368 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



servility. They are undoubtedly inferior to the average foreman or 

 head clerk. In the army authority is much more absolute, obedience 

 more strictly enforced than in civil life. An act of disobedience, " talk- 

 ing back," means not " the sack," but imprisonment, the court martial, 

 the disciplinary companies of Africa or even death. Yet in civil life 

 authority generally implies some degree of real superiority ; in the army 

 it is often vested in men flagrantly inferior to the average. Hence a 

 spirit of sullen opposition among the soldiers. The only enduring 

 bitterness which my passage in the army left me was due to the pettiness 

 and tyranny of these underlings. Yet I found among them one un- 

 usually able and well-meaning young man, a sergeant-major who died 

 three years later as a lieutenant. 



The most demoralizing features in French military life are due to 

 an incontestable progress in the French mind — its gradual loss of faith 

 and interest in military glory. Henceforth the army is considered as 

 useless, dangerous, a burden without a compensation. Authors of school 

 books may be censured for daring to print such opinions, but the great 

 majority of the French hold them in their hearts. Nay, there is a pre- 

 vailing suspicion among workingmen that the military establishment is 

 kept up for the sole benefit of the capitalists, and the reckless use of 

 troops in case of labor conflicts gives color to the contention. In mis- 

 sions, explorations, aviation, rescue work and on colonial battlefields, 

 the French have shown the same enthusiastic spirit as of yore. But 

 dreary barrack life, without a clear purpose, without an ideal, is more 

 than they can bear. Hence, a universal spirit of indifference and lazi- 

 ness; the main point is to reach the end of the year without trouble, 

 and with the least possible effort (vulgo " tirer au flanc "). Those who 

 succeed in shirking duty are admired and envied as " debrouillards." 

 A disease or an accident, if not too painful, is considered as a stroke of 

 luck; it gives a soldier a few days of far-niente. The military doctors 

 have to exercise the closest scrutiny on malingerers and shammers. To 

 waste time and to escape punishment are the only ideals. There is no 

 incentive to good work. In this respect military life is vastly inferior 

 to industrial life. Men who serve only two years do not aspire to pro- 

 motion ; by working hard for fifteen months, they could barely manage 

 to become sergeants for the remaining four or five. They can't be 

 turned out for inefficient work. I believe the barracks were the school in 

 which the French working-men, naturally industrious and conscientious, 

 learned the terrible habit of " Sabotage." No legitimate superiority is 

 recognized in any way. Education, refinement, cleanliness — verbal, 

 physical and moral — are causes of suspicion. Brute strength, profanity, 

 capacity for strong drink, are titles to respect. Many a workman's son, 

 trained in technical schools, aspiring to better manners and a higher 

 ideal than those of his first associates, is during his stay in the army 

 dragged down back to his old level. 



