ARMY'S NERVE-CENTRE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2364, 21 January 1915, Page 6

ARMY'S NERVE-CENTRE

70 MILES FROM THE FRONT. The nerve centre that moves more {nan two million men is in a village schoolhouso 70 miles behind the firing lino (writes a correspondent of the New York "World" from General Joffre's headquarters). No cannon, machinegun, or rifle fire can be heard here. The Commander-in-Chief co-ordinates his information and arrives at his decisions, not only far from the disturbance's of . actual conflict, but in the depth of the country, away from the first and second lines of reserves, the incessant movement of motor transport, and the dislocation of civil lifo. General Joffre has sis subordinate nerve centres in the six armies into which the field forces are divided. The six generals commanding these armies— Pau, Foch, Dalstein, Tranche d'Esperray, Castelnau Manoury—each with his general staff, are connected by direct telegraph and. telephone wires with headquarters. General Joffre is in direct and frequent communication with Field-Marshal French and Belgian headquarters, and with Bordeaux and Paris. The headquarters of a commanding general are distinguished by the number of motor-cars. Some fifteen or twenty long, high-power runners arc usually lined up in the playground of the schoolhouse. The cars come and go,quietly and swiftly. For the most part there is little coming anij going. The vast business of the drama is transacted by wire. The meaning and significance of it all can only he determined by events remoto from hero General Joffre, when he goes to the hoa'dquartcrs of ,0110. of the armies, has wiili him an automobile fitted as a'n office. It looks inside very miich like tho little drawing-rooms' attached to steamer cabins. Three parcels of hooks from A. "Plimmer, Khandallah, for tho Tientham camp, have been received at tho Dominion office.