personal and equal service for everybody for three years in times of peace was adopted (law of Aug. 7 1913). Thanks to this law, France, with a pop. of about 40 millions (39,601,599), was able to raise an effective force of 3,780,000 men in a period of 15 days (Aug. i to 15 1914) by the calling up of 2,887,000.
In 1914, the French army on a peace footing was increased to 823,251 men of whom 777,215 were metropolitan troops and 46,036 colonial. The metropolitan troops were thus classified: 775,681 hommes de troupes (of whom 43,486 were in Morocco), viz. 47,251 sous-officiers, 48,357 corporals, and 680,073 privates, and in addition 1,534 administrative employes. The colonial troops comprised 45,932 hommes de troupes (of whom 20,420 were in Morocco), viz. 4,756 sous-officiers, 3,690 corporals and 37,506 privates. Eighty-four non-commissioned officers were employed at the headquarters of the colonial army. The term hommes de troupes corresponds in France to that of " other ranks " in Great Britain, viz. all ranks exclusive of commissioned officers. The exclusion of officers accounts for the difference between 2,887,000+823,251 and the total of 3,780,000 shown as the strength on mobilization.
From Aug. 16 1914 to June 30 1915, a further 2,700,000 men were called up to the army. From the class 1889 to the class 1916 all men were called to the colours; this amounted to a recall of 6,444,000 men. The three years' law and the previous military laws had thus given France (i) a covering army which made her front inviolable, or at least which determined the Germans to seek to envelop a wing rather than attempt to break the front ; (2) a peace army able either to absorb or to provide cadres for a considerable number of reservists and of men of the territorial army. The rapid influx of so great a number of men caused high hopes in France of a happy and rapid solution of the war, when it started in 1914. But as things turned out its only result was to enable her to await, without disaster, the coming into line of Italy on the one hand, and the formation of a great English army on the other.
In Aug. 1915, when the war had already lasted one year, it was realized in France that Lord Kitchener was right in antici- pating a war of several years. He himself had undertaken to form a military organization for a duration of three years; and France, having already called up numerous classes of reservists and of young soldiers, now became less hasty in calling to the colours those who remained. Thus from Aug. i 1914 to June 30 1915 there were mobilized 5,587,000 men, which brought the total up to 6,444,000 men; from July 1915 to Oct. i 1915 there were mobilized only 1,440,000 men in small batches.
The enrolments made by France in the course of the war reached a total of 7,842,000 French and 475,000 N. African and colonial troops, making a grand total of 8,317,000 men.
In the course of the war losses in killed, wounded, prisoners, deaths from sickness and sick made the numbers vary of men mobilized in the army and outside it. The need of food supplies also made it necessary to send back a certain number of indi- viduals and parties of agriculturists who were recalled to service from time to time and then again released to work on the land.
At the beginning of July 1915 there began the process of with- drawing from the front men capable of working in munition factories. Such men were no longer, strictly speaking, mobilized, but they remained " mobilizable," and were recalled to the front when there was no longer any fear of a shortage of munitions, or when the need of the front line became dominant, as when Clemenceau at the beginning of 1918 withdrew the young workers from the factories. The following table shows by categories variations of strength.
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Mobilized strength.
Men liable to mobilization employed in the interior.
Agricultural gangs, and agricultur- ists on leave.
Aug. 15 1914 . July i 1915 . I 1916 . I 1917 . i 1918 . Nov. i 1918
3,781,000 4,978,000 4,677,000 4,512,000 4,340,000 4,143,000
465,000 122,000 595,000 1,183,000 1,374,000 1,387,000
30,000 70,000 100,000 45,000 25,000
I On Aug. 15 1914 the French army at the front had reached the strength that Joffre used in the battles of the Ardennes, the Marne, and the " Race to the Sea." July i 1915 stands for the period at which it was hoped to pierce the front in Champagne. More men were made available for the armies, and also for the work preparatory to the offensive (which was to take place in September); no heed was paid to the needs of the country, since it was hoped the war would very soon end.
The 465,000 men who had been allowed to return to the inte- rior in Aug. 1914, for public services, for the guarding of lines of communication, and for administration, were recalled to the army in July 1915. Although there remained in the interior 122,000 men (besides 30,000 agricultural workers), these 122,000 were mobilized men in the factories, and the need for munitions and for artillery was very great. From the beginning of July 1916 the English army brought a great aid and relief to France, where exhaustion was beginning to make itself felt. The mobi- lized strength was beginning to fall away; it was not possible to replace the dead by calling up fresh men. Moreover, it became obvious that the conditions of the war needed munitions on an ever-increasing scale, and so the munition factories were crammed with workers.
The definitive losses sustained by the French army in the World War reached a total of 1,317,000 French and 66,000 native troops, making in all 1,383,000 dead. As shown by the following table the losses in killed were very heavy in 1914 and in 1915, heavy in 1916, relatively light in 1917, and heavy again in 1918.
Killed, or
died of wounds.
Average per month.
Percentage of monthly losses in comparison with strength.
1914
1915 1916
1917
1918
301.350 348,850 252,300 163,700 250,800
60,270 29,070 21,020 13,640 22,100
2-95% 1-09% 0-71 % 0-46%
0-77%
In 1914 a Frenchman belonging to the army had two chances of life and one of being killed; he had hardly any chance of remaining without a wound. In 1915, this man had six chances of living to one of being killed, while the chances of being or not being wounded were nearly equal (two to one and a half). It was during the year 1917 that the dangers were the least; on an average one had six times as great a chance as in 1914 of not being killed.
If one takes into account the combatants in each of the arms of which the French army was composed, one sees diminishing little by little, but in a very perceptible manner, the number of infantry and cavalry, while the strength of the engineers main- tained itself without great change. But the combatant strength of the artillery and air service was augmented in number by two to one in the case of the artillery and by six to one in that of the air service.
Combatant Strength
Arm.
May i I9I5-
July i 1916.
Oct. i 1917.
Oct i 1918.
Infantry .... Cavalry .... Artillery .... Engineers Air Service
1,525,000 102,000 395,ooo 104,000 8,000
1,447,000 93,500 495,000 125,000 24,000
1,142,000 71,000 522,000 121,000 35,000
850,000 63,000 601,000 117,000 52,000
The army evolved towards material power, the rifle lost ground to the machine-gun, but the machine-guns more and more took second place to the artillery. As for the air service, it grew to an extraordinary extent. If, taking a table of numbers, a mathematician were to establish a rising curve, he would come promptly to the conclusion that in a limited number of years there would be more men fighting in the air than on the ground. And if in fact, despite the mounting numbers of the artillery and of the air service, the infantry remained queen of battles, the queen's retinue was no longer one of men on horse-
