THE FRENCH ARMY.

Otago Witness, Issue 987, 29 October 1870, Page 17

THE FRENCH ARMY.

(To the Editor of the Hobart Town Mercury.)

Sir — As doubtless many of your readers will be anxious to obtain any reliable information in connection with the formation of the French army, I take the liberty to forward to you an extract from an article in the Edinburgh Review on Essays upon Military Affairs in France, by M. Le Due D'Aumale, General Changarnier, and General Trochu. — I am, &c. W.A.K

Extract from the Edinburgh Review : — " The peace establishment, based upon an annual conscription of 40,000 men in 1818, was raised successively to 60,000 and 80,000 by the Government of Louis Philippe. Under the Second Empire it has always been at least 100,000, and during the Crimean and Italian wars, 140,000 men. The population of France increases more slowly than that of any other country — indeed it bardly increases at all. Amongst the most obvious causes of this phenomenon is the fact that 100,000 stout and able- bodied young men of twenty are marched off every year to the barracks or the camp — that for six or seven years at least they are unable to contract marriage, and that their more 1

fortunate contemporaries who stay at | home, cultivate their fields, marry, and rear children, are precisely those who are rejected by the conscription on account of their diminutive size, their feeble constitutions, or other infirmities. The standard height for admission to the French army is five feet one inch and a half. The efficient strength of the French army for 1867, including the staff, the gendarmerie, and the military train, is 389,604 men, of whom 23,105 are officers, 70,850 non-commissioned officers, 26,374 unclassed companies, musicians, &c. , and 269,275 private soldiers. From this number 80,000 must be deducted for home garrisons, depots, and the f orce serviug in Africa. A further deduction of at least one-seventh must be made for the unformed conscripts of the year, who have recently joined, and for another considerable fraction of men entitled to their discharge as having served their time. By calling up the whole reserve of the contingents, a portion of which are allowed to remain at home, the nominal strength of| the army could be raised to 600,000 men, but the actual strength is very far below that figure." '