THOUSANDS OF MOTORS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16265, 26 June 1916, Page 6

THOUSANDS OF MOTORS

FRENCH TRANSPORT WORK. SHELLS AND MEN FOB VERDUN. Since the beginning of the ' war I have visited every section of the front held by the French armies between the North Sea and the Swiss frontier, sometimes during, sometimes just before, sometimes just after, a great battle, as well as in those intervals of comparative tranquility' which are the characteristic of trench warfare, but so far as behind the lines is concerned I have never seen anything so impressive, from the material point of view, as the unending lines of motor lorries which brought up men and munitions to the Verdun front, and were the direct cause of the German defeat. Thus writes Mr. Warner Allen, special correspondent of' the British press with the French armies. Everything depended on the motor transport, and the French automobiles proved that they were more than a match for all the strategic lines built by the Germans before the beginning of the great assault. One has a vague memory of deep mud, lorries puffing and blowing along the miry road, and men working feverishly to keep the roadway passable. The organisation that accomplished this great feat well deserved the eulogy accorded to it by the generalissimo for its indefatigable efforts.

Long before the assault the French High Command was well aware that the line of communications by railway between Verdun and Ste. Meuehould through the Argonne would, in case of an attack, be cut by the German heavy artillery. There was another railway light railway of the Meuse—but it was clear that in case of emergency its services would need to be supplemented by a transport system capable of giving the greatest results with the smallest waste of time.

For this purpose the General Staff decided to utilise a system .of automobile transport. Early in February a special body was constituted for the region of Verdun, with the title of "Commission Regulatrice Automobile." It was on this commission that devolved the duty of regulating traffic and preparing an efficient motor transport organisation sufficient to meet all the demands of the' General Staff.

The commission was called upon to arrange for the working with clock-like regularity of 200 automobile sections is to say, some 4000 motor vehicles. All these convoys had to bp • provided with petrol, oil and grease. Each day they had to run some 45 miles and consumed over 30,000 gals of petrol, over 4000 gals of oil, and aboct 44001b of grease. These lorries twere over and above those motor vehicles attached for special purposes to. the fortified region of Verdun and the army of the Argonne. . , It was at noon on February 22 that this organisation was first /put to the test, the day after the battle began, and at once the men in charge of the policing of the Toad began to perform their duties. Withiivfour hours the road was free of all horse-drawn traffic and other encumbrances, and since that moment it has been entirely reserved for motor traction. Every motor-lorry employed for munition transport covered an average of just over a hundred miles a day. During the same period largo numbers of troops urgently needed at the front were brought up without a hitch.