The study of the above details will show the necessity, in case intense and constant firing is needed, of accumulating the largest possible reserve of field batteries at the points requiring a great effort. When, as will often happen, several batteries are temporarily out of action, the surrounding batteries will have to intensify their fire. Barrage fires, almost exclusively the work of the field artillery, must be rapid, continuous, accurate, and concentrated. =6. Different issues of ammunition.= In order to avoid delay in the aiming and firing, it is indispensable to see that the ammunition brought to the batteries, of all sizes, belongs, as much as possible, to the same issue, from the same loading factories. This rule is strictly adhered to, except in case of material impossibility. In France, parks generally receive lots of 5000 shells, all loaded in the same factory and with labels enabling the gunners to ascertain that the projectiles belong to the same lot; loaded at a specified date and at a specified factory. After a few trial shots, the battery commanders will see the effects of a given lot of shells and point their guns accordingly. We cannot enter here into the details of artillery practice. The study of it must be begun in schools under the direction of specialists; practical application must be made in the camps. This detailed instruction is now being given in the camps of France and America to the new recruits by Allied officers, who all have acquired at the Front a large experience in all that concerns the artillery. Guns play a preponderating part in the present war, and the combatants are improving them unceasingly. At the present time, the French field artillery undoubtedly stands first for the accuracy and efficiency of its guns and projectiles, the models of which have been adopted by the United States. The French and English heavy artilleries are now decidedly and in every respect superior in quality to the German and are more cleverly handled. The English heavy artillery, at all times seconded by numerous aviators of great daring, can develop its concentration fires to a very great degree of intensity and efficiency, and we can assert on personal information that there never has been on any front during this war such a formidable drumfire as that executed by the French artillery between the 18th and 22d days of October, 1917, north-east of Soissons. The Germans, who at the beginning of the war were rather bad gunners, have improved their material and especially their firing methods by frankly adopting those of the French artillery. They possess a heavy artillery, as numerous as powerful and varied, and when they succeed in systematizing their fire, its effects are cruel. For this reason we shall end this chapter by repeating: Let us have still more cannon, still more ammunition, and still more airplanes to second our artillery. CHAPTER VI INFANTRY