THE ADVENT OF CONSCRIPTION If Louis was the creator of the royal army, Carnot was so of the revolutionary army. At the outbreak of the Revolution the royal army consisted of 224 infantry battalions, 7 regiments of artillery, and 62 regiments of cavalry, numbering about 173,000 in all, but capable of augmentation on war strength to 210,000. To this might be added about 6o,000 militia (see Chuquet, Premiere invasion prussienne).
The first step of the Constituent Assembly was the abrogation of an edict of 1781 whereby men of non-noble birth had been denied commissioned rank (1790). Thus, when many of the officers emigrated along with their fellows of the noblesse, trained non-commissioned officers, who would already have been officers save for this edict, were available to fill their places. The gen eral scheme of reform (see CONSCRIPTION) was less satisfactory, but the formation of a National Guard, comprising in theory the whole military population, was a step of the highest im portance. At this time the titles of regiments were abandoned in favour of numbers, and the costly and dangerous Maison du Roi abolished. But voluntary enlistment soon failed ; the old corps, which kept up their discipline, were depleted, and the men went to the volunteers, where work was less exacting and promotion more rapid. The "first invasion" (July 179 2) put an end to half-measures, and the country was declared "in danger," but after Valmy (q.v.), enthusiasm waned to such a degree that, of a paper strength of 800,000 men (December 1792), only 112,000 of the line and 290,000 volunteers were actually present. The disasters of the following spring once more called for extreme energy, and 300,00o national guards were sent to the line, a step which was followed by a compulsory levee en masse; one million men were thus assembled to deal with the manifold dangers of civil and foreign war. France was saved by mere numbers and the driving energy of the Terrorists, not by dis cipline and organization. The latter was chaotic, and almost every element of success was wanting to the tumultuary levies of the year 1793 save a ferocious energy born of liberty and the guillotine. But under the Terrorist regime the army became the rallying-point of the nation, and when Lazare Carnot (q.v.) became minister of war a better organization and discipline began to appear. The amalgamation of the old army and the volunteers, which had been commenced but imperfectly carried out, was effected on a different and more thorough principle. A permanent organization in divisions of all arms was introduced, and schools of instruction were re-established. The artillery and engineers, which in 1790 were admittedly the best in Europe and which, owing to the roturier element in their officer cadres, had not been disorganized by the emigration, steadily improved. The infantry, and in a less degree the cavalry, became good and trustworthy soldiers, and the glorious campaigns of and 1796, which were the direct result of Carnot's administration, bore witness to the potentialities of the essentially modern system. But, great as was the triumph of 1796-97, the exhaustion of years of continuous warfare had made itself felt : no sufficient means existed of replenishing them till in 1798 the conscription was introduced. From that time the whole male population of France was practically at her ruler's disposal; and Napoleon had full scope for his genius in organizing these masses. His prin cipal improvements were effected in the interval between the peace of Amiens and the war with the third coalition, while threatening the invasion of England. The divisions had already given place to the army corps, and Napoleon completed the work of his predecessors. He withdrew the whole of the cavalry and a portion of the artillery from the divisions, and thus formed "corps troops" and cavalry and artillery reserves for the whole army. The grade of marshal of France was revived at Napoleon's coronation. At the same time, the operation of Jourdan's law, acquiesced in during times of national danger and even during peace, soon found opposition when the conscripts realized that long foreign wars were to be their lot. It was not the actual losses of the field armies, great as these undoubtedly were, which led Napoleon in the full tide of his career to adopt the fatal practice of "anticipating" the conscription; but the steady increase in the number of re f ractaires, men who refused to come up for service. To hunt these men down, no less than forty thousand picked soldiers were engaged within the borders of France, and the actual French element in the armies of Napoleon grew less and less with every extension of the empire. Thus, in the Grand Army of 1809, about one-third of the corps of all arms were purely German, and in 1812 the army which invaded Russia, 467,000 strong, included 280,000 foreigners. As the later wars of the Empire closed one by one the foreign sources of recruiting, the conscription became more terrible and more difficult every year. Finally the capacity for resistance was exhausted, and the army. from the marshals downward. showed that it had had enough.
One of the first acts of the Restoration was to abolish the con scription, but it had again to be resorted to within three years. A part only, according to the requirements of the service, were enrolled; the remainder were sent home on leave or furlough. Up to 1855 the individual drawn was obliged either to serve personally or find a substitute, but then the law of "dotation" or exemption by payment was passed, and put an end to personal substitution. The state now undertook to provide substitutes for all who paid a fixed sum, and did so by high bounties to volunteers or to soldiers for re-engaging. Thus gradually the con scription became rather subsidiary to voluntary enlistment, and in 1866, out of a total establishment of 400,00o, only 120,000 were conscripts. Changes had also taken place in the constitution of the army. On the Restoration its numbers were reduced to 150,00o, the old regiments broken up and recast, and a royal guard created in place of the old imperial one. Subsequent revo lutionary changes of government were accompanied by increases in the army, while under Napoleon III. the imperial guard was re-created, and every effort made to revive the old Napoleonic traditions in the army. In 1859 the victories of Magenta and Solferino raised the reputation of the army to the highest pitch, and for a time made France the arbiter of Europe. But the campaign of 1866 suddenly made the world aware that a rival military power had arisen, which was prepared to dispute that supremacy.
In 1867, therefore, Marshal Niel (q.v.), the then war minister, brought forward a measure for the re-organization of the army. This was to have been a true "nation in arms" based on universal service, and Niel calculated upon producing a first-line army 800,000 strong—half with the colours, half in reserve—with a separate army of the second line. Niel himself died within a year, and 187o witnessed the complete ruin of the French army. The law of 1868 remained therefore no more than an expression of principle.
At the outbreak of the Franco-German War (q.v.) the strength of the army on peace footing was 393,00o men ; on war footing, 567,00o. Disasters followed one another in rapid succession, and the bulk of this war-trained long-service army was captive in Germany within three months of the opening battle. But the spirit of the nation rose to the occasion as it had done in The next year's contingent of recruits was called out and hastily trained. Fourth battalions were formed from the depot cadres, and organized into regiments de marche. The gardes mobiles (Niel's creation) were mobilized, and by successive decrees and under various names nearly all the manhood of the country called to arms. Altogether the new formations amounted to nearly 1,700,00o. Though, in the face of the now war-experienced Germans, their efforts failed, this cannot detract from the tribute due to the patriotism of the people and the creative energy of their leaders, of whom Gambetta and Freycinet were the chief. After the war the adoption of the "universal service" principle of active army, reserves and second-line troops, the essential feature of which was the line training of every man, was almost as a matter of course the basis of the re-organization, for the want of a trained reserve was the most obvious cause of the disasters of "the terrible year." The most important of the recruiting laws passed subsequent to 187o were those of 1872, 1889 and 1905, the last the "loi de deux ans" which embodied a special effort of the French Ministry of War to keep pace with the ever-growing numbers of the German empire. Not merely was the period of colour service reduced— to increase the strength of trained reserves—but exemptions were almost abolished except for physical unfitness.
But the growth of a school of military thought which placed little trust in reserve formations, led to arguments for a return to three-year system without its manifold wastage by exemptions.
(X.)