Word: verdun
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...were roses in the streets for him (TIME, Jan. 2). Nothing was too good for el Aleman ("The German") who checked Paraguay's steady advance through the pest-ridden Chaco swamps. With more men, more money, better guns. his troops beat off Paraguayan attacks on Bolivia's Verdun in the Chaco. muddy, ramshackle Fort Saavedra (TIME...
...Verdun!" Behind Belgium and Luxembourg, whom France trusts, Marshal Foch and General Weygand thought it sufficient to scatter only small forts, backed by what they decided to call '"Flying Fortresses." These, a post-War innovation, consist of trainloads of motorized trench digging and barbed-wire stringing machines of Gargantuan size. In three days each "Flying Fortress" is supposed to turn out a complete system of front line trenches for the sector which it covers and within a week all the "Flying Fortresses" working together can dig France in from the North Sea to the Sarre...
...Verdun," is General Weygand's dry comment when someone suggests that high power artillery can pulverize the strongest fort. A single fort at Verdun, he recalls, withstood 120,000 German projectiles in the grand Boche offensive of 1916 that did not pass. Of this explosive avalanche 2,000 projectiles were of the highest power. To Verdun and other War-famed forts now reconstructed and equipped with guns that can easily fire into German territory, France has added two more monsters, Hackenberg defending the great industrial city of Metz, and Hochwald near the Rhine within easy shooting distance of Baden...
Aside from Verdun, Hackenberg and Hochwald, the entire Sarre-Rhine frontier of France is studded every kilometre (nearly five-eighths of a mile) with "pillboxes" and groups of pillboxes, each one a small fort 30 ft. by 36 ft. and rooted 60 ft. deep in earth so that poilus in the lower chamber can rest in comfort. "Comfort," as Marshal Pétain has said, "is of utmost strategic importance. The combative efficiency of the soldier is at least doubled when he can recuperate in comfort." Ergo, nearly every pillbox is equipped with electric lights, electric stove, a well, beds...
...professor in France, he knows more about the U. S. and U. S. history than the vast majority of U. S. citizens. No myopic flatfoot, Professor Faÿ served nearly five years in the War, emerged with the rank of captain, the Croix de Guerre (won at Verdun), the Medaille de Leopold II. Twelve years ago he began to make regular visits to the U.S., has lectured at Columbia University, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Iowa State et al. Still a bachelor, on trips to Manhattan he stays at the Harvard Club...