> The austere, punctilious French Ministry of War announced last week that it had mobilized 100,000 pigeons in the Maginot Line—to carry messages, especially through artillery barrages.
> The same Ministry also announced that it was demobilizing 100,000 men—all members of the class of 1910 (born 1890), all fathers of four or more children, all 43-year-olds with three children, 45-year-olds with two—so that they could go home and be producers instead of sitting at the front as idle consumers.
> A French freight train chuffed calmly out of Mulhouse, across No Man's Land...