FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ARMY.

Otago Witness, Issue 803, 20 April 1867, Page 15

FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ARMY.

(Prom the Saturday Review )

Nothing could show in a more striking my how great is the change that has passed, and is passing, over Europe and France, than that the Emperor should have announced his intention of raising the French army to the enormous total of a million and a quarter of men, and that it should be not Europe, but France, that feels alarmed and hurt at the proposal Ostensibly, this huge force is said to be for the protection of France, and to ward off invasion. But this deceives no one. There is no human likelihood of France being invaded. It is of course conceivable that a coalition miaht be formed to humble and despoil France, and that the allies might march on Paris, just as the rival sects of Christendom might agree to hold Jerusalem peacefully m common. But nothing can be more unlikely, and a nation cannot be expected to ruin itself in order to guard against remote and imaginary dangers. All the world is aware that the real object of the Emperor is to provide himself with an army of offence — an army which would place him at the head of Europe, andmafce him as much the arbiter of its fate as he was believed to be before the battle of Sadowa. There is a vague impression,' both in France and out of it, that the Emperor intends to have a war directly the Paris Exhibition is over. He has lost erronnd lately, it is said. He has allowed Prussia and Italy to rise up by the side of France ; he has lost his opportunity ot defeating Count Bisir.ark ; he has allowed the control of European affairs to slip out of his hands. The Mexican expedition has ended in disaster; and the dislike of it which has been so general in Frsnce may be turned into a still more bitter feeling when the expeditionary corps return, and the soldiers who have been to Mexico tell their friends how much and how uselessly they have suffered. The treatment, too, which the Emperor has sustained, and endured at the bands of the Government of Washington, must be galling to him and to his people. Therefore, it is argued, he must, for the sake of himself and his dynasty, have a war before long. But, although Europe talks in this way, Europe is not very seriously alarmed: There is no war apparently possible unless the Emperor either quarrels with Germany or provokes once more the eternal Eastern question. In the East, it would be equally distasteful to France to side with Russia cr against her ; and a war with Germany is a very serious thing. It may therefore be corjectured that the Emperor's design is not to force on a war, but rather to inspire a gemral fear of his power, and to increase the consideration with which he and his country are treated. He does not probably wish to fight Prussia, but he wishes to dispel the belief, which his hesitation in the spring inspired, that he is afraid to fight her. France is to furnish a million and a quarter of soldiers to her chief, neither that the may be saved from an attack nor that she may be triumphant in a campaign, but that she may continue to hold that position in Europe which she conceives to be due to her.

But France does not like the Emperors scheme. He may force his su v j';cts to adopt his plan, whether they like it or not : but there can be little doubt that they dislike it bitteriy. On no previous occasion in hi 3 reigu has there been, the same heartiness and unanimity of opposition f hat this scheme for remodelling tne army has excited. In the first place, there if a growing dislike in France to war ; and the passive policy of the Emperor this spring was widely approved by a vast number of quiet, huruble people, although it was denounced by the gossips of Pari?, aud laughed at by those who are only too glad to laugh at anything proposed by the man they detest. The country is most heavily taxed, and it if just beginning to grow rich, and to feel tbat its riches come from sources which war might easily destroy. To men in such a position it seems very dangerous that the irresponsible ruler of France should have so tremendous an engine of warfare always at hi 3 command as an army of twelve hundred thousand men must furnish. The Emperor may not rush into a foolish and needless war, but his successor may not be as wise as he is ; and tfcere are imny men whom the command of a very large army would be sure to inspire with a war like policy. Then the abstraction of so large* a number of men from peaceful pursuits must cripple and derange the national industry. The apologist of the Government who writea in the MoniUur has, indeed, endeavored to show that industry would be promoted rathet than injured, and the population increased rather than diminished, by the new arrangement. But Government ■writers will prove anything; and without entering into subtle calculations of the number of extra years of married life which, on paper, are shown to have been given to the French population, common sense teaches that the time allotted to

military service must be lost to industry, and that a population which is already almost stationary is not likely to be augmented by a scheme under which few men would think theraselve free to marrj until they were twenty-nine years of age. It is also a very serious thing for a people to take upon itself the burden of a universal conscription. To a certain extent, the Prussians have lakeu this burden on themselves, although even they are resolute in their demand that the term of compulsory service shall be reduced within limits which their military authorities consider too small. But the Prussian army is not like the French army. There is no seal comparison to be made between them. The Prussian army was not used at all for a period of more than fifty years, and when it was used it was only used to decide whether the North or the South of Germany should be supreme. But the French armyis being continually employed. It has been engaged in a continuous succession of wars since the Second Empire began, and it is constantly called on to serve in distant and dangerous expeditions. One French soldier in five is always in Algeria, which is nothing more than a vast camp, and the only possible use of which is to be a school for war ; and a verj' rough school it is. At this moment one large detachment of the French army is fightmg, without any object or any glory, in Mexico ; another portion is just returning from the long long occupation of Rome; a third is engaged in carrying on a wht, the objec's and extent of which are alike indescribable, in Cochin China. If Prussians feel conscription into their army a hardship when they are always kept within easy reach of their homes, and are not likely to be lightly called on to fight what would be the terrors of a universal conscription to Frenchmen, when they would be liable st any moment to be sent to catch the yellow fever at Vera Cruz, or to scurry after Arabs under a burning sun ?

The opposition to the Emperor's scheme is so strong that even the Government nominees who are elected under universal suffrage hint that they cannot do as much as they know they are expected to do; and a candidate for a seat that happens to be vacant has actually tried to recommend himself to his constituents by assuring them that he is entirely adverse to the plan. The papers write against it with a freedom and a determination which must be very displeasing to their censors, and which can only be tolerated because the Emperor does not like to run too decidedly counter to a strong and general feeling. The feeling is so strong that it has actually engendered a sudden love and respect for the present French Constitution, and Deputies begin to profess themselves seriously concerned lest their Chamber should lose the control over the Executive which it exercises through the necessity of obtaining from it a vote for the military contingent of the year. Under the present system, the Government informs the Chamber how many soldiers it wants, and this number is sanctioned by the Chamber. It has always been willing to vote exactly as many as the Government has chosen to ask for ; but the right of refusal remains, and if circumstances changed, and there were a Government which inspired less confidence than that ot the present Emp ror does, this right of refusal might be very valuable. And even when we look at the past history of the Emperor and his Chamber, and are inclined to think that this new anxiety to walk in strictly constitut'oaal paths is somewhat artificial, yet it is quite obvious tbat there is danger under a Government like that of the Second Empire to which Prussians are not exposed. Th? master of a country like France, always feeling his hold on power to be insecure, and being prompted to try every risk rather than fall, is very apt to seek to distract the country from internal difficulties by plunging it into a war. A Frenchman, if turned into a soldier by a universal conscription, would know that he might any day be sent to die in the midst of flying bullets and cannon-balls, not that be might defend his country, or attain an object dear to his country, but simply in order tbat a particular man, who had had the luck to get into the Tuileries, might be enabled to go on staying there. The consideration may not be of very great importance during the Emperor's life, for most Frenchmen think that, now he is at the head ot affairs, tie had better stay there ; but after him may come the deluge, and no one can guess whether it would be anything but madness to trust the Emperor's successor with a vast army, the annual replenishment of which was fixed by a standing law, and was not controlled by those who, in theory at least, represent the country. The Emperor is not lightly to be moved from determinations which he has once taken, but he has never yet disregarded the general feeling of the French people. He will try to guage their opinion far more thoroughly and deeply than any one else could do ; but if he finds the country to be seriously opposed to his scheme, he will be much too sensible to persevere, and will admit modifications of

it which will content his subjects without exposing him to the reproach of a defeat.