FAITH IN VICTORY

PARIS, TUESDAY. In an interview which Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig granted a representative of the Havas Agency at the British front, the Commander-in-Chief began by paying a warm tribute to the hospitality of the French population, who always give the British troops a reception marked by sincere friendship. “I should have liked the impression of strength which we have given you to be even deeper, for, even though we have done what is really enormous, we still have much to do, and it will always be so in the course of a war of material like this. What we have been doing and are mainly doing now in England is a great effort to ensure that the army behind shall be equal in power to that in front. “Already in the matter of the production of munitions we have readied the output we had wanted. What we want now in greater quantity are guns and railways. We shall never have too many guns. They are goods that you cannot make in a day, and which are wearing out all the time. I may say, as regards the wastage of our guns, that we get agreeable surprises, but we do not rely on any chance help, and we go on making guns. “The same with rails, that invaluable auxiliary of the armies in the field. Some weeks ago the network of railways behind our lines was notoriously inadequate. The disproportion between the tonnage landed at our bases and the tonnage which our railways were capable of carrying was of a character to hamper our operations. At my request directors of the English railway companies came over to investigate our requirements, and they all told me, ‘Whatever you want we shall give you.’ And, indeed, I got everything I asked for, and even more, for the companies carried their patriotism so far even as to strip their lines of ballast, of which we were in want. “We are furnishing material of all sorts to our friends, and particularly Russia, Italy, and Roumania. We cannot escape this obligation, for the single front of the Allies must not be weak in any part. Unity of front and a solid front is the principle. There is another matter which must not be lost sight of, and it is that the Western front is, and will remain, the principal front of operations, I am convinced that the decision of the war will take place on the Western front, and that is why we must devote all our pains to making that front defensively and offensively the best.”