M. Millerand, French Minister of War, after the Senate had approved, on June 29, the bill appropriating $1,200,000,000 for war expenses of the third quarter of the year, reported as quoted by the Associated Press:
From August 1 to April 1 France has increased her military production sixfold. The curve for munitions has never ceased to mount, nor that representing the manufacture of our 75s. I can give satisfying assurances also regarding the heavy artillery and small arms. From the 1st of January to the 15th of May the other essentials of the war have been equally encouraging. We are determined to pursue our enemies, whatever arms they may employ.
Yves Guyot, the economist and late Minister of Public Works in France, said to The New York Times correspondent on July 3:
France can hold her own against Germany. She herself makes all the shells that play such havoc in the enemy's ranks, and she will keep on making all she needs.
The munitions problem in France is not so acute as in England. In France as soon as the war started we began turning out the shells as fast as our factories could work. So, in a short time, they were going full blast. We have been able to supply our army with ample ammunition and to have shells enough to shake up the enemy whenever we put on spurts.
It is vitally important that England has come to the realization of the need of equipping her own army with adequate ammunition. Up to now the English Army has been sadly handicapped, but with the energetic Lloyd George in command the munitions output in the near future is certain to bring a sudden change in the status of England in the war.
We in France being in such immediate contact with the horrors of war had a stern sense of the necessity of fully equipping our army forced upon us at the very beginning of the conflict. The only thing we have lacked has been steel, and we have been getting some of that from our old friend, the United States. France has steel plants, and they do a tremendous amount of work, but altogether they do not turn out enough for our ammunition works. So we had to turn elsewhere for some of this product, and it was America that came to our aid.
We have got the steel with which to make shells. Our workmen are well organized and the whole spirit prevailing among them is to help France to win the bloodiest war of her history.
The London Daily Chronicle in an interview with Albert Thomas, French Minister of Munitions, quoted him as follows on July 8:
It is our duty to organize victory. To this we are bending all our energies. The war may be long; difficulties may reach us of which we had no prevision at the start; but we shall keep on until the end.