Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/53

 WAR ADMINISTRATION OF FRANCE. 9 always attached to it some bodies of officers and c HA P. men set apart for administrative duties and spe- '. daily trained for their respective tasks ; but from the officer in command of the Intendance home down to the bakers who baked bread for the troops, and the cobblers who mended their shoes, these functionaries, although busied in tasks like those performed by civilians, were still, in the strictest sense, military men, and as much a part of the force as any squadron of horse or any battalion of foot.(^) In such a Department as the one France pos- sessed, the best means of enabling troops to live as well as to fight were likely to be well under- stood ; and, just as the Minister, when organising an army for foreign service, fixed the relative proportions of its cavalry, its infantry, and its artillery, so also, and with no less care, he determined the composition and strength of the administrative forces by which its wants would have to be met. At a time — the first days of November — when General Canrobert's numbers in the Crimea ranged somewhat under 42,000, he not only reckoned amongst them several hundreds of engineers and other military work- men, (2) but also five separate bodies of men exclusively engaged in ministering to the wants of the army, and these alone had a strength of nearly 1700. Nor must it be forgotten, that even out of the number of combatants which the conscription brought into the army, there were always to be found men well qualified for administrative tasks, and well skilled too in