The French Army From Within

nty military stations, each forming the skeleton of an army corps, that the annual cost to the state runs into a considerable fraction of the total military expenditure, t

resent a large expenditure, for each shell is in itself a complicated piece of machiner

conscript on manœuvres is a different being from the one who came to the colours in the previous October. He has acquired a self-confidence and self-reliance of which he was innocent at the beginning of his training; he came as a boy, but now there are about him the signs of a ma

value as regards the training of officers and men than when two or three army corps conduct their mimic warfare together. Certainly more than one army corps should be engaged in an annual set of manœuvres. For instance, if one took Lyons as the station concerned, and assumed that the army corps stationed at Lyons conducted its manœuvres year after year independently of those army corps which have their head-quarters at other centres, it would be easily understood that the army c

ntly conducted some of its stiffest fights; great open plains like that which lies about Châlons, or like the Breton Landes; and river basins of diversified country, giving rea

s in France, was surrounded and entirely put out of action early in the course of the operations. Had the business been real, the men of that particular regiment would all have been either dead or prisoners, but they were allowed to continue to count in the force to which they belonged, and the commander of the opposing force simply scored up so much credit for having achieved a brilliant military operation. Of course, from the point of view of training officers and men, for which manœuvres are specially designed, it was quite right that the officers and men of this unit should take part in the operations up to the last day, bu

lank have very little marching to do, and very little work, since their part in the scheme is to wait for the wheeling flank to come round. An amusing old scamp whose service began when the five years' law was still in force, and who served in a French infantry battalion up to a short time ago, used to allege that he was once right-hand man of an army cor

ractically nothing to do, and stayed very nearly in the same place throughout the whole time. For, though the part that his own regiment has to play in a scheme is usually explained to the conscript, the strategical nature of the scheme as a whole is generally beyond his comprehension

the conditions under which transport can and must be brought up for the use of the troops can be studied with almost as much accuracy as in warfare; the cavalry commander learns the value, from a war point of view, of his men as scouts and on detached duties, while the artillery officer finds out, as he never could without manœuvre experience, the possibilities of gun transport, and the business of ranging positions with a view to rendering them untenable by shellfire. Where the manœuvre period fails as regards war lies mainly in the absence of disadvantages. As already remarked, the conditions under which transport can be brought up for the use of troops can be studied, but sometimes in war transport goes wrong, or gets captu

d to actual fire. Both in infantry and cavalry there exists a prejudice against firing the first blank cartridge of a manœuvre day, though, once that first cartridge has been fired, a man does not care how many more he fires, and often men have been known to beg blank cartridges from others, after firing their own. The reason for the prejudice consists in the fact that the firing of the first cartridge f

int more quickly than infantry, thus rendering their fire decisive. Further, small bodies of cavalry are employed in reconnaissance and detached duties of various kinds; the modern army in movement always throws out well to the front a screen of cavalry, whose object is to find and report on the presence of the enemy, to maintain contact with him, but not to engage in decisive action, which is as a rule, and practically always when the opposing forces are of equal strength, left mainly to the artillery and infantry following on behind the cavalry screen. During a period of manœuvres cavalry patrols theoretically cut telegraph wires, destroy bridges, and do all they

to fire the first shot, for the cleaning of a field-gun, even after firing blank ammunition, is no light matter. The bore of the gun has literally to be scrubbed out in order to remove the fouling, and the gunner's task is not an enviable one; the clot

realities of their work. The so-called smokeless powder-which in reality is not smokeless-used on these occasions, together with the passage of a shell through the rifling of the gun, renders the cleaning of the bore an even more messy business than that incurre

l and new matters to discuss. One may, granted the necessary leave, walk over to a near-by town, where is certain to be at least a cinema hall, and restaurants outside which one may sit by a table at the pavement edge and view civilian life. Or there may be a night march to be accomplished, and, though this is a tiring business, it has a certain amount of interest as long as the weather holds good. The chief drawback to manœuvres is a rainy season, when the soldier has a particularly unenviable time of it. There are seldom sufficient fires at which to dry one's clothes; there is, perhaps, the business of pitching tents in the rain, and then the crowding of self, arms, and equipment into the canvas shelter, while outside the rain keeps on in a way which suggests that fine days are things

conditions, and it is not the business of a period of manœuvres to impose too great a strain on the forces taking part therein. When the men are in their tents and the rain is driving down outside, the interminable songs of the army may be heard from the interiors of the tents. Even in a standing camp-that is to say, a camp located i

, with a view to imparting as much instruction to officers and men alike as is possible in the allotted period. Given fine weather, one

civilian life is getting very near. Pierre will go back to the farm, and Jacques will return to his place behind the counter, while Jean will once more polish the seat of the office stool for a stated period each day. But Jacques and Pierre and Jean will at times look bac