COAST. I ARTILLERY JOURNAL, - Air Defense Artillery

486 THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
favorable or unfavorable, in a way that neither the young king of the Belgians
nor the English Marshal could resent. On October 31, 1914, the
English line at Gheluvert was broken. Marshal French, on the way at
2:00 P. M. to Sir Douglas Haig, had to force his way on foot through the
retreating masses. Two division commanders had fallen. The situation
seemed desperate. Withdrawal was decided upon. French came back to
Ypres to look up Foch at Cassel. An orderly officerstationed outside the
headquarters building of the Eighth Army recognized the English Marshal
and reported to him that a conference between Foch, D'Urbal, and the
commandinggeneral of the IX Corps was then under way. Marshal French
came with set purpose to retreat. After the English Marshal had given
expression to his views, doubts and worries and seemed about to yield to
Foch's opinion, the latter, having been challenged to do so, wrote with clear
plain script a version on a sheet of paper which, it is hoped will some time
be made public-recto et verso. The Marshal took it, glanced over it, and
contented himself with an endorsementon the back and sending the original
manuscript to General Haig with instructions to carry out Foch's measures!
All this from the French officerMadelin, the eye witness before referred to.
But ,the substance of events as related by him is confirmedby the records of
the Englishgeneralstaffwhich containsan order from French, dated 3:35 P. M.,
to which there is attached a memorandum from Foch of 3:05 P. M. The
last paragraph of this memorandum is: "It is a conclusive necessity that
there be no retirement and that for this reason every one should dig in at
the position he has reached."
On October 31, 1914,French says: "Never was England standing nearer
a precipice than on this day."
"It owes its deliverance to Foch. His order stands between our success
and the ultimate victory," concludes the German writer.
TTEPOLONIZATION
OFFRANcE.-In an article published in the Militiir-Wochenblatt
of July 18, 1926,Dr. Butte'rsack,a Surgeon General in the former German
Army, writes:
The threads of fate are interwoven in a manner incomprehem;ible to our
understanding. Upbuilding and exhaustion repeat themselves in the life of a
nation as in that of an individual. Whether the observer recognizes distinctly
the one or the other of these processes depends upon his intelligence of outlook.
There are people who look with timorous admiration upon France's great military
power and declare: nothing can he done against it.. They fail to see the processes
of disintegration and the renewal of layers in the French national body.
Neither the most powerful tanks nor the greatest display of flying squadrons can
remove from the world the fact that the French people are approaching extinction
with giant strides. In the decennium 1770-1780there were 380 births to
10,000population; today there are about 100. The curve has continued with uninterrupted
downward depression for 150 years. De La Ponge has been justified
in his assertion, made in 1887: la natalite de la France ne se relevera pas.
The far-seeing politician will, in consequence, follow up the process to see
which races are interpreting the nationality. The psyche of the future of the
French nation will be adjusted to that. The Italians naturally stand at the head in
this respect and are followed closely by the Poles whose number now present is
set by experts at one-half million and is constantly being increased by new
immigration (estimated at 50,000 per annuml and by hirths. Since hirths of
immigrants are increasing in round numbers thirteen times as fast as those from
the native born, the Poles, with their well-known fecundity, are the principal
contributers to the increase.
The tendency of political aspirations and also economic necessity have led
to a systematic and also officiallyregulated recruitment of foreigners for agricul-