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The officer in command of a regiment has power to increase, diminish, or even cancel punishments inflicted by inferior officers, and the captain in charge of a squadron has a like power over the subordinate officers directly under his command and over the punishments they may inflict.

This system of giving so much power to all has more against it than in its favour. Certainly, given a just junior officer or non-commissioned officer, he is more likely to inflict a punishment that fits the crime than the commanding officer to whom he may report the case--he knows all the circumstances better than the man to whom he may tell them, and, in direct contact with the offender at the time the offence was committed, is not so likely to err on the side of undue severity or that of undue leniency--and that is about all that can be said in favour of the system. Against it must be said that it places in the hands of very many men, of all ranks and grades, a tremendous power which may easily be abused; under such a system a sergeant or corporal who has a grudge against a particular man can make that man's life a perfect misery to him, and, since in a conscript army authority must be upheld at all costs, even more than in a volunteer army, the right of complaint which belongs to the man is not often of much use to them--discipline would be impaired if officers upheld their men against their non-commissioned officers.

Further, officers are more liable to punishment in the French Army than in the British. In the latter force, a court-martial on an officer is a very rare thing, but in the French service the equivalent to a court-martial is not an infrequent occurrence, and a certain percentage of officers get "confined to room," "confined to fortress," suspended from duty for varying periods, and cashiered ,--these things happening with considerably greater frequency than in the British Army. It must be said, on the other hand, that the French officer has more required of him in time of peace than the British officer; he is required to be in closer contact with his men, and to undertake more arduous duties, and, on the whole, French officers are keen soldiers, intent on the performance of their duties, taking themselves and their work very seriously. The lesson of Metz in 1870 has not been wasted on the modern French Army, and the knowledge that some day the nation would again take up arms against its eastern neighbour has led to a strict maintenance of efficiency on the part of the officers of the Army, and to a keenness quite equal to that shown in a voluntary force.

The list of officers given in this chapter has been taken from the staff of a French cavalry regiment, but it applies almost identically to artillery units, while, in the case of infantry units, it is necessary only to delete all that refers to the care of horses, and the staff of officers and non-commissioned officers is practically the same as in the cavalry. The French "regiment" of artillery is a similar unit of strength to that of most great continental armies, though it has no equivalent in the British service, where the artillery is grouped in units known as brigades, of not much more than half the strength of the continental regiment. The French cavalry regiment also is considerably stronger than the British cavalry unit, containing five squadrons to the latter's four. This brings the cavalry regiment of the French Army nearly up to the strength of the infantry unit.

The matter of punishments has been dwelt on at some length, owing to the prominence given to punishment in the French Army. Made up as it is of every class, the members of which are compelled to serve whether they like it or no, punishment is a necessity, and a frequent one at that, in the case of all ranks. It does not, however, alter the fact that the great majority of French conscripts are keen and willing soldiers, who make the best of their service and give a good account of themselves.

INFANTRY

Arrived at his station the conscript finds his room, and is allotted a bed therein. He finds himself placed under a corporal who will teach him all about his rifle, manifest an interest in the cleanliness of his linen, see that he gets his hair cut, instruct him in drill, turn him out of bed in the morning, and see that he is in, or accounted for, when the roll 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 attire for a period of two years. There was one youngster, a Breton youth, who mourned for a week or two after coming to the colours, because the cow at home would not take its food from other people as it would from him; there are many who remember how they used to milk the goats, and these make humorous little tragedies for a time, for their fellow conscripts.

Like the British infantryman, the conscript is concerned principally in learning to march and shoot, and use his bayonet. In the matter of marching, to which reference has already been made, the training of the conscript is a complicated business. No walking that he has ever done as a civilian bears any relation 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 the corporal under whose charge he is placed, there are the men who sleep on either side of him to inculcate in him the first principles of discipline, for there is nothing on earth half so comforting to the man placed under a system as to be able to give advice to a new-comer to the system and its disabilities.

Instruction in the use of the bayonet is very largely a similar sort of business, a matter of perpetual care on the part of the instructors and of gradually increasing efficiency on the part of the conscript. 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 the short space of two years is compassed. There is no "furlough season" as British troops know it; the conscript goes up to work all the time, and in that period of work he is transformed from hobbledehoy to man.

Marching, the use of rifle and bayonet, and gymnastic classes, do not by any means exhaust the schedule of conscript training. There is all the business of barrack room life, the cleaning of equipment in which the corporal is ever at hand to instruct, and men in their second year are also at hand to advise and give hints; there are fatigues, white-washing, trench-digging, and all sorts of things 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 work is not always pleasant, but it has the charm--if such it can be called--of never-ending variety. A monotonous variety it may be, but then, one has little time to think, and then there is always the canteen, and Jean, who sleeps in the corner opposite Pierre, has just received his allowance from home. There is yet ten minutes before parade--we will go with Jean to the canteen....

OFF DUTY

Thus, and with justice, they reason, and out of such reasoning comes the sharing of the last drops of water with a comrade on the field, the acts of self-denial and courageous self-sacrifice for which men of the French Army have always been famed. It is a little thing in itself, this compulsory sharing of one's luck, but it leads to great things, at times.

He may be fool enough to report the matter to his sergeant, as, by the rules of the service, he is entitled to do. In that case the sergeant will threaten Jean's comrades with punishment for causing annoyance to a man, but the threat, as the men well know, is all that will happen to them--but not all that will transpire as regards Jean. The French soldier abhors a sneak, and treats him as he deserves. Jean will get a rough time for many days to come, and will not dare to complain to the sergeant again. It is rough justice, but effective; so long as a man plays the game properly with his fellows, he is all right, and the sergeant knows it. Hence Jean may make complaints till he is black in the face about the conduct of his fellows, but by so doing he will only make himself unpopular, and before he has got far into his first year of service he learns to take his own part, and not to go running to the sergeant with his little troubles. It does not pay--and, if it did, the French Army would not be what it is in the matter of comradeship and good feeling.

One good thing about the canteen is its cheapness. One can get coffee and a roll--which amounts to a French conscript's breakfast--for the equivalent of three halfpence, and this charge is a fair sample of the prices of all things. Whatever one may ask for, too, it is served in good quality, for the canteen is under strict supervision of the officers, who are quick to note and remedy any cause for complaint on the part of the men.

Early morning breakfast, as it is served in the British Army, is unknown in French units. On turning out in the morning, coffee is brought round to the barrack rooms, but the first real meal of the day is "soup" at ten o'clock. The food is properly served in dishes, and a corporal or a man told off for the duty is at the head of each table to help each man to his allowance, for which an enamelled plate is provided. Crockery is unsafe in a barrack room, and the fact is wisely recognised.

The canteen of the British Army, so far as drinks are concerned, provides beer only for its men, but beer is scarcely ever seen in a French canteen. Various brands of wine are at the disposal of the conscript, and it is possible to get a bottle of drinkable stuff for fivepence, though in order to obtain a really good brand one must pay at least a franc, for which the wine obtained is equal to that for which many a London restaurant will charge half a crown. Wine is the staple drink of the Army, though brandy finds favour among the hardened drinkers. The man who goes to the canteen for a bottle of wine to share with a comrade must not be regarded as a tippler, for the clarets which the canteen provides are not very alcoholic beverages, containing as they do but little more alcohol to the pint than supposedly "teetotal" ginger beer of some brands.

To each company of infantry, as to each squadron of cavalry and battery of artillery, is allotted a barber, whose business is to shave every conscript of his company at least twice a week free of cost, the barber being remunerated by the authorities. Since most men need to shave every day in order to fulfil the requirements of parade appearance, it is obvious that the efforts of the barber in this direction must be supplemented by the men themselves, and on the whole the barber gets an easy time as a rule, for the man who shaves himself three times a week will usually get the business done without troubling the barber at any time.

Complaints used to be made, especially in infantry stations, about the sanitation and lack of washing accommodation in French barracks, but modern custom has remedied all this. Chief cause of reformation was the Russo-Japanese War, which showed that an army is twice as effective if matters of sanitation are properly attended to--it does not pay to have men falling sick from the presence of nursery beds for infectious diseases. The French Army, ever first in experiment for the efficiency of its men and in search of ways to increase the fighting value of the forces available, has taken the lessons of modern sanitation to heart. In practically all barracks, now, the soldier can enjoy a hot bath or a cold one when he wishes; all that is still to be desired is a greater regard for necessary sanitary measures, and a greater regard for personal cleanliness among the men themselves. The peasant lad, who has lived a comparatively lonely life in absolutely healthy surroundings, does not understand at first that barrack life exposes him to fresh dangers, and he has to be taught what, to a town dweller, are elementary facts as regards infection. For this reason, tubercular and allied complaints still rank rather high in the medical statistics of the French Army, though every year sees an improvement in this respect.

As for canteen songs, one may guess that in the French Army there is always plenty of real talent, for the nation as a whole, like all Latin nationalities, is a very musical one, and since all come to the Army, the singers come with the rest. The songs, perhaps, are not of the highest drawing-room order, even for French drawing-rooms, but the musical and vocal abilities of the singers are beyond question; for in a gathering of men where the best can be obtained, little short of the best ventures to bring itself to notice.

This mention of canteen songs recalls the fact that the French infantryman beguiles the tedium of route-marching by songs, interminably long songs which go on and on for miles; in recalling what the next verse will be, a man forgets the number of miles between him and the end of the march, or he thinks he may be able to, which amounts to very nearly the same thing. They still sing songs that were in vogue at the time of Fontenoy, as they march at ease along the endless straight roads of the country, with their rifles slung anyhow and their formations broken up that friend may march with friend. This is when marching "at ease" only, for let a column of marching infantrymen come to the streets of a town, and they immediately stiffen up to show themselves at their best before the girls at the windows. The Army of the Republic is a part of the nation, but the women of the nation manifest no less interest in it for the fact that their fathers and brothers have served. There is something in the sound of a military band and the sight of a column of uniformed men that will always bring faces to the windows of a French house. "So our Jacques is perhaps marching somewhere," they say, or--"Thus we marched to relieve Bazaine," will remark a veteran of the '70 campaign, feeling the while that these men may yet make of "'70" a thing no longer to remember in connection with lost provinces. And, once the town or village street is left behind, and the road stretches unbroken before the column, the men begin to sing again, and their officers smile at the song--they are too wise, in the French Army, to suppress the singing and the cigarette smoking, and thus the men march well. As well, certainly, as any infantry in the world, and probably better than most.

CAVALRY

As in all armies, the French cavalryman considers himself as good as two infantrymen; the origin of this may probably be traced back through time to feudal days, when only the better classes of vassals were able to provide horses with which to come to the standard of the feudal chief. Certain it is that even in these present days of scientific warfare, when the guns and rifles count equally with the swords of an Army Corps, the cavalryman still looks on himself as a superior person, more efficient and more to be admired than a mere gunner or a mere man in a line regiment of infantry. Certainly, he rides, and this fact he is always ready to impress on the infantryman; what he keeps quiet about is that he has to groom the horse he rides, and to attend to its needs when the infantryman, having finished his march at practically the same time the cavalryman finished his, has his meal cooked and eaten before his fellow of the mounted unit has got away from stables.

Considering that the time of the infantry conscript is fully occupied in the compression of all his tuition into his two years of service, it may be imagined that the way of the cavalryman is not an easy one, for he has far more to learn than the infantryman. He has not only to learn to use the carbine which corresponds in his case to the infantry rifle, and to execute movements on foot, but he has to groom his horse, clean his saddle, keep the stables in order, and do all the things that are absolute necessities where horses are concerned, as well as having nearly twice as much personal kit to look after as the infantryman--and then he has to be trained in the use of the sword, that of the lance in some regiments, and to add to his other drills the business of riding school.

The horses of French cavalry, as a whole, are not so well cared for as those of the English cavalry regiment; methods used in connection with the care of horses are not so complete and perfect, and the stock itself is not such well-bred stuff, as a whole, as the horseflesh that goes to the British Army from Irish and other breeding establishments. At the same time, the cavalry trooper is taught how to care for his mount in his own way, and, trained in a harder school, French horses of the cavalry are tougher than those of English regiments. If a unit from each army were placed side by side in a position in which there was no chance of feeding horses on full rations of forage, but all had to live on the country and make the best of it for a time, the French animals would probably come out better of the two from the ordeal, since they are more used to hardships in time of peace. The British trooper is taught to treat his horse as he would a baby, while the French soldier, inured to rigorous discipline himself, has a horse that shares his own circumstances.

The cavalry conscript elects to serve in a mounted unit, for, on the 1st of October on which a man comes up for his training, he is given choice between cavalry, artillery and infantry service, as far as the exigencies of the service will permit. Like the infantry recruit, he begins his service by drawing kit and clothing and fitting the latter to the satisfaction of his superior officers; in addition to the equivalent of the kit drawn from store by the infantryman, however, the cavalry conscript must draw stable kit and cleaning materials, spurs and all that goes to make the difference between the mounted and the dismounted soldier. Unlike modern practice in the British cavalry, the way with the French conscript is to get on teaching him at once as much as possible; riding school, foot drill, gymnastic exercises, and stable work are all crowded into his day, for there are but two years available before he will go back to civilian attire and ways. And there is much to teach him; more, really, than two years can be made to serve for. It may be said that, except in the case of men who were skilled riders before they came up for training, the French cavalry conscript is not a complete soldier by the time he has finished his two years, for it is impossible that he should be. All that can be done to make him efficient is done, though, and the difference between the finished article, going back to civilian avocations, and the conscript from which he is formed, is little short of marvellous. Detractors from the merits of a conscript system overlook the effect on the conscript as regards physique and moral stamina; out of the rough schooling men emerge far more fitted for the battle of life than they entered, and the net effect of military training in a cavalry regiment--two years of it, taken as the French soldier is made to take his training--is in nineteen cases out of twenty all to the good.

Riding-school is a serious business; when a man first leads his horse through the riding-school entrance and mounts, he learns what a perfect brute--from his point of view--an instructor can be, and it is not until he is nearing the end of his period of riding-school instruction that he learns to look on the instructor as not a bad fellow, a bit strict at his work, but responsible for the turning out of some of the finest riders in the world. For in horsemanship the French soldier is no whit behind his English confr?re, and it is only in recent years that the British Army has taken up the circus tricks which for many years have been practised in the French Army in order to make men thoroughly familiar with their mounts. A conscript is taught not only to ride a saddled horse, but also to vault on to the back of a cantering horse, to make his horse lie down, and various other tricks--they are nothing more in themselves--which give him thorough confidence in himself and thorough knowledge of the capabilities, intelligence, and nature of his horse. Recognising the wisdom of this form of teaching, the British Army has of late adopted it, to the betterment of cavalry riding as a whole.

Before his first year of training is concluded the cavalry conscript is expected to have learned all that the riding-school can teach him. In addition to the class of riding which may be termed circus work, and is taught on horses with handled pads instead of saddles, the recruit is initiated into bending lessons, by which his horse is rendered flexuous and easily amenable to pressure of leg and rein. It is worthy of note, by the way, that the principle on which the modern training of horses is based is due to a Frenchman, who brought to England what were at the time considered revolutionary principles with regard to riding.

The method by which the French conscript is trained at riding school is of such a nature that it trains horse and man at the same time. At the beginning of training with saddles the ride is formed of about sixteen men who walk, trot, and canter their mounts along sides of a square in single file. The man is made to ride his horse well into the corners of the square and to make three turns sharply, and, when men have acquired full control of their horses so as to be able to perform this simple movement properly, they are taken on to more complex matters. While strung out along one side of the square, at the word of command each man turns his horse at a direct right angle, proceeds across the square, and, turning again at a right angle on the far side, the ride forms single file again and proceeds. A diagonal movement of the same nature is then taught; men are taught to halt their horses suddenly and rein them back a length or two; they are taught when at the canter to cause their horses to passage sideways across the square, and, in fact, are instructed to make every movement of which a horse is capable. At first, as may be assumed, the tuition is carried out with trained horses, but, as men become advanced in the art and practice of riding, they are put on to younger horses, and it will be easily understood that, in learning himself to make the horse execute the movements, the cavalryman trains the horse to its work as well as increasing his own knowledge.

In the matter of foot drill there is not so much to learn in the cavalry as in the infantry. Cavalry foot drill, as a matter of fact, is practically a replica of the drill to which troops and squadrons of men are subjected when mounted. The principle governing cavalry foot drill in practically all armies consists in assuming that a man shall not be called on to execute a movement which he cannot execute on horseback, as, otherwise, confusion might arise in the course of mounted drill. It would be interesting, for instance, if cavalry were taught infantry drill, to see what would happen if a squadron of mounted men were ordered to form fours in the infantry style.

Actual foot movements do not by any means comprise the total of drill that the cavalry conscript must learn on foot before applying it to mounted work. The use of the sword and also that of the lance are first thoroughly taught to squads of dismounted men, and a recruit must be fully conversant with sword and lance exercise before he ventures to perform either offensive or defensive movements with either of these weapons on horseback. The unskilled man waving a sword about when mounted would probably do more damage to his horse's eyes and ears than to anything else, and the man with the lance, if unskilled, would probably find himself dismounting involuntarily if he tried to use the lance on a spirited horse. Thus men are taken out, dismounted, in squads; each man assumes the position which he would occupy on horseback with feet well apart, knees bent and toes turned to the front--an exhausting posture to maintain for any length of time. In this attitude the recruit is taught such movements as are requisite to full control of sword and lance. For final training in the use of these weapons men are given fencing outfits and set in pairs to oppose each other. When they have attained to proficiency, the whole business is repeated on horseback, and by that time their training for actual field work in the ranks is practically complete.

The part of his work that the cavalry conscript likes least is the grooming and sweeping up and cleaning of saddlery in the stables. There is a morning stable hour with which the day begins; there are about two hours before midday which must be devoted to grooming, cleaning saddlery, sweeping up, etc., and there is another hour or so to be spent at stables in the afternoon, when the "orders of the day" are read out to the men by the sergeant-major of the squadron or his representative.

This last, however, must be done when the corporal is not looking, or else both men are likely to get into trouble. Strict discipline is the rule and the conscript is expected to take his punishment--when he incurs it--as part of his training. It must be added as a mark of the quality of the material of which the French Army is composed that punishments and rewards alike are usually accepted in equally good part.

Altogether, the life of the cavalry conscript in barracks is not by any means an unpleasant business. A comparatively large number of men, when given the choice of the arm of the service in which to serve, request to be sent to the cavalry. The majority of those joining cavalry regiments are used to horses in some way--and by this is implied very many ways indeed, and very many kinds of horse. French cavalry as a whole is built up out of good material; the spirit of the men is good; the reputation of the French cavalry for horse-mastership is as wide as it is deserved, and, bearing in mind the period of active service for which men are required to serve, it may safely be said that there is no better body of cavalry troops in the world than the French. This remark, however, cannot be reckoned as a wise one if the speaker is addressing a British cavalryman, who always regards himself as a member of the premier squadron in the best regiment of the very finest cavalry force existent. But then, the French cavalryman will tell the same story.

ARTILLERY

In the matter of armament and the quality thereof, French artillery is second to none; but in the matter of numbers the Field Artillery might have been stronger when considered relatively with the total strength of the French Army. If the conscript electing to join either infantry or cavalry considers himself in for a hard time, then it would be difficult to say what are the anticipations of the conscript who goes to service with the guns, for his work is practically twice as hard as that of the average infantryman. Still, he makes up for increase of work by a relaxation of discipline, and, after all, the conscript's two years comes to about the same thing in the end, no matter what branch of the service he may choose. For, just as there is a limit to a man's endurance or efficiency, so there is a limit to the amount of knowledge that a man can absorb in a given period. The infantry conscript absorbs all the knowledge possible in the allotted time: the artillery conscript can do no more.

It may be said, in fact, that the artillery conscript has a better time of it than his fellows in either infantry or cavalry, for his work is rendered more interesting than theirs by reason of its being more varied. The artillery driver, certainly, is in much the same position as the cavalryman, for his life is made up of horses and stables, riding, driving, grooming, and care for the fitness and cleanliness of harness and saddlery. He has a very busy life, this artillery driver, and his remarks, on coming in on a wet day after two or three hours' parade with the guns, might cause a little consternation in what is known as polite society, for two muddy horses with their saddlery and fittings, all to be dried and cleaned for the battery officer's inspection within a given time, are not conducive to elegance of expression or to restraint.

Gunners in the French Army, as far as Field Artillery is concerned, differ from English gunners in that they only ride on the limber and on the gun when there is actual need that they should accompany the gun. English gunners always ride, but in the French Army it is considered better to save the horses by reducing the weight that they have to draw to the lowest possible amount. On long marches the gunners turn out two or three hours earlier than the drivers, and march like infantry to the appointed destination for the day. Although turning out later with horses and guns, the drivers usually reach camp at the end of the day quite as soon as the gunners, for the trot is maintained where possible, and, with a light load to draw, artillery horses are able to get over ground quickly. This system has much to commend it; it hardens the gunners, and is far better for their general health than sitting on a gun or limber which jolts, springless, along a country road; at the same time, it increases the mobility of the artillery, and renders horses more fresh and fit for their work in case of several days in succession, devoted to marching to a distant destination. The only drawback to the practice consists in its being useless in time of war, when the gunners must at all times accompany the guns and be ready for instant action.

The work of the gunners is quite as hard as that of the drivers of Field Artillery, and quite as varied. Coming to the battery with absolutely no knowledge of the ways of using a gun, the raw conscript is taught the work of half a dozen men, for, as in the case of the drivers, each man has to be able to replace casualties in the ranks. The actual drill to which a gunner is subjected is a complicated business; there is a good deal of hopping and jumping about and aside, for each man must learn to perform his part in loading, sighting, and firing his gun, and at the same time each man must keep out of the way of the rest. A gun crew amounts to a dozen or so of men: there are the men concerned in the getting out of ammunition, others busied over the actual loading, and yet others engaged in sighting the gun and firing at the word of command; each of these men must be taught the duties of all the rest, for, when a battery is actually in action, casualties must be anticipated, and the men who are loading must be prepared to get out ammunition if required, must be able to set the time fuse of a shell for a given range, able to load, sight, and fire the gun. Thus one man has to learn the various tasks which a dozen perform, though to each is allotted a definite place, and each is specially trained for the performance of a definite part.

Naturally, this training fully occupies all the two years of the gunner conscript's service, and there is little time to spare. The fuss and fret of discipline is correspondingly reduced; when a man is thoroughly busy, and interested in his work as any man must be over a gun, if he is in the least mechanically inclined, he needs no undue pressure to keep him up to his work; the gunner, if he has any sense of the responsibility and nature of his work, gets sufficiently interested in it, and sufficiently keen over the points that he has to master, to render him independent of more than actual tuition. The pleasure that comes to the sportsman over a remarkably successful shot, or to the cricketer over a good boundary hit, is akin to the feeling experienced by the gunner as he learns part after part of his gun, and finds himself well on the way to gaining complete control over the tremendous power that the gun represents.

But this comes late in the training period, and is not attained easily. There is so much to learn; the way in which a shell is timed, for instance, is a complex piece of work that must be understood, to a certain extent, by the gunner who has to do the timing; that is to say, the mechanism of the shell, and the nature of the timing apparatus, have to be taught the man as well as the mere action of turning the ring to the required point and "setting the fuse." Traversing and sighting the gun, elevation and depression, are movements that explain themselves as they are taught; sighting to a given range seems easy, but is not so easy in practice, for the sighting of a gun has to be done swiftly and accurately--there must be no mistake in the range, for a shell costs more money than the total pay of the conscript during his two years of service, and to throw those costly projectiles to points at which they explode without effect is a silly business.

To each man his part in the whole, and absolute efficiency in the part--that is the ideal to which the training of the gunner is directed; the quality of the French field artillery in action in this, their latest real experience of war, attests how well the ideal has been realised. Outnumbered by their opponents in batteries and regiments, often confronted with guns of far heavier calibre than their own, they have given good account of themselves, and shown that the crews of the 75-millimetre gun are capable of holding their own as far as lies within the bounds of human possibility.

With regard to the custom of sending forward gunners on foot, this practice is also followed in the case of reserve drivers, or drivers who are not needed for the actual transport of the guns and limbers on the march. They are formed up in rear of the gunners, and are marched off on foot with the latter instead of adding to the weight that the horses have to pull, leaving only such officers and men as are actually necessary to travel with the guns.

Altogether, artillery service is not a light business in the French Army--it is not in any army, for that matter. Both gunners and drivers must take themselves seriously, and officers of the artillery must take themselves most seriously of all, with the possible exception of engineer officers. The modern rifle is a complicated weapon when compared with the musket of a hundred years ago; but in comparison with the rifle, the big gun of the Army of to-day has advanced in construction and power to an enormously greater extent. The character of the projectile has changed altogether from the old-fashioned round shot to a missile which is in itself a gun, carrying its own exploding charge and small projectiles within itself. The range of the modern gun is limited only by the necessity to make the gun mobile in the field, and by the range of human sight or power to judge the position of the target. The gunners of to-day, and the officers who command them, must be skilled workmen, possessed of no little mechanical ability in addition to their military qualities. They must be not only soldiers, but artificers, mechanics, engineers, mathematicians--skilled men in every way. The efficiency of the French artillery to-day is largely due to the French turn of mind, which is eminently suited to the solving of those mathematical problems with which the work of those who control the big guns abounds.

IN CAMP AND ON THE MARCH

Manoeuvres fall at the end of the military year in the French Army, being so arranged in order that the second-year conscripts shall pass out from the Army and back to their ordinary civilian avocations as soon as they return to barracks and have time to hand in their equipment and arms. For the majority of these men, it is two years since they have had time to see their friends, save for a stray day or two of leave here and there for the man whose people live within a short distance of the training-place to which he has been drafted, or a stray visitor who brings news from home to one or other at infrequent intervals. Thus manoeuvres mean a good deal to the conscript; even the first-year men catch the infection from their fellows with regard to the approaching time for going away, and there is as well the sense for these juniors that, when they return to barracks, they will no longer be first-year men, but able to advise and instruct such raw recruits as they themselves were just a year ago. Added to this, again, is the sense of freedom that comes from knowing of the days of marching, billeting, and sight of fresh places and people from day to day, and it will be seen that the change from barrack life with its perpetual round of work to the constantly varying scenes of manoeuvres is one which is anticipated with pleasure by all.

About a week, or perhaps more, before the time has come for the army corps concerned--or the cavalry or other divisions concerned--to set out on its march to the manoeuvre area, the cavalry and artillery send out their patrols to gather up the horses which have been boarded out at farms for the summer, and the men of these patrols are almost invariably billeted on the inhabitants of the districts round which they have to ride on their errand. It is a pleasant task, this; the year is at its best, and summer just so far advanced that the early rising, the riding through the day, and the evening tasks are alike easy. The weather is good, the life is not too hard, and the party too small to admit of strict discipline being maintained; the men know that their picnic-time is due to their having been specially chosen as reliable for such work, and consequently they do not abuse their freedom.

And the horses come in from grass to train for what a horse can never understand, though it is in the knowledge of all that a horse comes to know his place in the ranks of the cavalry or in the traces of the gun team, and would gladly go back to that place after he has been cast out from the service to drudgery between the two shafts of a cart or cab. Perhaps the horses have their own thoughts about going on manoeuvres, and the change from stable life--such of them as have been kept in stables while the troops are in barracks--to the open air existence which is theirs in camp.

It is a great day for the conscript when the regiment marches out from barracks. Farewell for a time, and in the case of the second-year men farewell for good, to the barrack routine. They leave in barracks the things they will not require on field service, the materials for what the British soldier knows as "spit and polish soldiering," and the conscript starts out with his field kit and equipment, prepared to have a good time.

Shrouded in dust the column goes on. The grey-headed colonel is at the head, then comes the band, and then the men of the regiment follow, at ease, singing, smoking, chatting together. They pass through a village street in which is a simple monument to the men who fell in '70, and the colonel pulls his men up to attention while they pass through the street. Quietly, and with something ominous in the manner of their march, the men pass out to the open road again, where "at ease" is the order once more. But, when they march steadily at attention, these French infantrymen seem the embodiment of military strength and efficiency. The Army has taken them and made of them what it meant to make, and, Breton lad or Paris gamin, they are stamped with the mark of the Army--they are soldiers of the Republic, marching items which, apart from their personal characteristics, mean each a rifle and a bayonet for France when the hour shall strike. Over successive horizons they go, stopping every hour for their five minutes; they grow heedless of the band at the head of the column, and scarcely know whether it is playing or no; one or two fall out, perhaps, for the first days of the march throw out from the ranks all the unfit; there is a doctor at hand to see to those who fall out, and the column swings on. Some time, after what seems to the men very many hours, the band strikes up definitely and with an indefinable new note--and the men know they are marching into camp. Food and sleep are not far ahead; the column stiffens at the call from the grey-haired colonel, and swings on to the camping-ground apparently as fresh as when the men passed out from the barrack gate. It is a part of their pride that they should come in well, should end their march like soldiers and men, not like weaklings.

The cavalry also go out from the barracks with anticipations of good times ahead. Unlike the infantry, they have to keep formation when marching at ease as when marching at attention, for you cannot get a horse to rein back into the rank behind you or come up to the rank in front of you as easily as you yourself can drop back or go up, and, moreover, you cannot regain your place in the ranks at the call of "attention" as an infantryman can. But there are compensations. The "fours" of men divide into twos, of which each takes one side of the road; there is room in between the two inner men for the clouds of dust to roll about, and, although some of the stuff comes up, especially as regards the rear of the squadron, one is not so much down in it as the soldier on foot. One sees the country, too; the infantryman, keeping his place in his company, is just one of a crowd, and, in marching along and getting very tired--so the cavalryman says--he has no chance of looking about him and seeing what the country that he is marching through is like. One's horse does all the work, in the cavalry march, and one is merely a spectator, enjoying the fine day and the new scenery. It is good to be in the cavalry, and who would be an infantryman, when manoeuvres start? Patrol duty, for instance, and the isolated tasks that take patrols of three and four men to farmhouses where the milk is good and one is invited--yes, invited!--to pick fruit from the trees--what infantryman knows anything of joys like these? Assuredly it is a good thing that one chose to serve in the cavalry.

And the long road slips behind, while the troopers conjecture with regard to their future, talk together of horses bad and good, sergeants and corporals bad and good, comrades also bad and good; they smoke as they ride, and talk yet more of horses, for any army of the world the cavalrymen never tire of talking of horses and their own riding abilities, while in the French Army boasting of one's own horsemanship, and all the rest of one's own good qualities, is even more common than it is among English soldiers. Not that the boasting among either is carried to a nauseous extent, but the soldier is so subject to discipline, so used to doing good work with only the official recognition by way of return, that, knowing the work is good, he talks about it himself since nobody is there to do the talking for him--and this is especially true of the cavalry.

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