Let it be remembered that the men who are fighting the battles of France, and of all civilisation, on French soil in these closing months of 1914 are not like the veterans with whom Napoleon won his battles. 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. The Army of the Republic to-day is made up of men who have had two years' training apiece (with the exception of the small percentage of _re-engagés_, who also have had no war service) under peace conditions, and who for the most part have never seen a shot fired in anger, as the phrase goes. Yet out of this semi-raw material (semi-raw as far as war experience goes) France has raised an Army which may without exaggeration be termed magnificent, an Army that has kept the field under harder circumstances than those which brought about the surrender of Sedan, an Army that no more knows when it is beaten than does the British force fighting by its side.
End of Project Gutenberg's The French Army From Within, by Anonymous