ARMY OF SIX MILLION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 195, 26 January 1915, Page 6

ARMY OF SIX MILLION.

HALF AT THE FRONT. GERMAN FORCE AGAINST THE ALLIES NUMBERS 2,500,000.

Tlie French army consists not o£ 3,000,000 men, but of double that number. .Of these 6,000,000, one-half baa been under lire. The remaining 3,000,000 have not left tlieir garrisons (says tbe New York Will Street Journal's corres- -- •fdent). . Very few p.w,>lc in France realise t'.iat General Jolfro JioKls this tremendous army in reserve. Every man of this -.000,000 is less than thirty and is fully trained and adequately equipped for battle, ready to nwch at a moment's notice. Opposed to the French 3,000,000 that have been under fire ar e not 1,500,000 Germans, but 2.500,000—n0t thirty armv corps, but fifty-six. Witji half a million British troops and about on 6 hundred thousand Belgians, the allies have on the Western battlefront 3,000,000 men against 2,500,000 Germans. But owing to General Joffre's careful nursing of his troops the forces actually on the firing line are roughly equal. Of the French three million one-ha]f are doing fighting, while the other half relieve them in the trenches, and fill the gaps caused by casualties. i The forces are stretched over a battlefront which now reached 375 miles. About 1,000,000 French troops lie between the Argonne and Alsace. Of this number, the army operating in tbe Verdun district totals 400,000. In Alsace there are 250,000 men. The remainder are in the lower Vosges passes, and at various points on the Meuse. The long line from Kheims to Arras, by way of Sois'sons and Eoyc, absorbs mosh of tbe balance of 2,000,000, and the full 3,000000 are accounted for when it is stated that French troops are also co-operating with the British around La Bassee, Arnienf jeres and Ypres. The strength of the French army is 0,000,000 arrived at as follows:—The active aimy includes three classes under the flag, or 1,500,000. With these go the reserve of the active army, that is, men of tin- four preceding classes or 2,000.000. This gives 3,500,000 men, all less than twenty-eight years. In addition there are the first-class of territorials (less than thirty) 50,000 in number and the remaining 2,000,000 are made up of the 1014 and 1015 classes already under the colours (about 1,000.000), colonial troops, Algerians, Moroccans. Senegalese, foreign volunteer corps (more than 400,000) and the foreign legion. These 8,000,000 could be expanded to S .I*oo,ooo by a general call to arms such as was resorted to for the revolutionary wars in 17113. The additional 2.000.0% men would bo made up of territorials between tbe ages of thirty and fortvfive. .wb> n