# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Life in a French kitchen - Part 3

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LIFE IN A FRENCH KITCHEN. By C.
(Continued from p. 152.)
CHAPTER V. A STANDING CONTROVERSY.
We had many controversies in the kitchen, some of which were not argued with much coolness on either side, particularly those in which the comparative merits of the armies and navies of the two nations were concerned. Nations are apt to forget their reverses; but the French totally ignore the history of all campaigns in which they have had the worst of it, and their history, as written by themselves, progresses by stepping from one success to the next. When it is brought home to them that, since Fontenoy, they have never gained a great victory, or had ​the best of a campaign against us, except in the little wars of the colonies, they are ever fertile in such excuses as the fortune of war, or a bad general, who was, or ought to have been, shot for cowardice, incapacity, or treachery, or something else that robbed their army of its glory. In discussing these points, I generally had the worst of the argument, because Velay and Duchêne are pretty well crammed on the subject, both being required to take up for their examinations as to the details and plans of the great European wars and battles, of which I only know the results. The French excel in everything that admits of being reduced to a system, and, as an army admits of any amount of organisation, the French army cannot be surpassed for system, discipline, and equipment. The half million of all ranks are not on paper only. They exist and are available, and they possess unbounded spirit and emulation. They are a warlike people, and their system of promotion (by which a soldier may, like Pélissier, become a field-marshal, by study and by good and distinguished conduct in face of an enemy,) gives a stimulus to ambition which is unknown in armies that live under the cold shade of an aristocracy. All Frenchmen, soldiers as well as civilians, have a good address, and, like other monkeys, can imitate the manners of their betters when they rise in the scale of humanity. When a soldier becomes an officer, he is removed to another regiment at once. He drops his former associates, and his new friends cannot say he has not the ideas or manners of a gentleman, for the same reason that Hamlet’s madness was not observed in England, where all were as mad as he. When an officer cannot pass an examination—which, even for the infantry, is rather severe—he remains where he is. As there is nothing that the vanity of a Frenchman will not tell him to attempt—from conic sections to the command of the Channel fleet—most of the officers have tried to pass examinations, and they are, or were, immediately after undergoing cram, pretty well informed on the general subjects of military education, such as history (French editions), including the details of great French victories, and the articles of the principal treaties of Europe, particularly those in which they have kept faith and “perfidious” Albion has broken it. They are fluent in the use of technical terms; not only of what we call “pipeclay,” but of military science, including fortification, tactics, and even strategy. Our Lieutenant Alfred cannot pass his examination, but he would be called a well-informed man in any society.
The men seem to be dressed and equipped for service. The knapsack is cleverly strapped, and appears to sit light, and the wearer is not constantly obliged to lean forward to jerk it into a higher and more comfortable place. Whether there is much inside, I cannot say. The French are not celebrated for carrying more linen than they want.
I met one of our great clothing contractors in Paris, and had a long conversation with him. He said that the cloth used in France for the troops is of the same quality as that used in England; but it looked better, and it is possible that he may have been rather prejudiced on the subject. Government professes to manufacture everything the army wears, and there is certainly no contract-look in the French soldier.
They break down now and then, like other armies, in the commissariat and the other civil departments. At the beginning of the siege of Sebastopol, for instance, their available resources were no more equal to the occasion than ours. My friend, the contractor, told me that the French Government spent nearly a million sterling in contracts in England during the Crimean war. He was, when I saw him, in Paris with an eye to business, ready to tender for the supply of anything in case of war between France and Austria. However, the French are naturally proud of an army that, within the present century, has been to every capital in Europe—except London. And here French vanity—a passion of which we proud islanders have no conception—supplies them with the soothing conviction that the Emperor has nothing to do but to land an army on the English coast and march straight to London.
The Channel rather bothers them. Louis Velay told me quite calmly, that in case the Emperor ever made the attempt, and failed, we would have to thank the twenty miles of sea, and not ourselves, for our good fortune. “What,” said this wretched youth who cannot pass his examination, “was to have prevented the Great Emperor from going straight to London, if he had won the battle of Waterloo, but your twenty miles of sea?” I asked him, if he had ever read a very amusing book, called “The History of Events that have Never Occurred.” But he had never heard of it: the book had not been translated into French.
The occupations of Paris in 1814 and 1815 are delicate subjects. The thoughts of them make French blood to boil, French teeth to grind, and French hearts to beat with hopes of retaliation some day. They do not care the least about the other Allies having been twice to Paris, because the old Emperor sent armies, or went himself, to their capitals whenever he pleased. But a French army has not been to London yet. It is therefore the day-dream of the army and of all ranks of society, and its feasibility is never doubted for a moment. A war with England would be the most popular of all wars; it would place every man and every sous at the disposal of the Emperor, for it would give the nation an opportunity of rubbing off old scores. We may rest assured that if he ever finds his popularity on the wane, and his throne slipping from under him, he will play the last and greatest card in his hand, and declare war against England. If he fails, he is in statu quo ante bellum, but a great success by sea and then by land makes him in glory second only to his uncle.
There is a general impression among alarmists, military as well as civil, that the Emperor of the French has only to succeed in landing an army on our coast, and then to march in one column straight to London. But there are certain rules of war, which, though they may be modified by circumstances, have been the same in all ages; and no general, let alone a French general, who always thinks as much of his own fame as of the glory of France, dare act contrary to these rules. ​We will suppose that as the French are not buccaneers, their object is not to make a raid on the coast, but to pay us off for the occupations of Paris by an occupation of London.
To attain this object, they must, first of all, be permanent masters of the sea,—our Channel fleet, the fleet at Spithead, and the reserves being either taken, or dispersed, or blockaded in their harbours. For the French to succeed in anything but a raid, or the empty glory of hoisting their flag in some town on the coast, such as Brighton or Hastings, there must be no English fleet upon the sea.
One great rule of war is, that all operations are made upon a base-line between two points, which must be forts or fortified harbours containing supplies, and upon which points an army can retire in case of reverse. A second rule is, that the distance between these base-points increases in a fixed ratio to the distance to be advanced. That is, the further an army has to march, the broader must be the base of operations. A third rule is, that all operations must be on lines perpendicular to the base-line. And a fourth rule is, that there must be a complete communication between the two points of the base-line, and also between all the points of operation upon it. From this last rule may be deduced the corollary, that an army should have all its enemies in its front. There is such a thing as a “flying column,” or a colonne en air, as the French call it, which is a body of troops equipped, not for speed, as is generally supposed, but with supplies and the munitions of war, to enable it to operate without a base and in all directions. A flying column is seldom used in regular warfare among civilised nations, but to a great extent by us in India, and by the French in Algeria. An army can act contrary to these rules when it has on either flank an arm of the sea, or a river, or a chain of mountains, or any other obstacle to prevent the operations of an enemy.
Let me exemplify the above rules by the operations of the Allies in the Crimea—ground with which we ought all to be so familiar. The base was short, from Kamiesh Bay to Balaclava. If the operations had been extended farther into the peninsula, it would have been necessary to extend the base to the east. The base could not have been from Eupatoria to any point to the south, because the operations against Sebastopol would have been outside the base, and perpendicular to no point of it. Although our troops could see strings of waggons bringing supplies daily from the north into the besieged city, yet we could not attempt to cut them off, because an advance by us would have placed Sebastopol in our rear.
To enable the French to march to London, they must have a base, and a broad one too. Sheerness on the right flank, and Dover on the left, with possession of Deal and all the harbours on the coast between those two places, is the best base our coast offers. On the right of the operations there would be the Medway and the Thames; and the distance from the French coast to one point of the base would be the shortest sea-passage that exists—a great advantage. But it would be impossible for an army to advance without getting possession of Sheerness and Dover, both of which, it would be hoped, could stand a siege of two months at least. Chatham is on the road between Sheerness and London, and, though a weak place, it could not be left without being taken, for it would be a standing threat on the right flank of the enemy’s operations.
The coast between Dover and Newhaven offers only a poor base. The harbour of the latter place is tidal and small, and is besides commanded by the rising land to the west.
Between Newhaven and Bournemouth the harbours are not adapted for the disembarking of large bodies of troops and of the matériel of war—such as guns, shot, and shell, horses, and commissariat stores. The troop-ships would have to anchor in the open roadsteads, and the process of landing troops, even if it was ever so well organised, would be tedious; and a gale of wind would put a stop to it altogether, and would jeopardise the safety of those already landed. If a reverse happens to troops where they cannot defend themselves, or receive succour from their ships, or re-embark, they must lay down their arms. This shows the necessity of having forts or fortified harbours at the extremities of the base of operations.
There is a good base to be found on the coast between Bournemouth and Lymington, for the Solent affords one continued anchorage, and the means of landing troops in smooth water. It is generally supposed that every French general has in his pocket a detailed plan of a march to London; and if they could all be induced to lay the produce of their brains on a table, I have no doubt it would be found that the majority of them would suggest that the Solent should contain one point, if not both, in the base of operations. The locality presents one little difficulty in the fortifications round Portsmouth harbour. The Duke used to say, that Portsmouth was not defensible; but when the new line of forts from the head of the harbour to the Solent is finished, a French general might hesitate before he commenced the siege as part of his programme of a march to London,—that is, if the Emperor will only wait till the forts are finished, which he will probably not do. Though there are some fine harbours west of the Solent, particularly Portland Bay, yet the further we go west, the greater become the distances from the French coast, and from our coast to London; and when we once get round Land’s End, this difficulty increases.
On examining the coast to the north from the mouth of the Thames, it will be found that there are no defensible harbours affording points for a base of operations. The Wash is a mud-flat at low water, and Yarmouth is an open roadstead. Supposing that the operations are undertaken with a view to the occupation of London, on a large scale and according to the rules of war, it will be seen that there are only two parts of the coast which could be selected on bases of operations with any hopes of success—namely, from Sheerness to Dover, and from Bournemouth to Lymington. As for the number of troops required to defend London, we ought to give our Minister of War credit for being the best judge of the situation. What he and other wise heads think is required is being done; and when the tug of war ​commences, as it assuredly will within a few years, I have no doubt, but that we shall be ready to make a respectable stand-up fight.
At the same time, I hope the battle will be fought at sea.
(To be continued.)