The French Army From Within

which to compress all that a soldier must learn in order to become efficient. It may be noted that, in the British service, three years is considered the shortest period in

ols as undesirable, but the nation with a conscript system must train the fools as well as the wise ones, for, admitting the p

ive education, or he may have come from Montmartre, the slums of a provincial town, the landes of Brittany, or a village of French Lorraine; in civilian life he may have been a peasant, a street arab, a student of philosophy, a future president of the Republic-it is all

oll is called at night. The first business of the conscript is to get fitted out from the store in which the battalion keeps clothes for its men. Here he gets his boots, his parade uniform, and his fatigue outfit. His captain, with the assistance of the master tailor, passes the outfit as complete and correct, and the conscript says good-bye to civilian atti

n to this curious half-shuffling trot, unless by chance he is a native of the Vosges country, and in that case he may recall a rapid climb up some steep hill, to which this business of the march is more nearly akin than to anything else. Perhaps he does not take kindly to his work at first, but, in addition to

a pride in his new accomplishment. It is a tiring business, certainement, but then, what would you? A man must be taught, and, after all, it is only for two years, at the end of which one may go back to the cow or the goats, or the kerbstone

who has a thorough knowledge of the various parts of his weapon, and who has been taught to nurse it and care for it just as the Breton lad nursed and cared for his cow. The equivalent of the British Morris tube is requisitioned to instruct the conscript in the first elements of firing a rifle. Across a large white target a thin black line is drawn horizontally, and the conscript is set to firing at this target until he can make reasonably consistent practice on th

Then there is the gymnastic class, by means of which limbs are made supple, and muscles strengthened-it is only by continuous training that the marvellous efficiency to which the French conscript attains in th

ngs of which in pre-military days, probably, the conscript never dreamed. There are route marches with the battalion, the commanding officer and band at the head. There is always something to do, always something waiting to be done, and in looking forward there is an endless succession of very busy days to contemplate. One goes to bed tired-very healthily tired-and one wakens to work. The wor