equally efficient and powerful machine, which with that plus of human spirit and the inspiration of their cause would carry them over into victory. So while the English were berating the barbarian for his atrocious misconduct, advertising "business as usual," and filching what German trade they could, bungling at this and that, until they have become a spectacle to themselves, the French nation concentrated all its energies upon preparing an organization fit to meet the German organization. While General Joffre held the Germans behind the four hundred miles of trenches, France made itself over into a society organized for war—the new business kind of war which is waged in factory and railway terminal, not by gallant charges. "Organiser" has become in the Frenchman's vocabulary the next most popular word to "patrie." One implies, these days, the other.
It is said that when Germany invaded France, the French had not a ton of their chief high explosive on hand. Some of its ingredients they had been getting from Germany! France lost her coal and iron mines and her largest factories the first weeks of the war and has not regained them. Yet early in last April, according to the official announcement, France was turning out six times as much ammunition as was deemed, before the war, the maximum requirement, and would shortly turn out ten times as much, which has ere this probably been greatly exceeded. Meanwhile, by April the artillery had been increased sevenfold. In attaining these results, France has accomplished a greater marvel relatively speaking than the most boasted German efficiency. She has had to get her coal from England, her ores from Spain, her machines for making guns and shells from us. She has had to improvise shell factories and gun plants from automobile factories, electric plants, railway repair shops—from anything and everything. I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will become the property of the Government.
Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the Germans, on the western front.
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France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war. The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of coöperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective, to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to the awakened patriotism of every element in society. France looked on aghast when her necessary supplies of coal were threatened by the strike of Welsh miners, averted only by the personal pleadings of a popular minister! To the Latin, more disciplined and more alive to the real dangers of the situation than the Anglo-Saxon, the English attitude was simply incomprehensible. Also France has not had her efficiency so seriously threatened by the liquor problem as has England: the military authorities have taken stern measures against this danger and have carried them out firmly. So far as the army itself is concerned, the drink evil does not exist.
The manufacture of ammunition and cannon is but one element in the new warfare. France has had to feed, clothe, and maintain her armies under the same handicap, to meet all the unexpected requirements in material of the trench war. The French have rediscovered the hand grenade and developed it into the characteristic weapon of the war, have unearthed all their old mortars from the arsenals and adapted them to the trench, and created the best aerial service of all the combatants. Incidentally they have effectually protected Paris from air raids since the first months of the war by their careful aerial patrol. All this is aside from the task of putting the nation socially and economically on the war basis—in providing for the wounded, the dependent women and children, and also for a perpetual stream of refugees from Belgium and the invaded provinces, a burden that Germany has not yet had to carry.
Not all this huge work of reorganization could be done immediately with equal success. The sanitary service suffered grievously, especially at the beginning,—needed all the help that generous outsiders could give,—still needs it. The percentage of death among the wounded is too high, of those returned to the army too low. There have been wastes in other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes, infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we displayed in our little Spanish War.
Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year, grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war organization and have adapted themselves to it,—have learned the German lesson,—they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as the flower of human civilization.
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