Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/307

  of the active army will of course do their work well. But it is notorious that political and social considerations have been largely consulted in choosing these officers, and that most of them have been named, not because they were soldiers, but because they were gentlemen in position or Conservatives in opinion. Certain applicants who were professionally capable have been excluded because they were too Republican. Furthermore, it is becoming more and more difficult to find candidates for commissions both in the territorial regiments and in the reserve of the active army. It is absolutely forbidden to officers of those two services to wear uniform off duty; consequently the applicants who thought it would be agreeable to them to swagger about in red trousers find their dream unrealizable, and no longer pursue it. Then, again, though there is no pay (except when under arms), officers have to provide their own clothes and equipment. Finally, almost all the great financial and industrial institutions of the country, with the Bank of France at their head, have very practically, but not very patriotically, announced to their employés that if any of them accept a grade in either the reserve or the territorial army, they will instantly be dismissed from their places. The result is, that by refusing the permission to wear uniform when not convoked for service, all the vain-glorious aspirants have been discouraged; by obliging officers to pay for their dress and arms, all the fortuneless are driven away (and the fortuneless are numerous); and by proclaiming incompatibility between clerkship and soldiering, a great part of the lower bourgeoisie is shut out.

The result of all this has been, that the enthusiasm of 1873 — when crowds of men of all ranks petitioned to be made officers of the territoriale — began to die out in 1874. In 1875 it became necessary to reduce the difficulties of admission; non-commissioned officers of the mobile were admitted to the examinations for the reserve artillery; soon afterwards the same measure was extended to all other arms. It was constantly declared that each examination would be the last, and that the list was on the point of being closed; but more examinations followed all the same. Their level was lowered; and only last month the Journal Officiel of the army published another new programme, still less developed than its predecessors, for another series of examinations in April.

These insufficiencies are, however, of no very serious importance; they supply some further evidence of the want of military administrative power which is so strangely evident in the present generation of Frenchmen, but they will not do much real damage. If a war broke out, it would at once be seen that the armee territoriale is not a mere imaginary corps; officers would then be forthcoming in any numbers, for everybody would have to serve. The resources of France would not be limited to the active army and its reserves; the territorial troops would rapidly acquire value, and would present a very different character from the mobiles of 1870. It is true that they are not yet in a state of cohesion which would permit them to render immediate service as a separate army; but they may certainly be relied on as auxiliary forces, the more so as they would not, in all probability, be needed so much for campaign work as for guarding étapes, for keeping open communications, and for aiding to supply garrisons for the intrenched camps, and for Paris and Lyons. And it should be particularly remarked that the engineering element of the Territoriale will be most useful, for it will include the most effective part of the corps of ponts et chaussées.

The organization of the Territoriale is now quite complete on paper, but the men have only been called together once, for one day, to receive their register-books. At least a month would be required (supposing even that their arms and uniform are really ready, which does not appear to be quite certain) before the battalions could be formed into regiments and brigades.

Still, notwithstanding, it must be repeated that the Territoriale presents sufficient elements of number, of solidity, and of reality, to justify its admission henceforth into the list of the disposable forces of France.

Recapitulating the figures at which we have now successively arrived for the various elements of those forces, it appears that the entire combatant strength of which France could now dispose (one-half of it within three weeks, and the rest successively), would be made up as follows: —