That improvements have been effected since my time I gladly admit. The reforms instituted by the much-abused General Boulanger have been already touched upon, and their value must not be under-estimated.
To quote but a few of them—he abolished the Salle de Police for non-commissioned officers, replacing it by confinement to the room. He extended from 10 P.M. to 11 P.M. the time at which non-commissioned officers had to be back in barracks, this time being extended to midnight in the case of re-enlisted N.C.O.s. He allowed the latter a higher pay, a separate room, and the right of wearing clothes made of fine cloth of the same quality as that worn by the officers, and gave non-commissioned officers the right to live outside the barracks. He then withdrew from Corporals, Sergeants, and other non-commissioned officers the right of punishing privates with Salle de Police, the only punishment they can now inflict being confinement to barracks.
Unfortunately, however, these regulations can be easily evaded, for when a Corporal or a Sergeant wants to send a man to the Salle de Police he has only to report him to the Lieutenant of the Week, who hardly ever fails to put down whatever punishment the Corporal or non-commissioned officer asks him to inflict; or, again, if a Corporal or non-commissioned officer wants to have a man punished with Salle de Police he has only to give the fellow the maximum number of days of "C.B." (confinement to barracks) he is allowed to give, and justify the punishment by a strong motive, and in that case the Captain will never fail to transform the punishment into lock-up.
General Boulanger also added much to the comfort of privates and Corporals, by ordering that they should have their meals served at table and presided over by a Corporal. The food of the ten to twelve men sitting at each table was to be served in a dish, portions being distributed to each man on an enamelled plate by the Corporal or table president. This regulation, which has remained in force ever since, introduces a great improvement on the way we were fed in my time—as will be obvious from my previous description. Last, but not least, General Boulanger fixed at 9 P.M. instead of 8 P.M., the time at which privates had to return to barracks in the evening. The General's extraordinary popularity is therefore hardly to be wondered at if one remembers that every Frenchman has to be a soldier.
It is, of course, quite clear that one of the greatest blots in the system I have described—that is to say, the system actually adopted, and not the ideal one depicted in the regulations—is that the cavalry officers trust almost entirely to the Sergeants to look after the drill, discipline, and comfort of their men. During my twenty months' service the Colonel did not come fifty times to the barracks, and then rarely stayed there for an hour at a time. Except during the general yearly inspection, the Lieutenant-Colonel or Majors did not pass once a month through our rooms, and then merely marched through them in a perfunctory manner.
The Captain in command of my squadron sometimes, it it is true, came to our room, usually on the weekly inspection day, but a fortnight or three weeks often elapsed between his visits. My Lieutenant came to our room on the weekly inspection day, but rarely at other times. None of our officers ever came to look at our food.
As to the drill, until the squadron drilled together the officers hardly ever troubled themselves about it. During the first five months' preliminary training, troopers were left entirely to the care of the Sergeants and Corporals, the Lieutenants looking on for perhaps a few minutes at a time. When, in April, the troopers began to be drilled in squares marked out on the manœuvring ground, the officers used to ride over there, and every quarter of an hour or so glanced at the square where their men were riding under the command of a Sergeant. "Stables" were superintended by the officer of the week, but as in the 1st and 2nd squadrons (as well as in the 4th and 5th) one officer took the week in turn for the two combined squadrons, he could not be expected to see much of what was going on, among the 250 horses or thereabouts he had to superintend. Lieutenants and Sub-lieutenants, except when they were on "week" duty, never came to the stables, so that really everything devolved on the Sergeants, whose power and responsibility were consequently enormous.
Another consequence of the French military system is that officers and rank and file alike are absolutely wanting in that esprit de corps which is so remarkable in British regiments. That privates should feel no particular pride in the body to which they are temporarily, and for the most part unwillingly, attached, is not to be wondered at, but in the case of officers a different explanation is forthcoming.
Strange to say, it is a general rule in the French army that officers, on their promotion to a superior rank, are always sent into another regiment (the only exception occurring in the case of Sub-lieutenants, who sometimes—but rarely—remain in the same regiment upon their promotion to the rank of Lieutenant). The consequence of this rule is that an officer who reaches the rank of Colonel has often served in six different regiments. It even often happens, for instance, that a Lieutenant of Dragoons is drafted into the Hussars on his promotion as a Captain, and then passes into the Cuirassiers when he becomes a Major, being transferred to the Chasseurs as Lieutenant-Colonel, and then being put in command of a regiment of Dragoons as Colonel.
The hard-and-fast lines of social distinction which are drawn between officers of different ranks are also fatal obstacles to the corporate well-being of the regiment. The idea, for instance, that Captains would demean themselves if they sat at the same table with Lieutenants and Sub-lieutenants, and that Majors must also form a separate mess, hinders social intercourse between officers of the different ranks, and seems almost to indicate the possibility of subalterns forgetting themselves in the presence of their superior officers. How different the English system, where all officers mess together, meeting in the simple equality of gentlemen!