WHERE FRANCE GOT HER RED TROUSERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144779, 8 September 1915, Page 7

WHERE FRANCE GOT HER RED TROUSERS.

Recently a groat and portentous tiring happened in France, and—what is as significant as the fact itself—it happened ' almost without anybody knowing it. The French army has parted with its rod trousers—the red trousers to which it has clung so tenaciously for the best part of a century. Not that the pioupiou has taken to the kilt; not at all.

He has simply abandoned his traditional “pantaloon rouge” for leg wear of a neutral tint. With no light heart has he made the change. Nothing short of the stern demands of war has compelled his superiors to decree it; and so the conventional red trousers of the French army, the distinctive garment by which its soldiers have been known all the world over, have to go. They have not gone absolutely—not yet, that is to say—but they are fast going, and they will have gone completely when there is enough of the new blue-grey material to go around and sufficient time to fashion fresh ones. Already in the streets we see the new trousers and greatcoats to match, and we are getting accustomed to them. Besides—and tnis is a matter of importance even to a conscript army—the blue-grey uniform looks really nice and smart. Not always has the French soldier worn red trousers. Napoleon never thought of giving red pantaloons to his troops. There were none such, we are told, at either Austorlitz or Jena. But eighty-five years ago there lived a French Minister of War. the Vicomte de Vaux, who was evidently fond of red, and it was he who ordered, that the trousers of the army should be ol that colour.