FRENCH ARMY

Nelson Evening Mail, 22 September 1916, Page 5

FRENCH ARMY

NiLVV CHIEF oF THE GENERAL STAFF. iAustraoan and N.Z. Cable Association.) (Rec. Sept. 212, 11.26 a.m-.) PARIS, Sept. 21. General Aupont has been appointed) ■Chief of the General .Staff in succession to General Gauziana, whe is retiring owing to ill-health. WINTER. CONDITIONS. COLONEL REPINGTON'S VIEWS. MORE MEN WANTED. LONDON, Sept. 20. Colonel Repington, the military correspondent of The Times,- says that the end of Octoiber. "will, bring-' slackened, activity, and operations will not be resumed on a grand scale until the spring of 1917. We must look ahead' and settle the question of the reserves available for the spring operations. We must not entertain illusions about the German man-power. Despite their losses and defeats they still have large reserves uncalled. The 1917-18' classes and other large accessions are available, and they will call -up all between and sixty before admitting defeat, hoping to ' wear us down. The Allies must place in the field every available able-bodied man. There are not yet sufficient for a decisive annihilation. The five million men of milij tary age in Britain would be sufficient ! to maintain a hundred divisions in the field if exemptions had not seriously encroached upon the number. • We must drastically refor.m the Service Acts or Germany will 'beat u.s in organising l her man-power. Ireland is able to give 150,000 men, and compul r sion, is necessary to maintain! the Irish divisions. . Britain ,ha.s no lie*}_~to raise the age limit until the younger classes: are.exhausted. There are still three or four millions of exempted men to. secured in civil occupations, and •one anil three-fifths millions-of military age wearing badges. If we are forced: to call, up the older men we must use them fbr home defences, relieving younger men for the front.