When Napoleon fell, Frenchmen turned in loathing from the work of war. They remembered the awful waste of life and the terrible misery which had resulted from his campaigns, and they longed for peace, during which they might build up the nation anew. The French army, therefore, became a mere shadow of what it had been formerly. Under Napoleon III., however, there was a revival of military spirit. His army, as you know, fought well in the Crimea[1] and in Italy,[2] but it suffered hopeless defeat in the war of 1870-1 against the Germans.[1] The French took to heart the fearful lessons of this war, and began almost at once to put their military house in order.
In 1872 they passed a law which was supposed to compel every young man to serve as a soldier for twenty years--five years with the colours, and then four years in the Reserve; five years in the Territorial Army, and six years in the Territorial Reserve. But this law was not fully enforced. The men called up each year were divided by lot into two groups, and one of these groups, in time of peace, was let off with only one year's service in the Regular Army. Whole classes of persons, such as breadwinners and teachers, were free from service altogether, and any man could escape with one year's training by paying a certain sum of money. This plan proved very unsatisfactory, and in 1889 a new law was passed by which every young man was forced to serve twenty-five years--three years with the colours, seven years in the Reserve, six years in the Territorial Army, and nine years in the Territorial Reserve. By this means France hoped to raise her total number of trained men to 3,000,000.
Up to the year 1893 France and Germany had about the same number of soldiers on a peace footing; but very soon Germany began to forge ahead, chiefly because her population grew so rapidly. Soon it was clear that France could not hope to raise so large an army as Germany; so in 1897 she made an alliance with Russia, by which each Power agreed to take part in the other's quarrel if either of them should be attacked. In 1905 France again altered her army law by reducing the time of service with the colours to two years, and by increasing the period of service with the Reserve to eleven years. But even this arrangement did not give her all the soldiers which she needed; so in 1913 she decreed that every Frenchman found fit for service must join the colours at the age of twenty, spend three years in the Regular Army, eleven years in the Regular Reserve, seven years in the Territorial Army, and seven in the Territorial Reserve. Thus every strong and able-bodied Frenchman became liable for military service from his twentieth to his forty-eighth year. Roughly speaking, this new law enabled France to put into the field, a month or so after the beginning of war, about 4,000,000 trained men. This gave her a first line army of about 1,500,000, a second line of about 500,000, and a reserve of about 2,000,000. Germany feared that this new law would so strengthen France that she and Russia combined would be more than a match for her; and one of the reasons why she declared war on August 1, 1914, was to crush the French before the new arrangement could come into full working order.