21st Dec.
Warrixa on the 14th of July last we said: "The French army is now the finest and the best armed in Europe, and the consciousness of this has made the nation strangely quiet and patient and unwilling to provoke hostilities." 'I'here were many of our readers who regarded this statement as to the pre-eminence now attained by the French army as only a compliment appropriate to the day, and there were even Frenchmen here who doubted whether it was not an exaggeration. It was, however, the deliberate conviction of English and Continental students of military affairs, and it is strikingly confirmed by Sir Charles Dilke in his most interesting article on "The French Armies," which opens the Fortnightly for November. He begins by saying: "Germany has this year lost: that uncontested supremacy in Europe which she has enjoyed for twenty years. No events, no definite facts, sufficiently account for this loss not of power but of prestige. From August, 1870, to the early summer of 1891, most competent authorities accorded to Germany the first place for strength, and some remarks of my own in this Review in 1887 to the effect that, for all that we could tell, France was as strong, were viewed as partial or eccentric, and called forth much criticism. For no one reason, a doubtful or hesitating opinion as to the military situation in Europe has, in the second half of 1891, become general, and there are few who are now willing to maintain that Germany is certainly the military superior of France, or the Triple Alliance certainly superior on land to France with her Russian ally."
Sir Charles Dilke's article is much too long and too full of matter for us to hope to be able to condense it into a column; but we may usefully pick out points here and there. ere is one point to be noticed in which the French officers have changed very much froiti, the old English estimate of them. There are no Marshals at all now, and there are happily no Marshal Lebaufs to declare that: if mobilisation were ordered, not a button would be missing on the gaiter of a French private. The French officers of the present day are more apt to depreciate than toexaggerate the merits of their army. " When hearing its officers talk one cannot but feel that they are rsolved to keep themselves within the truth about its strength, he French army of 1870 was undoubtedly not the first army in the world; but to hear its officers talk one would have thought that there was no other."
We have hardly realised here the importance of the manceuvres that were held in France this year." The French grand manceuvres in the East were more important from the- standing of the Generals in command than any which have ever been held outside Germany. They were more important from the numbers of men engaged in them than any which have ever been held outside Russia." The Generals engaged were men whose names will be in every mouth when the great European war breaks out, though many of them are now hardly known out of France; Saussier, the generalissimo, de Gallifet, Davout, de Miribel, Boni Derrécagaix, Jamont, de Néwrier, Zurlinden, Brault, and Herve; these men commanded "probably the most powerful army that has ever been seen in the field in time of peace," while the manceuvres themselves took place "in the very heart of the country illustrated by Napoleon's greatest campaign jof genius—that of 1814.
The centre was the plain upon which were fought the battles of Brienne and of La Rothidre." For picturesqueness Sir Charles Dilke says he has seen nothing to compare with the incidents in these man-@uvres as military spectacles, except when he was the guest of Sir F. Roberts in India. The smokeless powder now used overspreads the landscape with a trifling purple haze, which beautifies all objects, though it in no way interferes with sight. for the guns, they appear to have but the smoke of a cigar, and, I may add, the smell of a fugee. Men and horses are now visible in battle, however hot the engagement, however great the ummbers, with all the clearness in which they i i i ws of Most striking was. the endurance of the troops and the cheerfulness with which their hard work was done. Ihe infantry, "with their complete kit and equipment, including not only extra boots, cooking apparatus, brushes, food, and so forth, as provided in the regulations, but also dry wood for making fires in the open field," marched on the average nearly 30 miles a day, and the cavalry 40 miles. There was one case where some infantry marched 37 miles one day and 31 on the next; and one di of cavalry marched 50 miles one day, and 37 the next; and on seven marching days the shade temperature rose above 88° Fahr., and on two days above 92°, while the number of meu who fell out or became sick was surprisingly small; the percentage being far less than inthe English manceuvres this year. "Soldiers of whom none of the privates had had three years' service, and of whom the reserve men had only just come back from every kind of civil life im every rank of society, marched farther and better than our professional soldiers."
Sir Charles Dilke was struck by the simplicity of life among the officers in high places, and the way in which they shared the discomforts which the men had to bear. It was not summer picnic work even for the Generals in command. Officers were "quartered in peasants' houses where vermin was not unknown, and where the floors were often composed of mud, and mud plentifully larded with the fat and onions of the canteens of the advanced troops or of the enemy of the previous night The Generals of Armies with their brilliant staffs take nothing with them, and drink the roughest country wine or the common brandy made by the peasants from the and stalks of the grapes in places where as, is-general in Champagne, water is searce and bad, and content themselves with the mutton of the previous week, and the beans the previous year." There is much democratic wisdom about this (while the democratic spirit of the French army did not prevent the Army of the East being commanded by a Duke, and that of the West by a Prince-Marquis), "and the reservist from the towns (perhaps a hotel-keeper, a lawyer, or a journalist) who is serving in the ranks, jand who, while retaining the gold-rimmed eye-glass of civil life, is pad-dung about with bare feet, and barebacked, in a courtyard full of filth, feels less aggrieved if he knows that the brilliant General is not much better off." sins Sir Charles Dilke necessarily makes, but his conclusions generally are most favourable. Up to 1870 the French were the great military nation of the world; after their collapse in the fight with Germany, the pendulum swung the other way, and their military reputation went down to zero. They are once again at the highest point, and they deserve to be, for they have shrunk from no sacrifice, they have spared no effort, to attain the position they have gained. And the time and money France has spent in the forging and polishing of her new weapon have not, happily, as yet imbued her with a desire to flesh it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.