The French army of 1914
The multinational army of the French Republic proved it knew how to fight and die for its country
Sep 20, 2006
When the guns of august blew that began the Great war that we now world war one, the army of the republic of France was very much still stuck in the last century. The French soldier, referred to as the "Poilus" (hairy), went to war wearing a near suicidal costume for the modern battlefield. This uniform was made up of bright red trousers and a blue double-breasted overcoat complete with shiny brass buttons and tails! A smart rakish kepi (think of the US civil war) was worn instead of a helmet. French cavalry wore the same obsolete design of shining brass accented polished breastplates with matching plumed helmets that napoleons cavalry wore at waterloo 99 years before. These exotic uniforms even paled in comparison to those of the colonial units drawn from Africa. In 1915 a more sedate uniform and helmet was issued after the flower of the army had been lost along the Marne and the Anise.
The Achilles heel of the world war one French army was in the poor nature of its armaments. The standard infantry rifle, the 8mm 1893 Lebel rifle was inaccurate and its wartime replacement, the 1915 Berthier was slow to take the field. French machineguns including the 1907 St Etienne, 1909 Hotchkiss, and the Chauchat light machine gun were held in such poor light due to mechanical unreliability that the government had problems even giving them away after the war. Heavy artillery was lacking in numbers but the excellent 75mm light gun helped to alleviate this fact.
The Republic, smarting from losses to the Germans in 1870 and suffering from a low birthrate and small male population conscripted 84% of its male population and established in 1912 the length of service as a conscript of three years. By contrast the German army only conscripted 50% of their population for two years of training. These efforts kept a peacetime army of 700,000 men organized in 173 infantry regiments and 59 of cavalry serving in European (metropolitan) France. . When mobilized with reservists and fully fleshed out this army amounted to 1,100,000 men in the front lines when war was declared on August 3rd, 1914. This outnumbered army was to oppose the 1,750,000 man mobilized German Army.
Four years of war saw 8,660,000 Frenchmen of all backgrounds placed into the blue uniform of the Poilus. The graves of the western front, Gallipoli and salkonia kept 1,390,000 of these men for all time while another four million took home visible life changing wounds. This figure was augmented by the colonial troops of the extended areas of the empire. During the conflict the French army drew 163,000 Senegalese Tiraillieurs from West Africa, at least 200,000 turbaned spahis cavalry and Zouave infantry from North Africa, and no less than 70,000 Southeast Asians from French Indochina. It is estimated that some 40,000 of these colonial troops lost their lives in the fetid trenches of the French homeland.
