École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr

“ In the City Theatre, where he was when the revolution of '89 broke out, Saint-Cyr joined a volunteer battalion, where he showed great courage and military talent, and soon became a divisional general and gained a number of victories. He was a tall man but looked more like a schoolmaster than a soldier, due in part perhaps to the habit adopted by the generals of the army of the Rhine of wearing neither uniform nor epaulets, but only a plain blue greatcoat.
One could not imagine anyone more self-controlled ”

“ As an engineer officer and Professor of Military Art in the famous school of Saint-Cyr, he has been led to study fortification, military history, army-organization, and the art of war with a methodical thoroughness, which, besides other highly valued works, has given us its ripe fruit in the volume before us. ”

“ Candidates admitted from the Orphan School of La Flèche, where the sons of officers wounded or killed in service receive a gratuitous education, are maintained in the same manner here.16
It was the rule till lately that cadets appointed, on leaving St. Cyr, to the cavalry should be placed for two years at the Cavalry School at Saumur. This, however, has recently been changed; on entering St. Cyr those who desire appointments in the cavalry declare their wishes, and are put at once through a course of training in horsemanship. ”

“ The maintenance of discipline is considerably facilitated by the fact that the pupils at most of the schools are actually subject to military law; and those of St. Cyr, if dismissed from the school, are sent into the ranks as private soldiers. There appears, however, in all the schools to be an absence of the moral control over the young men which is exercised in the Prussian schools. The Commandant of each school has very extensive powers in regard to discipline, but in no case has he authority to dismiss a student from the school without the sanction of the Minister of War. ”

“ They are very frequently young men who have previously failed for St. Cyr, and who then enter the army as privates, and come in as such. They have to pass the same examination.
17 Few usually present themselves; and these also, it is said, are very generally old élèves of St. Cyr, who had not succeeded in obtaining admission to the Staff School before. They are not examined with the pupils of St. Cyr, but are intercalated in the list according to their merit. ”

“ Saint-Cyr succeeded him in the command of that army, composed of about 30,000 French, Swiss, and Bavarians. The very next day this general, who disliked any command unless when he exercised it alone and in chief, availed himself of it, to give his measure to his own troops and to the enemy ”

“ The usual number of young officers admitted yearly to the school in time of peace is twenty-five, but this number is sometimes considerably exceeded, and we found no less than ninety present. The three Polytechnic students select the Staff School after their final examination, and the St. Cyr students make known their desire when the whole are examined by a Board of Examiners, and the thirty best are then selected as competitors for admission into the Staff School of Application. ”

“ No choice of studies is allowed; those which enter into the examination are equally obligatory for all. The only exception to this rule is at St. Cyr, where in languages a choice between German and English is given.
No pecuniary rewards are offered to the students at any of the schools. The bestowal of the numerous bourses which are granted to those admitted to the 278 Polytechnic and St. Cyr is regulated entirely by the poverty of the candidates, without any regard to their ability.
12. The education of officers in France is entirely concluded before any regimental duty has been done. ”

“ The regulations for the infantry, the cavalry, and the marines are of the same description. There are in these also the same two ways of obtaining a commission. One, and in these services the more usual one, is to rise from the ranks. The other is to pass successfully through the school at St. Cyr. Young men who do not enter as privates prove their fitness for the rank of officers by going through the course of instruction given, and by passing the examinations conducted in this, the principal, and putting aside the School of Application at Metz, the one Special Military School of the country. ”

“ But it was stated to us expressly that such officers do not often rise above the rank of captain.
2. There are no junior military schools in France, and no military education commences earlier than sixteen. This is the very earliest age at which pupils can be received at the Polytechnic or at St. Cyr, and the usual age is later; whilst in the case of the Special Corps, strictly professional education does not begin till twenty or twenty-one. ”

“ The officers are educated for their profession at one or other of the great military schools, and they must pass difficult examinations before they receive their commissions. Infantry officers are trained at the famous school of St. Cyr, which was founded by Napoleon in 1806. Foreigners are admitted to this school, but not Germans or Austrians. All French officers must learn to speak German, and this knowledge of the enemy's language has more than once proved useful in the present war. Some time ago a French officer captured one end of a field telephone unknown to the Germans at the other end. ”

“ The latter appear to be more utilized for this purpose than is the case either at Sandhurst or Woolwich.
6. Considerable care is exercised in the appointment of professors; at the Polytechnic the candidates are selected by the Conseil de Perfectionnement; at La Flèche they are recommended to the Minister of War by the Minister of Public Instruction; at the Staff School and St. Cyr the appointments are thrown open to competition.
7. The discipline maintained at all the schools is of a very strict nature; 276 except for the youngest pupils at La Flèche it is entirely military ”

“ Officers of the permanent force are, in the main, graduates of the Royal Military College, Kingston, an institution second to none in the Empire. Field officers of Militia can also take a training course at the college, but the numbers who can avail themselves of this opportunity are limited. ”

“ A military school was created, where young men from all the departments were habituated to the exercise of arms and the life of a camp. It was called L'École de Mars. Its object was not to form officers, but intelligent soldiers, who, spread in the French armies, should soon render them the most enlightened of Europe, as they were already the most inured to the hardships of war. ”

“ The few 728 who now remain have seen more than half a century’s service in useful employments. Perhaps it should be mentioned to the advantage of the Military Academy, as a school of physical education, that at the end of half a century, twenty of its pupils out of eighty-nine, should be yet alive. ”

“ Military schools will derive a new importance in our country; they will be patronized by high and low, and most of our institutions of learning will, ere many years, have a military as well as a scientific and classical department. ”

“ The pupils who are sent thither as officers, after having been examined, apply their knowledge to the arts, to the construction of works, and to the manœuvres of war dependent on artillery. Each school, in which the pupils must remain two years longer, is under the superintendance of a general of brigade of the corps. ”

“ The opening of the Royal Military School at Woolwich to competition, on the basis of a more advanced age, and more thorough general education, has not only drawn in pupils of higher average ability and attainments, but has enabled the authorities to extend 795 the course of instruction. ”

“ The Military Academy at Breda, prepares officers for every branch of the service, and is well equipped in respect to buildings, and appliances of illustration and practice, as well as with numerous professors for doing its work as thoroughly as any school can which receives its pupils so young. ”

“ This conclusion is perhaps reasonable in relation to the 23,000 pupils of the small seminaries, and for the 10,000 pupils in the great seminaries; it is perhaps reasonable also for the future military officers formed by the State at La Flèche, Saint-Cyr, Saumur, and on the Borda.6358 Whether future soldiers or future priests, their education fits them for the life they are to lead; what they are to become as adults, they already are as youths and children; the internat, under a convent discipline or that of the barracks, qualifies them beforehand for their profession. ”

“ Prior to 1900 an Army system of individual education did not exist; individual training was accomplished primarily within units. In most cases, Army schools were local in attendance and were designed to improve the academic education of the new officer as well as his professional military education. ”

“ The principle carried out in France is that special military education should not be begun until a comparatively late age, and should be founded upon a groundwork of good general education in civil schools. The only approach to a junior military school in France is that of La Flèche, and this is mainly a charitable institution; the pupils, it is true, learn drill, but beyond this no special military instruction is given them. ”

“ Secretary Root discovered that one-third of Regular Army officers possessed no formal military education, and he believed that the Military Academy and the schools of application were inadequate to equip officers to handle the new responsibilities attendant to the growing world prominence of the United States. Nevertheless, he valued the Military Academy as the initial training ground for the Army's officers and launched a successful campaign to increase the cadet corps, modernize the academy's curriculum, and improve its physical plant. ”

“ Cyr, officers fit for the artillery, the engineers, the staff; and for general officers, of course, it is of the greatest advantage to have known from actual study something of every branch.”
The ordinary school vacation last six or seven weeks in the year. The young men are not allowed to quit the grounds except on Sundays. On that day there is mass for the young men. ”

“ If it was singular that the original advocate of the proposed school seemed not to have looked at all to the United States Academy at West Point, it was altogether natural that those upon whom devolved the difficulty of organizing the second governmental military school in the country should take for its model, as closely as differing conditions would allow, the military school of the United States, which had already taken rank with the best military schools of the old world. ”

“ I am far from desiring to see this country destitute of a Military Academy; but I would have it a school of practice, and instruction, for officers actually in the service of the United States; not an institution for educating, gratuitously, young gentlemen, who, on the completion of their term, or after a few months’ leave of absence, resign their commissions, and return to the pursuits of civil life. ”

“ Although it is now possible to secure a commission through the ranks almost as quickly as through the military schools, a preliminary liberal education is absolutely necessary, especially in the cavalry and artillery, as most difficult examinations have to be passed, and the successful candidates must then spend one year in a special military school, as St. ”

“ Having arrived at the conclusion that professional military education as hitherto given in this country has been begun at too early an age, we are met by what may be called the extreme opposite view, which would suggest the desirableness of giving up altogether education in military colleges previously to entering the army, or to entering a purely practical class or college for the special corps of Artillery and Engineers. ”

“ The course of instruction at the War Academy, or Senior Department, has been considerably modified; though still comprising many subjects of an entirely unprofessional character, their number has been reduced; the attention of the students is more concentrated upon military studies than formerly, and a larger amount of time is devoted to practical work. ”

“ It must be acknowledged that the States now in rebellion have devoted much more attention to military instruction in special schools, than we have, many of them pursuing the European plan of State Academies devoted to military science. Thus while we have been obliged to create officers from the small nucleus afforded us from West Point, they have had the students from State Colleges to officer their regiments. ”

“ The art of war, of which modern times have given such great examples and such brilliant lessons, is to have its special school, and this school, on the plan which it is intended to be established by receiving as soldiers youths from the Lyceums, will form for the French armies officers equally skilful in theory as in practice. ”

“ It seems to be thought that not only modern languages and mathematics, but military history and topography are likely to be taught in such schools sufficiently for the highest military purposes, and that even young men intended for the special arms of the service may, on joining a military academy, be absolved, or almost entirely absolved, from any other studies than those included under the expression “a purely practical course.” ”

“ The experience of Europe, and particularly of France and England, has led to the abandonment of juvenile military schools, as nurseries for officers; and the very common practice of nominating candidates who exceed the legal age, expresses the convictions of our own people that military studies now require more maturity of mind than was deemed necessary in the early history of the Academy. ”