FRENCH ARMY

Evening Star, Issue 22631, 24 April 1937, Page 27

FRENCH ARMY

INCREASING EFFICIENCY The new and extensive plans for increasing the efficiency of the I* rench army must he regarded as Paris’s reply to the decision of the German Government last September to increase their period of service to two years. It is another stage in the armaments race, which is now in full swing (writes Major-general A. C. Temperley in the ‘ Daily Telegraph’)* , . The cost of extending the Magmot .line, the fortifications system on the German frontier, north to Dunkirk and south to Switzerland, is estimated at £190,000,000. Nothing like this scale of fortification has ever previously been attempted. It encloses the whole of the French frontier north of the Alps in a ring of steel. Yet it is not completely impregnable, for no fortified system can hold out/ indefinitely, provided that the aggressor is prepared to pay the necessary price in blood and is lavishly provided with heavy guns, heavy tanks, and bombers. Nor can it, of course, stop an air offensive. But there are certain great military advantages. Morally it gives great confidence to the people and the army, and, materially, it will certainly hold up the invader long enough to prevent him interfering during the critical period of mobilisation and the strategic concentration of the army. Furthermore, the stronger the fortifications are, the more troops will be released for offensive 'operations elsewhere. This for the French, who are numerically inferior to the Germans, is a very important consideration. NO PROFESSIONAL ARMY. M. Daladier, French Minister of National Defence, rejects the idea of a highly-trained professional army. The French have always disliked it, for it recalls memories of coups ( d’etat and the use of the army for political purposes. Public opinion remains firmly attached to the principle of universal service and cgalite. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful whether sufficient Frenchmen would enlist as volunteers, since they have never succeeded in obtaining sufficient specialists and longterm n.c.o.s for the requirements of their present type of army. M. Daladier estimates that the French can put 700,000 men in the field, whereas ho says that the Germans have more than 1,000,000, with huge reserves. As far as the French figures are concerned, he is quoting the number of men actually with the colours at the present moment. But they have, of course, very large trained reserves to call upon in time of emergency—probably 5,000.000 men. It is not quite clear how the figure he quotes for the German army is reached. Until Germany raised the period of service to two years her peace strength was nominally 550,000, and the retention of the 1935 class with the colours to serve a second year would probably not increase the strength by more than 150,000, as it is believed that a proportion of the 1936 class has not yet been called up. As long as Germany had the long-service army forced upon her by tbe Peace Treaty sbe was unable to create large reserves of trained men. There is_ no doubt that a number secretly received some military training in the Roichswehr and in tho military associations. It is difficult, however, to seo how Germany can have any large reserve of welltrained men until the conscription system has been in force for several years.