Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/214

 Making the Frenchman a Fighter

��A vigorous course of training in the open makes him physically fit

���Prencu Official Photos

French soldiers, stripped to the waist, learning bayonet charging by the Herbert method

��ONE of the military problems France has solved is that of sending back her soldiers-on-leave to the trenches without their having lost any of their value as fighters. In fact, they go back better soldiers than they were before. When the poilus return from the trenches the sense of discipline is suddenly relaxed, to their military detriment. Often the men are highly nervous. The terrific noise of the battles they have been through, and the sleepless nights they have passed have weakened their stamina. Some are excited — intoxicated with success. Others are profoundly de-

��pressed. Soldiers recovered from shell shock are more unstrung than others.

All these men must be re-taught if they are to be sent back to the firing line. The time needed for re-education is ten weeks, during which period the soldier is schooled in the very latest methods of warfare.

Just what method shall be used in re- training soldiers is a moot subject. Lieutenant Herbert of the French Navy does not believe in the use of mechanical appliances such as are to be found in the average gymnasium. He thinks that natural methods are best. He takes his men right out into the open and puts them

���Run a few yards on your hands and feet after the fashion of a monkey and you will be pretty tired. Yet these enthusiastic Frenchmen do not mind this method of locomotion at all

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