Although the effective strength of the French Army, when the last man has been armed and placed in the field, is about 4,800,000 men, it must not be supposed that the Republic maintains all these numbers as a fighting force in the field throughout the campaign. About a million and a half of men go out as the "first line," and from those who remain this line is strengthened as and where required. It has become clear since the battle of the Marne that almost a second army was collected under the shelter of the Paris forts to reinforce the retreating line of men who fell back from the Belgian frontier, and in this connection it may be noted that the traditional French method of conducting war is with sixty per cent of the men in the firing line, and the remaining forty per cent in rear as reserves. France's conduct of the war against Germany has shown that this method of fighting—diametrically opposed to the German conception of war—is still being adhered to, and the troops in the firing line by no means compose the whole of the French striking force.
As to active service in the French Army, the general English view is that the French soldier, with the exception of the Algerian garrison, sees no service outside European bounds, and the deeds of French soldiers are ignored as regards French colonial possessions and expeditions. In the expedition to Tonquin, to which reference has already been made in connection with the Foreign Legion of the French Army, there were deeds done by individuals and by regiments that are worthy of memory besides the brilliant exploits of our own Army. It is not only to the war in the Crimea and the present campaign that we must look for evidence of the indomitable courage that the French undoubtedly possess, but also to service on the French colonial battlefields, in Chinese swamps and African wilds.
The present campaign has proved that French soldiers are capable of retreating in good order when strategy renders a retreat necessary—a feat hitherto deemed impossible to the army whose sole strength was supposed to consist in its power of impetuous attack. The retreat from the Belgian frontier has rendered necessary a reconstruction of ideas as regards French psychology, and has shown that the training imposed on the conscripts of France in time of peace was the best that could be applied. Just as in the field the best general is the best psychologist, so in time of peace the best administration is that which, regardless of criticism of its methods, prepares its men most effectively for war, selecting the form of training to be applied in a way that takes into consideration the mental characteristics and temperament of the material required to be trained. The merits of the form of training selected can only be determined by the effectiveness of the trained material in action, and, granting these things, the conduct of the French Army in the present campaign is a splendid vindication of the peace training of that Army. The first stages of the war have been all against the French way of fighting—the way in which the French soldier is supposed to exhibit himself at his best; yet in retreat, and in action approximating in length and tedium to the monotony and continued exertion of siege warfare, the French soldier has given his commanders cause for pride.
Let it be remembered that the men who are fighting the battles of France, and of all civilisation, on French soil in these closing months of 1914 are not like the veterans with whom Napoleon won his battles. The wars of the Napoleonic era, lasting for years as they did, brought into the field a host of trained men—trained in war by the practice of war, rather than by experiments under peace conditions; from the time of the Revolution onward there were sufficient veteran soldiers, seasoned in real warfare, to stiffen the ranks of any army that might be raised to attack—neither to retreat nor to defend, but to attack in accordance with French tradition. The Army of the Republic to-day is made up of men who have had two years' training apiece (with the exception of the small percentage of re-engagés, who also have had no war service) under peace conditions, and who for the most part have never seen a shot fired in anger, as the phrase goes. Yet out of this semi-raw material (semi-raw as far as war experience goes) France has raised an Army which may without exaggeration be termed magnificent, an Army that has kept the field under harder circumstances than those which brought about the surrender of Sedan, an Army that no more knows when it is beaten than does the British force fighting by its side.