French troops

Accdg to Gorst (Ref 71, p 7), rifled weapons started to be used in Russia Note British and French troops had such weapons already during Crimean War 1860 and After. Cannon Propellants. Up to about 1860 s Black Powder was used exclusively as cannon and rifle propellant. Then attempts were made to replace it with smokeless propints made from incompletely colloided Nitrocellulose. These proplnts were too, fast burning (See... 

The French troops were led by Marshal Petain, the First World War hero of Verdun later discredited by his collaboration with Hitler during the Second World War. 

According to the publication Der Heimkehrer,74 French officers and soldiers returning from Indochina stated that they could not understand what was happening at that time, 1 A years after the war, to the former members of the German occupation forces. They pointed out that incidents like Ora-dour take place in Indochina on a weekly basis, and must take place, in fact, for the sake of the protection of the French troops there. 

Salamon R, Verret C, Jutland MA, et al. Health consequences of the first Persian Gulf War on French troops. Int J Epidemiol 2006 35(2) 479-87. 

Proust s fate was no more kind. His work was suspended when French troops marched into Madrid and swept away Proust s laboratory in their wave of destruction. By this time the European diet had become dependent on refined sugar introduced from the New World, and Napoleon s supplies were cut off by Britain s naval blockade. Napoleon tried to use Proust s skills to come up with another source, but Proust, though reduced to poverty, refused Napoleon s offer to... 

Haber carried out trials at the testing range in Wahn and prepared the attack in Flanders near Ypres. It was several weeks before the attack could be carried out because of wind conditions. The attack was successful, and the English and French troops retreated in panic. The General Staff was very much surprised, and did not have enough reserve troops at its disposal to take advantage of this success. 

My narrative (in chapter 5) followed Bosch almost to the end of the World War I, when he organized the expansion of ammonia synthesis and nitrate production at Oppau and the construction of a new ammonia plant at Leuna. Shortly after the war s end, in December 1918, Bosch was delegated to Spa, and in March 1919 to Versailles, as the representative of German industry in the armistice and peace treaty delegations. After his return from France he became the chairman of the BASF board, and in that capacity he had to deal with the worst disaster in the company s history, an explosion at Oppau that caused more than 500 fatalities and destroyed the homes of more than 7,000 people in September 1921. In May 1923 Ludwigshafen was occupied by French troops, and Bosch, who fled across the Rhine, was sentenced in absentia for his refusal to cooperate with French authorities. 

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