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me afterwards, “What could we do? We had the most beautiful new guns. We were in the artillery. When we were moving up to make our stand the gun fell apart. The pins that were supposed to hold the gun together fell out. There was no ammunition that would fit our guns. The ammunition we were issued didn't fit the guns we had with us, and yet they were beautiful guns. What could we do? Nobody can fight that way.”

The roadsides of France were strewn with magnificent equipment that wouldn't work. It didn't work, or they didn't have the ammunition to fill it, or they didn't have the gasoline, or the gears hadn't been greased, and so on. There were a great many instances of great individual and group bravery. Whole companies did a magnificent piece of work. Of course, they had fooled themselves about the strength of the Maginot Line.

At any rate, Bullitt knew a great deal more than I did. He had access to all the figures of the Ministry of Munitions, and all such things.

I did have a further check on the condition of France that same year in an informal talk at another Sunday luncheon with the Prince de Broglie, who is the head of the de Broglie family, a very famous old French family, and who is also the principal physicist of France.