APPARENT SUFFERING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 99, 24 October 1939, Page 7

APPARENT SUFFERING

GERMAN TROOPS

FRENCH FOOD BETTER

BRITAIN'S FORCES

STILL POURING INTO FRANCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Received October 24, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, October 23. Paris reports that cold is increas- j ing on the Western Front, and Ger-; man prisoners taken in the last fortyeight hours appear to be suffering greatly as a result. They say that they have no blankets, and only one hot meal a day. They also state that the food they received from the French was much superior to the German. A French communique states that the night was quiet on the front as a whole. The special correspondent of the British United Press "somewhere in France," after travelling through the j British area, wrote that it becomes increasingly . obvious that the original British Expeditionary Force was only the framework of a huge army for thousands of British, who are still pouring into France, bringing an immense amount of supplies and munitions. As far as can be judged the British authorities have abandoned the thes.is held by some military officials a few years ago that Britain would not be required to send a big land1 army to France in the event of another war. '

"If conditions here are any criterion," he states, "Britain is determined to send forces running into millions if necessary. Conversations with officers reveaPthat no one expects a short war or the early political or economic collapse of Germany, nor are they under th i delusion that victory will be simple." JUBILATION AT R.A.F. SUCCESSES. A correspondent of the British United Press with the Royal Air Force writes: "The men have got their tails up because of the weekend successes of the R.A.F. on the home front. A British Air Force dawn patrol flew over the Western Front this morning seeking fresh triumphs. Planes' from our advance aerodrome behind the Maginot Line penetrated a long distance over Germany and returned. They report all quiet, but express disappointment that they did not meet some of the latest German machines." The weekend successes were received jubilantly among the men of the R.A.F. in France, and many toasts were drunk. Reports from French sources show that Germany's Richthofen Squadron is now operating on the Western Front. Two German planes which were shot down by the French, bore, in addition to the usual identity marks, the red and white check pattern which Richthofen made famous in the last war. NEW FRENCH POSITIONS. The Paris correspondent of "The Times" says that with the exception of one or two points near the Warndt Forest, the French positions are almost everywhere inside French territory along a carefully-prepared line still well in front of the main Maginot defensive system. The correspondent adds that because of activity as a screen for the French outposts during and after the retirement, the German command was completely ignorant of what was going on. The ground now occupied by German troops since the withdrawal is little better than a swamp. The Paris correspondent of the "Daily Mail" emphasises that the French have now placed themselves in a far stronger strategic position, because if a big German offensive comes they will be able to give battle on territory they themselves have chosen, and not at a series of points where they had penetrated German soil.