CHAPTER VIII.
ARMY AND POLICE.
The Army.
A large portion of the revenues is spent in keeping up a nominally numerous army, but in reality the most undisciplined rabble that ever were assembled under arms. With the exception of a few hundred tirailleurs, who were, in the time of President Geffrard, disciplined by an intelligent officer, Pétion Faubert, a man who had seen service in the French army, the regiments have been always composed of the peasantry, without any discipline, and officered by men as ignorant as themselves. I have seen a battalion on parade numbering thirteen privates, ten officers, and six drummers—the rest of the men thinking it unnecessary to present themselves except on pay-day.
A French admiral asked permission to see a Sunday morning’s review. On approaching a cavalry regiment equally low in numbers with the battalion mentioned above, the President gravely turned to the Frenchman and said, “Beaucoup souffert dans la dernière guerre.”
A more motley sight can scarcely be imagined than a full regiment marching past. Half the men are in coats wanting an arm, a tail, or a collar, with a broken shako, a straw or round hat, a wide-awake, or merely a handkerchief tied round the head; officers carrying their swords in their right or their left hands according to caprice; the men marching in waving lines, holding their muskets in every variety of position; whilst a brilliant staff, in all the uniforms known to the French army, gallops by. President Geffrard used to look on with a smile of satisfaction on his face, and gravely ask you whether there were any finer troops in the world. As I have elsewhere related, the Treasurer-in-chief, who had passed some time in Paris, assured him that although the soldiers there were more numerous, they had not the tenue of the Haytian, and suggested that it would be as well for the President to send some of his officers to France as models for the French army to imitate. This is no exaggeration. I have myself heard similar observations. The negro is generally an ill-made shambling fellow, who rarely looks well in uniform and detests the service; but in order to render the work less fatiguing for the poor fellows, the sentries are provided with chairs!
It was after watching such a march-past as I have described above that a French naval officer asked me, “Est-ce que vous prenez ces gens au serieux?” And yet they look upon themselves as a military nation, and constantly boast that they drove the English and French out of the island; forgetting the part taken by their most potent allies, climate and yellow fever; and until disease had carried off the mass of their oppressors, and the renewal of the war in Europe enabled the English to lend their aid, they were crushed under the heel of the French.
The Haytian army has greatly varied in numbers. In the early years (1825 to 1830) of General Boyer’s Presidency it was calculated at 30,000 men, with only a fair proportion of officers. Some months after the fall of General Geffrard (1867) an account was published stating that the army in round numbers consisted as follows:—
| General officers and staff | 6500 |
| Regimental officers | 7000 |
| Soldiers | 6500 |
| ——— | |
| 20,000 |
It is never possible to say what is the exact force of the army; in a late return it is stated at 16,000, and among the non-effectives are about 1500 generals of division. However, the old system continues, and to most of the battalions the President’s observation, “Beaucoup souffert dans la dernière guerre,” could be aptly applied. As Gustave d’Alaux somewhere remarks, “Tout Haïtien qui n’était pas général de division était au moins soldat.”