FRENCH RE-ARMAMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19125, 21 September 1936, Page 3

FRENCH RE-ARMAMENT

MODERNISING HER FORCES WATCHING GERM AXV LONDON, Sept. 7. According l<i Ilu> French plnn for remedying llir balance of military forces which) the French declare, has been disturbed by re-establishment, of two years military service beyond the Rhine. tbeie will lie no increase at' present in the Flench period of military service. Instead, there will be immediate, intensiliealiou of .re-arinamont. and mechanisation of the’army on modern lines. There will also i>e some increase in the professional army and strengthening of frontier forLilic.iLions by increasing the depth of the system already completed. It is in the air force that the new effort will he most striking. The programme of IGGO new aeroplanes to he added to j ho. present effective strength will be doubled. Tims, at, the end of a. period, Franco will have 2000 first -line machines of the most modern types, apart from an unspecified number in reserve. 'l'he Paris correspondent of The i’uncs savs that two main considerations inspired the decision to concentrate oil reequipment- and modernisation. One, is that in modern, warfare, sheer weight ot numbers unsupported by adequate armament is useless. 'The other that disparity of population between trance and Gel-many makes it impossible to fill the gap even, by increasing the period ol unlit arv service. It is" estimated that (lermaiiy with the two-year period of service will have some 1.2C0.CC0 meit- under arms. France, on the other hand, has some 650,CC0. ol whom only about, 500.000 can be kept m the cnuntVv The remainder are needed abroad. To extend the French period ot service to three years would provide a bare 150.000 more, while four years’ service would raise the effective strength to not. more than £OO,OO-0. Even a period oi five years would give France no more than 950,000. It is hoped, tlial d may he possible to induce-Germany to limit her armaments to an agreed figure. France, in exchange, would do her best to bring about the genera I currency alignment, so much desired hv the German Minister lor Economics' (Dr. Seliaehi). and offer an increased market for German goods.