The Armies of Europe

by Fedor von Köppen

Chasseur d’Afrique.

If we now come to the question why, with an Army which has given such numerous proofs in many campaigns of its valour and excellence, France has not kept up her prestige, the answer is to be found, not in the morale of the Army, but in that of France herself, a country in which the spirit of order and subjection, and that stern devotion to duty which is the foundation of all discipline, have never taken root. Ambition and desire of conquest form the motive-power of many great and glorious deeds, and are certainly not wanting in the French character. Higher than these, however, stands the feeling of duty which keeps a man at his post through all hardships and perils, without a thought for his own gain or loss, simply because he has learned to subject his will to a higher one. On this foundation can be raised a discipline which permits of no loosening of the bonds of training and order even in times of disaster, and which keeps up the spirit of the Army and faith in its final success even under the heaviest blows of misfortune. This feeling cannot be learnt in a three years’, nor five years’, nor even twenty-five years’ service, if it is not ingrained and actually born in the national character and national system of education. Without these main features even universal conscription itself will not be successful, and the recent Draconian law in France, although it may bring forth vast masses of armed men, will not produce that feeling of combined action and willingness to follow their leaders to the death which is so characteristic of nations in whom the military spirit is thoroughly implanted.

France is well-armed for attack as well as defence; for attack, by means of the great armed masses which she can throw into the enemy country at the first declaration of war, in conjunction with the troops she has had stationed on her frontier during peace-time; and for defence by means of a defensive system on a vast scale, the outer line of which consists of frontier-fortresses and stop-gap forts from the Swiss to the Belgian frontier, from Belfort, over the Vosges ridge to Epinal, now a strong fortress, Toul and Verdun, on the right bank of the Meuse. Behind this first line of defence a second one has been built, consisting of entrenched camps between forty and fifty miles apart, and reaching from Langres to Rheims. There are, in fact, but few roads into France which are not covered by the fire of some fortress or other. The central point of the whole of this vast defensive system is the huge fortress of Paris, which, with her circle of protecting forts surrounding her on a fifteen-mile radius, is more like a fortified province than a fortress.

The secret of victory, however, does not lie in vast armaments like these. “It is the spirit which forms the body” and brings into subjection the material powers for its own objects. War is not only a combat of material forces; it is in a higher sense a combat of cultured forces. Let us, therefore, remember that the best preparation for trial by combat does not lie in continual striving to over-reach another in material and brute force, but in the striving after a more complete development of warlike skill.

ADDENDUM TO FRANCE.

[Pp. 46, 47]. Now that the new law has come into force, July 1890, the terms of service have been entirely changed. As the law now stands, seven-tenths of the annual contingent of recruits have to serve for 3 years, and three-tenths for 1 year. After his colour-service, a man joins the Active Reserve for 7 (or 9) years, then the Territorial Army for 6 years, and after that the Territorial Reserve for 9 years more—total 25 years.

312,000 youths reach the military age (20) every year. Of these only 174,000 are required for colour-service. The effect of the new law will be that by 1915 A.D. there will be no fewer than 3,500,000 of Frenchmen properly trained as soldiers and ready to take the field, and 60,000 trained men per annum will have been added to the army!

N.B.—The war-strength of over 4,000,000 given on [page 47] includes all men, old and young, who have ever received any military training, and is therefore hardly a just estimate of the French fighting-strength. The latest trustworthy estimates put it at 2,790,000 men.