Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/18

 had to go enormous distances to join; several regiments were more than 400 miles from their depots, to which all the men had to go in the first instance; and General Vinoy quotes, in his book, as a specimen of the organization which prevailed, the famous story of the Zouaves who were sent to Algeria to get their uniforms and then brought back to France to fight. He says: "In the war of 1870, reserve men belonging to the regiments of Zouaves, but residing in the northern departments, had to cross the whole of France and to embark at Marseilles in order to get themselves armed and equipped at Coleah, Oran, or Philippeville, and then come back to their corps at the point whence they had started. They traveled 1,300 miles by railway, and crossed the Mediterranean twice." Another tale, of exactly the same kind, was related by M. Blondeau in his evidence. He said that by far the greater part of the reserves of infirmiers and of workmen required for the army belonged to sections of those services which had their depots in Algeria; that when the war broke out he entreated that these men might be sent direct to the army of the Rhine, where they were most urgently required; that he was told in reply that such an arrangement would be "too complicated," and that the men must go according to rule; and that, in fact, a very large number of them (nearly 3,000 apparently, though, as the statement is rather confused, that figure may be incorrect) were embarked at Toulon and sent to Africa because routine required it.

Between the want of discipline of the men and the disorder of the management, the incorporation of the reserves went on with extraordinary slowness; indeed, we have just supplied evidence enough of that slowness by showing that the number of those who had joined the army of the Rhine on the 2d August, nineteen days after they were called out, could not probably have exceeded 44,000. Now, according to a document emanating from the minister of war, 163,000 reservists were started off to their regiments between the 18th and 28th of July; and we must necessarily suppose that the 107,000 men whom we imagine to have been on leave were also on their way to join, so making 270,000 men in all who were travelling to their destinations during the second fortnight of July. If, therefore, we are right in our computation, that only 44,000 of them had reached the army of the Rhine on the 2d of August, it follows that the remaining 226,000 must have been at that date either at the depots of their regiments, or else on the roadsides all over France. Of course it is not possible to say how many of them had got to their depôts; but there is good reason for believing that the number who were wandering along the highways and round the railway-stations was enormous, for all the histories and reports are full of lamentations on the subject. The majority of these 226,000 men were utilized afterwards, that is evident; but there is no exaggeration in presuming that, during July and part of August, at least 100,000 of them were straying about the country living on public charity.

This is indeed a frightful story, and it would be impossible to believe it if it were not told, directly or indirectly, by the numerous French witnesses on the subject. It is so sad and strange that it is worthwhile to resume it in one sentence, and to repeat once more, that at the moment when the war broke out, the French army consisted nominally of 400,000 men, of whom about 107,000 appear, according to the probabilities of the case, to have been absent on leave, the remaining 293,000 being present with the colours; that when these 107,000 men, and also the 163,000 men of the reserve, were ordered to join, only 44,000 of the two classes (which numbered together 270,000) had reached the army of the Rhine in nineteen days; and that, of the remaining 226,000, one-half may be presumed to have got to their depots or their regiments elsewhere than in the Rhine army, while the other half continued to wander about France without any apparent intention of joining voluntarily at all.

We get next to the Garde Mobile. When war was declared it existed on paper only. It is true that, in 1869, a little drilling of the Parisians belonging to it had taken place; but the experiment had given the worst possible results; the men had behaved disgracefully, and the attempt had been abandoned. A slight commencement of organization had also been sketched out in the eastern departments; but when Maréchal le Bœuf became minister of war in 1869, he had suspended the further preparation and instruction of the men, on the ground that he did not believe there was the slightest use in it. It may therefore be observed, before we pass on, that Maréchal le Bœuf appears to have intended to fight Germany with nothing but the 565,000 men of the regular army and its reserve. The nominal effective of the 