The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-23
THE FRENCH OFFICERS.
One of the Features That Make the
French Army Formidable.


(From The New Century Review)
One of the features which make the
French army corps so terrible weap-
on of attack, when properly handled Is
the large number of non-commissioned
officers who have won minor commls-
sions, such as sous-lieutenant and cap
tain, and if their education is faulty
they more than atone for it by superb
courage They hope to win their pro
motion by the sword ard not by the
book 1t is this very class of whom
Won Moltke said, in 1870, that 'Whlle
they possess no other instruction IMAM
that of the bad primary French IN
struction, and give evidence OF gross
ignorance, it was precisely these oil-
GERS who for the greater part, stroVe
on the battlefields of France to WASH
out, at the cost Of their blood faults
for which they were in no way respon-
sible" AS a class, the French ofhcers
are equal to any officers on the CONT
nent, up to certain point.
L have already alluded to the au-
vanced age of the French military
chiefs, which makes it impossible tor
them to cope with hardship ana Ia
tigue The officers between twenty
eight and fifty are at their very pest
| and any young man who has thorough
| ly understood the teaching at st. Cyr
might mount horse and lead an army
corps, but the absurd reverence Tor
age makes this an impossibility. In
our own day we have seen the magnl-
! ficent -headedness Of youth IN
three departments-Kitch in war;
| Harmsworth in journalism and Laskef
| in chess, all Of whom seem to empna-
| size the great lesson that the coming
general must be between the thlrtles
and forties. The statement that
Frances commanding generals are De
tween fifty-eight and siAty-five is al
most a confession Of coming defeat
Another fault lies in the tendency OF
the French officer stationed in Paris
to grow fat. The English officer never
has this ridiculous leaning toward en-
bonpoint, but if one were to watch a
batch of officers enter the Cercle Mill
i taire-I am now speaking of those in
the forties and fifties-one might easily
mistake them for aldermen in uniform
This argues lack of exercise, and would
augur badly for the drill of the troops
} were it not that in France, as in Eng
land, the bulk of this work depends
upon the commissioned officers
Luckily for France, her young army
officers are in the pink of condition
: ready for any emergency, and equal t6
any demands on their physical anc
mental systems. The new rules laid
down at ST. Cyr in 1897 must result il
an improvement in the morale of hi
, French commanders of the future. h
tyranny Of mathematics is abolished
and every effort is to be made to insti
: into the minds of the students that wa
,, is not so much a science as an art
which can be best achieved by goot
sense and inspiration.
Gen. Maillard, one of the professor
of tactics at the Ecole Superieure d
Guerre says very wisely: Under tn
pretext that the progress of science an
industry will be used in the comin
fight between the nations it is pro
: claimed that the conducting of wa
! ! must be scientific, and that it will de
! mand high mathematical knowledge
: Nothing is more opposed to the spiri
T oe war The rule of three alone, up t
l the present, has sufficed, and will suf
= flee, for all problems depending on cal
: culation, but to conduct a war mean
that the chiefs must have high nature
qualities, a professional knowledg
which must be constantly advancing,
strong, cultured intelligence, but, abov
all, the spirit of reflection, of calcula
s tion-in a word, the PHILOSOPHERS
ST irit."