ALLIES ON WEST FRONT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 32, 7 February 1940, Page 8

ALLIES ON WEST FRONT

FIVE MONTHS OF WAR

GREAT STRENGTH OF MAGINOT LINE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

(Received February 7, 1.20 p.m.) \ LONDON, February 6.

A member of the French military mission informed the Associated Press that the Allies fatalities on the Western Front totalled 1500 prior to January 31. The French losses in the first five months of the last war were 720,000.

He added that the inactivity on the Western Front had enabled the Maginot Line to be enormously strengthened, and it now actually consisted of three lines. The expenditure on the Maginot Line has been £600,000,000. The fortifications were capable of withstanding guns and shells of types a century ahead of anything that existed today. The French Army at present totalled approximately 6,500,000 —a quarter of the male population. An example of the all-embracing nature of the army was the fact that there were 28,000 priests and clergymen either in ihe ranks or as officers.

(Daventry Broadcast.)

LONDON, Tuesday Night,

In referring to France's army, a member of the visiting French military mission said that 5,000,000 French soldiers were at their posts within a few days of mobilisation.

He said a tremendous amount of work had been carried out on the Maginot Line. In front of the main line there is a vast network of wire, 10,000 miles of wire linking up observation posts and pill-boxes. He said it was estimated that the Maginot Line cost as much as 100 battleships of the 35,000 tons type, and he expressed the view that the line could never be captured.

Machine-guns were on top of the line and commanded the corridors inside.