The French Republic's Fighting Men 1880–1914

 

Something a little different this time, and not a Helion book. Wendell Schollander is not an author I have come across before, but when I was asked to review his latest book, The French Republic’s Fighting Men 1880–1914, the subject matter alone was enough for me.

When one thinks of the period covered by the book the terms La Belle Époque and Fin de Siècle and all that those terms encompass leap front and centre into one’s mind, mine at least, in particular epitomises how the ideals and optimism of the era leading up to the outbreak of the First World War were rapidly shattered on the battlefields of Northern and Eastern France.

The author has researched the army of the French Third Republic exhaustively, and has been able to use much previously unavailable or difficult to access information and data. He presents us with a comprehensive and engaging account of the officers and men of the army to a level hitherto not examined; for example the ethnicity and prior backgrounds of the men making up the metropolitan and colonial armies. It is easy to regurgitate what is written on the back cover of the book, but there are essentially three sections covering the officers, the soldiers and the Foreign Legion.

Of the officers, Wendell examines their social backgrounds, their role, the emergence of the political left and the role Jewish officers played in the army. Interestingly with the exception of the repercussions felt by the Dreyfus affair, during the whole period covered by this study, antisemitism was not a significant issue nor was being Jewish a barrier to promotion. Equally interesting and so very French (and also undoubtedly typical of military bureaucracies the world over) the army had regulations requiring that brides of officers had a dowry, implying overtly that officers’ pay was insufficient to support a wife, and if he wanted to marry he had to find a woman with money!

The author’s analysis of the French rank and file covers areas such as regional and racial ethnicity, language, recruitment and conscription. A large section of the book is devoted to the French Foreign Legion, and again the background and nationalities of the non-commissioned officers and men, discipline, drinking and desertion are examined, as are statistics around deaths in action during different campaigns.

All of this provides for a colourful account of the army. The book includes references to many personal and official documents together with some amusing anecdotes relating to the Legion Mystique.

For me the most striking part of the book are the numerous and evocative contemporary, proudly posed, photographs of soldiers from the whole range of units in the army; for example cuirassiers, chasseurs, spahis, turcos, zouaves. Together these images capture the life and soul of the French army and of La Belle Époque. I spared a moment to think of what became of them.

If you have an interest in the pre-First World War French army then this book is for you, and for further reading and research the author has provided an extensive bibliography.


ISBN 978-8-9884235-6-0. 118 pages, soft covers.

Something different, very different in fact

 

This is the another volume from Helion covering Air Power and the Arab World 1909-1955, this time focussing on the operations of not only the British (RFC/RNAS/RAF) but the French, Italians and Spanish air services. Subtitled ‘Arab Side Shows, 1914-1918, book is largely devoted to allied operations during the First World War. However, the final chapter looks at the aerial campaign in Spanish Morocco which ran concurrently with The Great War.

For its size, this book crams in an interesting and enlightening amount of information. Clearly the vast majority of this covers the British (and Anglo-Egyptian ) areas of operations in Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Iraq, but the chapters on the French, Italian and Spanish, though smaller, still include a mass of useful information. As well as pure air operations we are also treated to accounts of combined operations, and the use of dirigibles and seaplanes.

The book is worth it for the photographs and colour illustrations alone. It is crammed full of superb contemporary photographs of operations, aircraft, personnel and notable individuals. The colour illustrations span eight pages, showing some 20 different aircraft and a superb colour map of the Middle East showing the locations of Ottoman, German, British and French aerodromes throughout the War. 

This is a well written and easy-to-read work, based on a significant volume of research, using English language and Arabic sources in addition to other various European sources. It’s great value for money for anyone with even only a modicum of interest in the subject. It’s not a book I would normally have picked up but I have to say having read it , I am hooked on the subject and I recommend it highly. Well done again Helion for providing an insight into yet another rather niche military subject and bringing it to us in such a readable form. I shall now have to get my hands on the corresponding volume covering the operations of the Ottoman and Central Powers over the same period.