At such
great distances the French cannons of 75, admirable as they were,
could make no effective reply to the German batteries. The French
soldiers were perfectly well aware that they were the targets of the
great German shells while their own cannon could make no parallel
impression on the enemy.
The German army revealed itself as an extraordinary instrument
of war. Its mobility and accouterments were perfect. It had aver
a hundred thousand professional non-commissioned officers or
subofficers, admirably suited to their work, with their men marching
under the control of their eye and finger. In the German army the
active corps, as well as the reserve carps, showed themselves,
thanks to these noncommissioned officers, marvelously equipped.
In the French army the number of noncommissioned officers by profession
totaled hardly half the German figures. The German army, moreover,
was much more abundantly supplied with machine guns than the French.
The Germans had almost twice as many, and they understood how to
use them in defense and attack better than the French. They had
moreover, to a degree far superior to that of the French, studied
the use of fortifications in the field, trenches, wire entanglements,
and so on. The Germans were also at first better trained than the
French reservists; they had spent langer periods in the German
army, and their reserve carps were almost equal to the active carps.
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