The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-31 00:00:00

SOLITARY FORCES OF FRANCE.

The Conelifuticanal of yesterday contains the fol-
lowing reply to an article in the Daily New. of
Thursday lest :
The Ife.ly Noes of the 27th, In an article the kindly spirit
' of which we are happy to acknowledge, announces that t, the
Emperor Napoleon has at his disposal 400,000 men; bat
that, if we deduct from this number the 130,000 men ho re-
; quires at Pear, a considerable force at Lyons, and the 70,000
men occupied in Algeria, ho would only has, 130.000 men
loft to place in lino in case of war."
' Although we has a the well-founded hope, that the Enips-
roe will not have to employ the forces of the country, we con-
sider ourselves bound in honour to rectify the facts.
• At present Algeria occupies in fact 70,000 men, but our
rule would nut be endangered by reducing i :its figure to 00,000.
Paris at present beta not a garrison ot 130,000 men, but
only 0(30,000. Lyons bu a gurisnn of 16,000 moo, but
thei are by ao means indispensable, end might be consider-
ably reduced.
We shall give the fortes of the empire in case of war, and
It will he seen that, without having recourse to may extreoe-
' dinary measure, France maid collect are ry coneotersble army.
On the lee of April, by keeping the whole contingent of
the class of 1867 under arm., and not granting furloughs, we
have:under our flag 668,000 men.
On the let of. June, by calling in the entire contingent of
the class of 1848, we should have under the flag, as may be
seen by the following tables, 632,000 men, and with the
volunteers, who in can of war always amount in France to
about 60,000 men, we should attain the figure of 682,000 men.
The general strength of the sway on April 1, 1869, will be
Infantry (serving and belonging to the clams preceding the
year 1867), 268,728; on furlough 99,000; men of the class
1867, sad serving, 43,600; tote], 361,228. In the came
way the cavalry is 40,900; 12,600; 12,700; In all,
72,100; the artillery, 27,400; 13,900 ; 2,900; total, 41,240;
the engineere, 6,710; 4,600; 460; total, 11,760; military
train, 4,870; 4,400; 460; 9,720; giving • total fur the force
actually serving of 291,668 die, of men on furlough 134,400,
01 men belonging to the claw 1867 of 60,000, and in all
469,058. Further, there is the squadron of the Cent-gardes,
eistal to 142 men, the Imperial Guard 29,800, the etas,
gendarmerie; forego and indigenous corps, all of which are
recruited on the voluntary systom, 49,000 men, giving a
grand total of 668,000 mem.
Although the annual contingent le 100,000 met, it is only
put down es 60,000. because 19,000 are excused every year,
6,000 are bet apart for the Levy, and 17,000 sent home to sup-
port their &malt s.
The men on furlough liable to be called in ere soldier.,
nosily all of whom went through the Crimean campaign, to
whom leave of absence wee given from economical motives,
and who In a week could rejoin their corps.
The strength of the army on the let of June will he he
totals as before, and respectively for the infantry 890,978;
cavalry, 83.800; artillery, 46,460; engineers, 12,110;
military train, 10,120; cent gardee, 142; imperial guard,
29,800; the other corp., 'peeled above, 49,000; volunteers,
60,000; giving a grand total of 672,400 men.
The regiments consist of battalions, war squadron., and
depots. In ease of war the depot' would be more than suffi-
cient to maintain treaquillity at borae,besidee ("ding the
battalions and squadron' of war. Let us admit for these depots
• uoreber equal 6.100,000 men, towbich are to be added 2.5,000
gendierreer,Periaian 'verde, Ems , and 60,000 for Algerhanniking
in all 17.5,000 MO kept at home, end which have to be de-
dueed from the above grand total of 672,000 men, leaving
497.000 men. Thus France. ineteed of being able to place
10 line only 130,0011 men, as the Daily New* suppose., could
if required place 600,000; without changing the working of
her military instiintioes in anyway. We repeat that wed*
not give thee° thrum to make • parade of our forces or pre-
pare Cl.. pubtio mind for a °cutest ; en the contrary, we be-
lieve finely in the maintenance of peace ; but, atter all. the
beet mode of maietaining it for a great nation is to prove
that else is not disarmed.