The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-03-27
FRENcHMEN ALL SOLDIERS.
Military Service Il Popular Among the
Patriotic Gauis.

Military Service Il Popular Among the
Patriotic Gauis.
From the London Spectator.
In many ways the French army Is
very different from that Of any other
armies based on conscription. In Ger
many military service Is not popular,
though 1t is no doubt endured by all.
and also though the great majority of
the nation is proud of the army. No
one processes to enjoy the two years
with the colors, or to regard IL as any
thing but a hardship to have TO serve.
If any proof Is wanted or the unpopu-
larity of the service take the number
of suicides of private soldiers. In
France, though the people are no more
dislnclined from suicide than are the
Germans. there is, We believe, far less
Inclination shown by the soldiers to
escape the miseries of barrack life by
suicide. OF course, the French peasant
or the French bourgeois dislikes leav-
ing home. but when he is once in bar
racks he finds his existence not so dis
agreeable. Life there is, indeed. not
unlike public school life of a rough
kind. and the man whose friends can
manage to let him have a few francs
to spend every week can be perfectly
happy, while those who are richer and
have an allowance OFTEN do them
selves" extremely well. to use the slang
phrase of the day.
Go to a Partisan restaurant and
watch a party of five or six young pri-
Yates dining together at a table by
themselves. They behave almost ex-
actly like undergraduates and hurry
off at the end just like men in college
who have to be back by a certain hour
Another fact which mitigates the Sc
verify and strain OF army life in
France is the fact that the army is
xx~ffh To-, fttll Of
military patriotism as the French. All
classes-rich and poor. radical and re-
dictionary, and even the socialists
love the army, and the man in the red
trousers is sure to be petted and well
coined wherever he appears. In Ger
many this may be so among the rich,
but the socialists. who in many places
secretly, If not openly, constitute al
most the whole of the poor, the army,
as present organized, with its imperial
head and noble born officers is viewed
with suspicion and hatred. They may
not dislike the private soldier. but look
on him as n man condemned TO misery,
possibly TO the shame of having to
shoot down his own fellow citizens.
To illustrate what we have been say
Ing as to the attitude toward the
French army adopted by the French
man, we may cite n portion of NJ. De
BlowitZ's communication. After MOTTO
ing that the French national character
remains, in spite of everything, full
OF the military instinct and passion"
he goes on to declare that anyone can
verify this observation, which is patent
to all AS every Frenchman is "a SOL
der, we have" ne says "only to note
the psychological change which mill
tary service induces in the young men
who are forced TO live in barracks
! They go there without bitterness OF
| wrath, and, even If they serve their
/ time impatiently, the military spirit
/ Immediately lays hold of them" They
become passionately devoted TO the un-
form, and after a few weeks the bar
racks are no longer rcpugnant They
f. feel more or less at home, and thus
the enormous soldier machine which
/ never runs down day or night annually
turns out 1000 men imbued with mill.
tary spirit and themselves it's propa.
gandists." We cannot doubt that thi,
is a true picture of the attitude o.
France toward her military service
Partly through the adoption of a some
what Stacker and more humane disci
pline, and partly through the natura
love OF the people for military POM
and circumstances not this at tn
bottom OF what we mean by the mill
tary instinct? France has contrive,
to relieve herself OF the worst miserie
OF the CONSUMPTION. She is no longe
bowed down TO the earth with grie
by having every year TO turn her who'll
crop of young men into the militar,
mill. there to be ground for two wears