French Army’s Inferiority.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8, 21 August 1912, Page 11

French Army’s Inferiority.

In a late debate in the French Chamber on the danger arising from the numerical inferiority of the French army to that of Germany,’ M. Millerand argued that it would be. "possible tq utilise, very fully, for military purposes, the natives of the French African possessions’—Algeria and Morocco, for example. But that would be playing a very dangerous game indeed, a game which, in the ease of the Turcos brought oyer to fight against the Germans in 1870, was declared by Sir Robert Morier to have been one of the greatest and ghastliest (inoral) mistakes ever committed by the "Man of Destiny.” We ourselves, with all our faults, have never committed the mistake of pitting non-Christian troops against Christian foes, the nearest approach to this being in 1878, when Disraeli, amid a great outcry, ordered to Malta from Bombay eight native Indian regiments—horse, foot, and guns-—in prospect of a war with Russia for the defence of Turkey, a Mohamincdan Power. In 1807 Indian troops .took part in our expedition to Abyssinia, in 1882 in our attack on Tel-el-Kebir, and in 1901) .in our advance with the Allies on Peking; but we refrained from using them —as well as the Maoris, who were prepared to go to the front —against the Boers.