Normale, which is the preparatory school for the French university,
lost seventy per cent of its pupils. That means that three-quarters
of the thinkers, the literary men, the scientists, the philosophers,
the professors of the France of tomorrow have been wiped out. They
were the flower of her youth, the elite of her intelligence. Add to
that seven departments, roughly 20,000 square kilometers in area,
which have been invaded, devastated, ruined and pillaged. In these
seven departments all the machinery, all the raw materials, all the
merchandise, all the furniture even to the door-knobs and the boards
in the floors have been taken away. These departments were among the
richest and most prosperous of those on which France prided herself
most industrially.

Add to that the cultivation that has been destroyed, the soil that has
been made untillable, the trees that have been cut down, the roads
that have been torn up and the bridges that have been destroyed. All
the misery, all the mourning, all the sickness: a million wounded and
injured men who have been lost as living forces by a nation which did
not have too many inhabitants. Add the hundred thousand prisoners
Germany sends back to us who have been made tuberculous, paralytics,
nervous wrecks or lunatics because they have been physically
maltreated. Yes, France is suffering.

But it is not true that she is worn out. It is not true that she is
bled white. The horrible hope Germany had formed of emptying France of
her strength, of leaving her, fighting for breath and conquered,
beaten to the earth for centuries to come, has not been realized.
France always stands upright, her arm is still strong, her muscles
vigorous and her blood rich.

To destroy the lie that France is bled white, we must let figures,
facts, statistics and definite proofs speak. The public shall judge
for itself....

A nation that is worn out and bled white has no army to defend itself.
France not only still has an army, but she has an army that is
numerically and materially stronger than it was at the war's
beginning. In 1914, at the Marne, France had an army of 1,500,000 men;
today, after four years of war, France has on her battle front, in
the war zone, an army of 2,750,000 men.

But the value of fighting men today lies only in the artillery they
have to support them behind the lines. It lies in the shells the
artillery is able to fire, in all that material that makes up the
sinews of war o