The part of his work that the cavalry conscript likes least is the grooming and sweeping up and cleaning of saddlery in the stables. There is a morning stable hour with which the day begins; there are about two hours before midday which must be devoted to grooming, cleaning saddlery, sweeping up, etc., and there is another hour or so to be spent at stables in the afternoon, when the "orders of the day" are read out to the men by the sergeant-major of the squadron or his representative.
As is the case in the infantry, each conscript, on arriving at the regiment in which he is to serve, is allotted to the charge of a corporal, who instructs him in all things pertaining to his work, and takes charge of him on corvées, the equivalent to the "fatigues" of the British Army. Corvées include the carrying of forage from the stores to stable, fetching coal for the cooks, white-washing where and when necessary, building riding-school jumps, and, in fact, all and every class of work which men are unable to perform individually for themselves. Much of this work is undergone by the men sentenced to salle de police, which is the equivalent of the British Army's punishment known as "days to barracks," with the addition that the offenders sleep in the guard room at night instead of in the barrack room. This of course involves entire confinement to barracks, which no offender is allowed to quit unless he is on duty; it also involves no possibility of attendance at the canteen at any time of the day, and, further, the man sentenced to salle de police devotes practically all the spare time that is his under normal circumstances to some form of corvée. On the whole, however, the punishment is not so severe as it appears, for, with the exception of sleeping in the guard room at night, and rising exceptionally early in the morning, a man undergoing salle de police is not debarred from the society of his comrades, and there is usually some good-natured chum willing to fetch canteen produce, and thus make up for at least one of the deficiencies involved.
This last, however, must be done when the corporal is not looking, or else both men are likely to get into trouble. Strict discipline is the rule and the conscript is expected to take his punishment—when he incurs it—as part of his training. It must be added as a mark of the quality of the material of which the French Army is composed that punishments and rewards alike are usually accepted in equally good part.
The corporal, who is the superior officer with whom the conscript is brought most frequently in contact, sleeps in the same room as his squad; he is thus able to give men hints with regard to riding school work; he trains his squad at elementary drill, both mounted and dismounted; he instructs men in the way in which clothing should be folded for placing on the shelf, and the way in which to clean kit and equipment. In the matter of troop drill the conscript is taught his work by the sergeant of the peloton or troop, and the sergeant in turn is responsible to the lieutenant or sub-lieutenant over him. He is also responsible to the sergeant-major of the squadron, and through him to the senior captain of the squadron. To follow the matter through, the senior captain is responsible to the Chef d'Escadrons, who again is responsible to the commanding officer of the regiment. Decentralisation of command has been an important factor in French military training for many years, and although the responsibilities of the corporal and sergeant pass through so many grades before they reach the ultimate head of affairs, both these lower ranks are extremely important items in the discipline and training of the French cavalry regiments.
There is one system pursued both in the cavalry and in the artillery of the French Army which leads to pleasant expeditions for a certain number of men in each of these branches of the service. The system referred to is that of boarding out a certain number of horses away from regimental control for that portion of the year which the regiment spends in barracks. When the time approaches for the regiment to go on manœuvres, a party usually made up of a sergeant, possibly a corporal, and two or three troopers, goes round to the farms where these horses are at grass, and inspects them with a view to reporting on their condition and fitness for use. As may be imagined, the men selected for these expeditions are envied their appointments, for it is a pleasant matter to get away from the discipline and strict routine of service with the regiment for a time, and, if the sergeant in charge is a companionable man, the whole affair becomes a perfect picnic for the men concerned. On expeditions of this kind men are perfectly certain of receiving full hospitality at such places as they may visit, and altogether the trip is as good as the furlough which the conscript, unlike his British confrère, does not get, save in exceptional circumstances. The two years in which a man must become fully conversant with his work is too short a period, in view of the number of duties he has to learn, to admit of holidays.
Altogether, the life of the cavalry conscript in barracks is not by any means an unpleasant business. A comparatively large number of men, when given the choice of the arm of the service in which to serve, request to be sent to the cavalry. The majority of those joining cavalry regiments are used to horses in some way—and by this is implied very many ways indeed, and very many kinds of horse. French cavalry as a whole is built up out of good material; the spirit of the men is good; the reputation of the French cavalry for horse-mastership is as wide as it is deserved, and, bearing in mind the period of active service for which men are required to serve, it may safely be said that there is no better body of cavalry troops in the world than the French. This remark, however, cannot be reckoned as a wise one if the speaker is addressing a British cavalryman, who always regards himself as a member of the premier squadron in the best regiment of the very finest cavalry force existent. But then, the French cavalryman will tell the same story.
ARTILLERY
In the matter of armament and the quality thereof, French artillery is second to none; but in the matter of numbers the Field Artillery might have been stronger when considered relatively with the total strength of the French Army. If the conscript electing to join either infantry or cavalry considers himself in for a hard time, then it would be difficult to say what are the anticipations of the conscript who goes to service with the guns, for his work is practically twice as hard as that of the average infantryman. Still, he makes up for increase of work by a relaxation of discipline, and, after all, the conscript's two years comes to about the same thing in the end, no matter what branch of the service he may choose. For, just as there is a limit to a man's endurance or efficiency, so there is a limit to the amount of knowledge that a man can absorb in a given period. The infantry conscript absorbs all the knowledge possible in the allotted time: the artillery conscript can do no more.