THE STRENGTH OF THE FRENCH ARMY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1427, 8 February 1888, Page 5

THE STRENGTH OF THE FRENCH ARMY.

This gr^nd French total shows, on paper, a force of 646,000 odd more men than the German- the German total being 2 075,000, the French 2,721,000. If a great leader capable of awaking the enthusiasm of the French should arisa, there is of course, no calculating what influence that fact might have on the future war ; but that at present the general ■temper of the French army, and more especially of the territorial army, represents the same high condition as the German we cmnot persuade ourselves. Probably the territorial army is now better in hand than were those Gardes Mobiles who surprised M'Mahon by demanding to be sent back to Paris instead of towards Berlin ; but with sucii an enormous operation to be carried out, as is represented by the mobilisation, the very numbers that will come to hand must depend on the diacipline of men scattered all over the country. We cannot satisfy ourselves that the indications are that the discipline of the French army is in a satisfactory condition. That, with such elaborate preparations as the French have made, the war would be a very different one from that of 1870, we have no doubt ; but that at present the German army would still be able to give a good account of the French we feel tolerably certain. The element of self-confidence, so necessary to the French, which made the French Guards always accustomed to victory, go forward with such power durlngthe 1870 campaign, h=»s disappeared. The French are always talking to persuade themselves that they are as good or better than the Germans. The talk sounds hollow. It has not in it the ring which presages victory. The Germans have acquired a cilm conßdence which they did not possess at the beginning of 1870. — From " The Balance of Military Power in Europe," in Blackwood's "Magazine."