French soldiers

“ American and French regiments were drawn up in formation on a green field back from the river. Those to be decorated formed a group of five, two American and three French soldiers.
Our general, strong and tall and simple; the French general, soldier of international fame, with a group of attending officers, were there. ”

“ There is considerable variety in the personal appearance of the French soldiers. The infantry are generally little men, much inferior to the Russians and Prussians in size and weight; but as they are almost all young, they appear equally well fitted for bearing fatigues, and they have an activity in their gait and demeanour, which accords well with their general character. In travelling through the country, we could almost always tell a French soldier from one of the allies at a distance, by the spring of his step. ”

“ For a hundred miles there have been only women and old men, but now there are only soldiers; they fill the streets; they crowd the doorways of the houses. The fields are filled with tents, with horses, with all the impedimenta of an army. The whole countryside is a place of arms. Every branch of French service is about you—Tunisians, Turcos, cavalry, the black, the brown and the white—the men who yesterday or last week were in the first line, who rest and will return to-morrow or next day to fight again. ”

“ When we say of the French soldiers that they have a strong sense of honour, we mean merely to express, that they will encounter dangers, and hardships, and privations, and calamities of every kind, with wonderful fortitude, and even cheerfulness, from no other motive than an esprit du corps—a regard for the character of the French arms. ”

“ First, it must be understood that my battalion formed part of the rear-guard. There were French soldiers of several corps and native levies as well, and I may say here that the Frenchmen showed as much steady courage in retiring before overwhelming masses of the enemy as they usually show of gallantry and élan in a charge. I can never again believe that the Frenchman is good only when advancing; given capable officers, he is a perfect soldier at all points. ”

“ When have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the French flag, have won a barren fight or two a few years back, but I am speaking of French ones. Since eight thousand Englishmen nearly annihilated sixty thousand Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt, French courage has been paralyzed. And so it is a common saying to-day that if you confront fifty French soldiers with five English ones, the French will run. ”

“ The French also seem to have their easy-going ways. For current smoking room fiction relates that last spring after a troop of French soldiers had been hauled out to be shot for refusing to go into battle under orders, a whole division revolted and demanded new officers—and got new officers—before they would move forward. ”

“ In France, too, any good soldier can become a corporal, any corporal a lieutenant, and so on in military rank. The words of the Great Emperor will never be eradicated from the minds of the French troops: “Every soldier of France carries a marshal’s bâton in his knapsack;” and indeed many a man who entered the service in a blouse has died in a General’s uniform. ”

“ There is yet another reason why the French are under the necessity of employing more officers than any other nation: the strength of their armies consists in their gentlemen, who cannot be expected to serve without some command: the common soldiers of the French army are a mean, spiritless, despicable herd, fit only to drudge as pioneers, to raise intrenchments, and to dig mines, but without courage to face an enemy, or to proceed with vigour in the face of danger. ”

“ Now how unnecessary a thing this is, hereby it may appear that the French soldiers, which from their youth have been practised and inured in feates of arms, do not crack nor advance themselves to have very often got the upper hand and mastery of your new made and unpractised soldiers. ”

“ The truth appears to be, that the French soldiers have a stronger sense of honour than those of almost any other service; but that the officers, having risen from the ranks, have brought with them to the most exalted stations, no more refined or liberal sentiments than those by which the private soldiers are very frequently actuated ”

“ But, when they march steadily at attention, these French infantrymen seem the embodiment of military strength and efficiency. The Army has taken them and made of them what it meant to make, and, Breton lad or Paris gamin, they are stamped with the mark of the Army—they are soldiers of the Republic, marching items which, apart from their personal characteristics, mean each a rifle and a bayonet for France when the hour shall strike. Over successive horizons they go, stopping every hour for their five minutes ”

“ We have the highest opinion of Frenchmen as soldiers, not merely on account of their bravery, which is universally admitted—by none more freely than by those who have fought and beaten them—but by reason of their many other excellent military qualities—of their discipline, temperance, subordination, and of that sentiment of soldierly honour which we believe to pervade the French troops to an extent never exceeded, and rarely equalled, in any other European army. ”

“ Nothing can better demonstrate the superior character, intelligence and deportment of the French soldiers over those of all other countries than the way in which they employ their time in literary pursuits, their dignified politeness to visitors and the intelligent answers they give to questions. ”

“ The spirit between men and officers is so beautiful in the French army. They are all brothers. None of that lordly, arrogant oppression of the Germans. One of the soldiers said to me: "Il n'y a pas de grade, maintenant, madame. Nous sommes tous des hommes qui aiment le pays." ”

“ The wars of the Napoleonic era, lasting for years as they did, brought into the field a host of trained men—trained in war by the practice of war, rather than by experiments under peace conditions; from the time of the Revolution onward there were sufficient veteran soldiers, seasoned in real warfare, to stiffen the ranks of any army that might be raised to attack—neither to retreat nor to defend, but to attack in accordance with French tradition. ”

“ For, in the first place, it convinced the soldiers that they were opposed to troops against whom they would require to use all the physical, as well as moral courage which they possessed; and the officers that something besides powder and shot would have to be employed before the French infantry could be forced from their stronghold. ”

“ Upon my return to the front I found that our forces had been reinforced by new regiments. American troops, we were told, were arriving in great numbers. This information was hailed with satisfaction by French soldiers as well as by ourselves; for, while we did not doubt our ability to meet any equal numbers of the enemy, we wanted the backing given by superior numbers on our side; especially as the enemy were attacking from interior lines with the advantage of quicker concentration at the point of attack. ”

“ I asked the general for his impressions of the French and British soldiers. He answered:
"The French are better soldiers. They are better schooled and drilled. They have been at it longer and [61] they are enormously brave and sacrificing. But the British are proving their worth, too. They are all of them warlike and like to fight, but they don't know how as yet. You can't make a soldier in a few weeks or months; it takes time and patience.
"The French artillery is exceptional. The French artillery officers have always been of high repute. ”

“ You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honor of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. ”

“ The officers and men will remember what their country expects of them, and what a determined body of soldiers, inured to war, is capable of doing against five weak French battalions mingled with a disorderly peasantry. ”

“ He was primarily a soldier, one of the finest that the world has ever seen—rough, hard-drinking, hard-swearing, but full of pluck and animal spirits. The archers must have been extraordinary fellows. The French, who have always been gallant soldiers, gave up trying to fight them at last, and used to allow English armies to wander unchecked through the country. ”

“ The French army on a full war establishment is represented by 580,000 men, 82,000 cavalry horses, and 1182 guns; there is also [370] a reserve, made up of old non-commissioned officers and conscripts, whom it has not been found necessary to call out, amounting to at least 150,000 men. All the men are thoroughly in earnest; they don’t wear the “Emperor’s coat,” but the uniform of their country ”

“ The soldiers of the French imperial guard, in particular, are remarkably intelligent, and in general very communicative. We entered into conversation with some of these men at La Fere, and from one of them, who had been in the great battle at Laon, we had fully as distinct an account of that action as we are able to collect, the next day, from several officers who accompanied us from St Quentin to Cambray, and who had likewise been engaged in it. ”

“ And the long road slips behind, while the troopers conjecture with regard to their future, talk together of horses bad and good, sergeants and corporals bad and good, comrades also bad and good; they smoke as they ride, and talk yet more of horses, for any army of the world the cavalrymen never tire of talking of horses and their own riding abilities, while in the French Army boasting of one's own horsemanship, and all the rest of one's own good qualities, is even more common than it is among English soldiers. ”

“ These French officers have little “side”; none of that toe-the-mark, strutting militarism which some soldiers think necessary to efficiency. They live very simply on campaign, though if they do get to town for a few hours they enjoy a good meal. If they did not, madame at the restaurant would feel that she was not doing her duty to France. ”

“ You are worthy of great battle-fields. "Soldiers, the French Army is the advanced guard of humanity. "Become yourselves again, reflect; acknowledge your faults; rise up! Think of your Generals arrested, taken by the collar by galley sergeants and thrown handcuffed into robbers' cells! ”

“ There is nothing like blowing a horn and having friends at court. I mention this without any reflection on those two good soldiers, and reference is thus made to point out that true service and just merit does not always meet with its proper reward. Such is the way of the world.
The conduct of our troops in this battle was courageous in the extreme. Banners were captured by gallant old officers from the hands of the enemy and held aloft in the front during the conflict that was in some instances hand to hand. ”

“ I went to work intrenching our line—and it is a bad one. Soon in the morning the enemy drove in our cavalry, and by noon had out his skirmishers and artillery to the front. It is wonderful how well our soldiers understand this falling back. Never before did an army constantly fight and fall back for seven weeks without demoralization, and it plainly establishes the intelligence and individuality of the men.
A. P. STEWART.
4th. ”

“ We are in the midst of an American army encampment in a French village. For miles away over the rolling country the golden harvests of France are ripening in the sun, broken by patches of green field, forest, and stream. The reapers are gathering in the grain. Only old men, women, and children are left to do the work, for the sons of France are away at the battle front. The countryside is more beautiful than the finest parts of New York or Pennsylvania. ”

“ There are ten thousand men. And you, Count, how many do you think there are of the returned Emigrants, the old officers and soldiers of the constitutional guard of Louis XVI, and finally of the ex-servitors of the King and the Princes—coachmen, lackeys, whippers-in, stable-boys and other menials, who form your minute-militia? ”

“ The German soldier, for all his courage, is part of a mass, a cog or a nut in an unthinking machine. The Frenchman, for all his discipline, remains an individual, and the French army is made up not of men burning with the spirit of la revanche, but of patriots who have gone to the defence of their country because they thought it time. ”

“ British infantry keep the ground. In front are about fifty Frenchmen in civil dress of every grade of life, workmen and gentlemen, in a double rank. They are all so wounded that they are back in civil life, but to-day they are to have some solace for their wounds. They lean heavily on sticks, their bodies are twisted and maimed, but their faces are shining with pride and joy. The French General draws his sword and addresses them. ”

“ THE FANTASSIN, OR FOOT-SOLDIER. The fantassin, par excellence, is a soldier of the regular infantry. The cavalry pretend that the foot-soldier wears spurs on his elbows, but this is only a stale joke perpetrated before the bayonet came into general use.
The regular infantry is really the French army. It has shed its blood upon every battle-field, and has come off victorious again and again. It is the infantry that has carried the standards of France through conquered Europe. It is the regular infantry which, without shoes, provisions, or artillery, swept down from the Alps upon Italy. ”