manœuvres form an expensive portion of the conscript's training, and it will be understood, when it is remembered that under ordinary peace conditions france maintains twenty military stations, each forming the skeleton of an army corps, that the annual cost to the state runs into a considerable fraction of the total military expenditure, this including the cost of food for men, forage for horses, the running of transports and stores, and all the expenses incidental to the maintenance of troops in the field. one item alone, the cost of shells fired by artillery during their annual practice, represent a large expenditure, for each shell is in itself a complicated piece of machinery, which must be perfectly accurate in all its parts, and is a costly thing to produce.

not that the soldier on manœuvres ever counts cost; the majority of the troops do not even think of such a thing. they are out roughing it, a business which gratifies the instincts of most healthy minded and bodied men, and one which is conducive to health and high spirits. your conscript on manœuvres is a different being from the one who came to the colours in the previous october. he has acquired a self-confidence and self-reliance of which he was innocent at the beginning of his training; he came as a boy, but now there are about him the signs of a man, and the first camp more than anything else gives him a realisation of the value of military training from a man's own point of view, and quite apart from its value to the state. by the time the season of manœuvres is over he is a second-year man, and has begun to feel his feet.

if one takes a map of france and picks out the twenty stations of the various army corps scattered throughout the country, and then if one realises the numbers of men actually serving that these stations represent, one will see that it is quite impossible that all the army corps of the country should make a point of undergoing their manœuvres as one united body. the disturbance inflicted from a civilian point of view on the area chosen would be enormous, and the result of no more value as regards the training of officers and men than when two or three army corps conduct their mimic warfare together. certainly more than one army corps should be engaged in an annual set of manœuvres. for instance, if one took lyons as the station concerned, and assumed that the army corps stationed at lyons conducted its manœuvres year after year independently of those army corps which have their head-quarters at other centres, it would be easily understood that the army corps with head-quarters at lyons would, to a certain extent, get into a rule-of-thumb way of working, and would fail to keep itself abreast of the various discoveries that are constantly being made by all sorts and conditions of commanders in the art of war. it is essential that units should as far as possible be able to interchange ideas, and learn new ways from each other, for war is a business in which, given forces of equal strength, the most intelligently controlled army wins.

the manœuvre areas of france are many. there are stretches of hill country like the district of the vosges; forest stretches like the ardennes in which the french army has recently conducted some of its stiffest fights; great open plains like that which lies about châlons, or like the breton landes; and river basins of diversified country, giving reaches of hill, valley and woodland, and most useful of all from a military educational point of view, since they afford training in practically all branches of the soldier's work.

in average manœuvres, two forces, designated respectively as a blue and a red force, or in some way distinguished from each other by marks which enable men to tell "friend" from "enemy," are set to face each other in a certain limited area. each force is expected to do its best to render the other ineffective as a fighting force, and the conditions are made to resemble those of real warfare as nearly as possible. it must be said, however, that up to the present, no nation in its military manœuvres has ever allowed sufficiently for casualties; as an instance may be cited the case of a regiment which, on a certain set of manœuvres in france, was surrounded and entirely put out of action early in the course of the operations. had the business been real, the men of that particular regiment would all have been either dead or prisoners, but they were allowed to continue to count in the force to which they belonged, and the commander of the opposing force simply scored up so much credit for having achieved a brilliant military operation. of course, from the point of view of training officers and men, for which manœuvres are specially designed, it was quite right that the officers and men of this unit should take part in the operations up to the last day, but, since men do not resurrect in this fashion after a real battle, it may be said, viewing the matter disinterestedly, that there was no further tactical value in the scheme carried out. the opposing forces were so constituted for the operation as to be of about equal strength, and the presence or absence of the regiment referred to would have been quite sufficient to turn the scale one way or the other—and yet they were allowed to take part after having been theoretically wiped out of existence! this anomalous method of procedure is not peculiar to the french army, however, but is practically common to the armies of all nations.

the nature of the work which the conscript has to perform on manœuvres is purely a matter of luck. for instance, the force in which one is serving may be compelled, in order to carry out the scheme of its commander, to execute a wheeling or turning movement to either flank, and, supposing a wheel to the right flank is required, then the men on the right flank have very little marching to do, and very little work, since their part in the scheme is to wait for the wheeling flank to come round. an amusing old scamp whose service began when the five years' law was still in force, and who served in a french infantry battalion up to a short time ago, used to allege that he was once right-hand man of an army corps which wheeled in this fashion with the right flank for a pivot. "i stood for three weeks," he alleged, "on that flank, waiting for the outer flank to come round, and looking up the line to see that the men kept their dressing." the "dressing," it should be explained, is a term used in both the french and british army for the keeping of line by the men.

but, speaking seriously, these wheeling movements occur frequently during a term of manœuvres; when the business is over, and the men of the various units come to compare notes, they are often puzzled at the enormous amount of work and marching imposed on one unit, while another had practically nothing to do, and stayed very nearly in the same place throughout the whole time. for, though the part that his own regiment has to play in a scheme is usually explained to the conscript, the strategical nature of the scheme as a whole is generally beyond his comprehension. this is not to be wondered at, since a strategical scheme is planned out by the best brains of the army corps—at least, the staff officers are supposed to possess the best brains, and are given their posts mainly on account of greater fitness for the planning of military operations.

manœuvres as a whole approximate as nearly as is possible, in view of the difference in circumstances, to active service, but "nearly as possible" is not "quite," and the lessons learned on manœuvres, valuable though they are, cannot be unreservedly applied to active service. reference has already been made to the way in which the soldier enjoys his period of manœuvres, but no man enjoys active service in a similar fashion, and moral, one of the greatest deciding factors in war, is entirely absent from the mimic warfare in which armies engage in time of peace. at the same time the lessons learned from manœuvres are as valuable as they are varied. commanding officers learn the amount of strain which they can impose on their men; the conditions under which transport can and must be brought up for the use of the troops can be studied with almost as much accuracy as in warfare; the cavalry commander learns the value, from a war point of view, of his men as scouts and on detached duties, while the artillery officer finds out, as he never could without manœuvre experience, the possibilities of gun transport, and the business of ranging positions with a view to rendering them untenable by shellfire. where the manœuvre period fails as regards war lies mainly in the absence of disadvantages. as already remarked, the conditions under which transport can be brought up for the use of troops can be studied, but sometimes in war transport goes wrong, or gets captured, and an army has to do its best to keep the field until supplementary supplies can be obtained; manœuvres never impose this form of disability on the troops. the cavalry commander is unable to ascertain what his men would do when actually under fire, and though artillery officers learn to range a position, they are unable to judge what the troops occupying that position will be like after shelling has been carried out. manœuvres teach up to a point, but from that point the art of war can be learned only from the grim business itself, and, since no two bodies of troops are ever in the same frame of mind, and no two battles are fought under identical conditions, the art of war is never learned, simple though its principles are.

the average conscript is troubled little about such matters as these. as an infantryman, his business is to entrench himself when ordered to do so; to advance by short rushes, squad alternating with squad, during the work of getting nearer the enemy; to charge if bidden, or to retreat as he advanced, in the way that would produce least damage to the force of which he is a member if that force were exposed to actual fire. both in infantry and cavalry there exists a prejudice against firing the first blank cartridge of a manœuvre day, though, once that first cartridge has been fired, a man does not care how many more he fires, and often men have been known to beg blank cartridges from others, after firing their own. the reason for the prejudice consists in the fact that the firing of the first cartridge fouls the barrel of the rifle and renders necessary far more thorough cleaning at the end of the day than would be required if the rifle had not been fired. but, no matter how many more cartridges may be fired through the same rifle, they cannot make the fouling of the barrel any worse, and once the fouling has been incurred, there is a certain amount of fun in blazing off blank cartridges at the "enemy."

the work of the cavalry is considerably more varied than that of the infantry. charges, which form the culminating point of cavalry training at drill, are infrequently indulged in on manœuvres, for even in actual warfare, apart from the fact that the quick fire of modern rifles has rendered the charge a rare thing, the conditions imposed by the selection of infantry and artillery posts do not often admit of a definite cavalry charge, owing to the nature of the ground to be covered. during manœuvres the chief value of cavalry lies in their ability to act as mounted infantry; that is, they are able to concentrate fire rapidly on a given point, and to get near that point more quickly than infantry, thus rendering their fire decisive. further, small bodies of cavalry are employed in reconnaissance and detached duties of various kinds; the modern army in movement always throws out well to the front a screen of cavalry, whose object is to find and report on the presence of the enemy, to maintain contact with him, but not to engage in decisive action, which is as a rule, and practically always when the opposing forces are of equal strength, left mainly to the artillery and infantry following on behind the cavalry screen. during a period of manœuvres cavalry patrols theoretically cut telegraph wires, destroy bridges, and do all they can to impede the progress of the advancing enemy. sometimes small parties of scouts are sent out to get on to the enemy's lines of communication, and, if possible, cut them. an army with its line of communication cut is in practice like a man with his windpipe severed, and thus it will be understood that if cavalry perform this business effectively, their value to the force to which they belong is enormous. this, however, is more true of manœuvres than of war, for in the latter communications are so well guarded that as a rule it takes a stronger force than a body of cavalry unsupported by artillery to get on to a line of communication with a view to damaging it.

mention has already been made of the prejudice which the infantryman has against firing the first blank cartridge of the day. since this is the case where the rifle is concerned, one may guess what the artilleryman's feelings are like when his gun has to fire the first shot, for the cleaning of a field-gun, even after firing blank ammunition, is no light matter. the bore of the gun has literally to be scrubbed out in order to remove the fouling, and the gunner's task is not an enviable one; the clothing of the first-year conscript, when the gun has been cleaned after firing, looks as if the man had been hauled up a chimney by his heels, and though men keep a special suit of fatigue clothes for use on this task, they like it none the more for that.

in addition to the ordinary manœuvre period in which cavalry and infantry participate, artillery units go every year to a practice camp which is a special area set apart for the firing of live shells, with a view to giving officers and men alike training in the realities of their work. the so-called smokeless powder—which in reality is not smokeless—used on these occasions, together with the passage of a shell through the rifling of the gun, renders the cleaning of the bore an even more messy business than that incurred in firing blank ammunition during tactical exercises. drivers and gunners alike generally enjoy their time at practice camp, but the gunners use language over cleaning the guns, and with good cause too, when one considers the nature and difficulty of the task.

but, whether the occasion be that of practice camp for the artillery, or tactical exercise for the three arms, there is more to enjoy than to cavil at. manœuvres come at the best period of the year, from the weather point of view; the days are warm, but not too warm, and the cool nights induce healthy sleep. there is plenty of food, generally a sufficiency of tobacco and cigarettes, and the canteen travels with the men. there is a pleasant uncertainty about the nature of the day's work and the length of time it will take; one may be out until late in the evening, or one may finish in the afternoon, and, after an inspection of arms, be at liberty to go to the canteen and discuss things in general with one's comrades, or with the men who, coming from other stations, have new stories to tell and new matters to discuss. one may, granted the necessary leave, walk over to a near-by town, where is certain to be at least a cinema hall, and restaurants outside which one may sit by a table at the pavement edge and view civilian life. or there may be a night march to be accomplished, and, though this is a tiring business, it has a certain amount of interest as long as the weather holds good. the chief drawback to manœuvres is a rainy season, when the soldier has a particularly unenviable time of it. there are seldom sufficient fires at which to dry one's clothes; there is, perhaps, the business of pitching tents in the rain, and then the crowding of self, arms, and equipment into the canvas shelter, while outside the rain keeps on in a way which suggests that fine days are things of the past, never to be experienced again. the infantry go squelching out from camp in the morning; the cavalry pull up their wet lines and, getting mounted, splash out through mud puddles, while the artillery drivers harness up their horses with a knowledge that a hard day is in store for them, both on the road, where their horses will be overtaxed by the heavy going, and in camp, where the cleaning of wet saddlery and equipment and the grooming of muddy horses is enough to spoil temper at the end of the day's work. and the transport waggons, standing parked in the rain, look as if they were used for the carriage of materialised despair, and had been abandoned because the loads were too heavy. a wet town or village is a dreary sight, but a wet camp is the most depressing thing on earth.

even in wet weather, however, the spirit of the conscript is usually proof against depression. there are compensations: for one thing, work is lightened as far as possible, and usually the operations of the manœuvres are modified in case of a continual spell of wet weather, for it is not only the men who suffer from adverse climatic conditions, and it is not the business of a period of manœuvres to impose too great a strain on the forces taking part therein. when the men are in their tents and the rain is driving down outside, the interminable songs of the army may be heard from the interiors of the tents. even in a standing camp—that is to say, a camp located in one position for a period of several days—the men are made to undergo a certain number of parades in order to keep them in health, for continued idleness in camp almost certainly means disease, and, as has already been remarked, the authorities of the french army are fully alive to the necessity for preserving the health of the men.

on the average, manœuvre days are fine days; a spell of wet weather is exceptional, for the season of the year is chosen, in some degree, with a view to imparting as much instruction to officers and men alike as is possible in the allotted period. given fine weather, one has to work—but then, one has to work in barracks, and not in such congenial fashion as in this life of open air and comparative freedom.

as the end of the manœuvre period approaches, the second-year men get more and more excited, for your frenchman, whether as conscript or civilian, is an excitable person, and not ashamed of showing his feelings as is the man west of the channel. for these second-year men civilian life is getting very near. pierre will go back to the farm, and jacques will return to his place behind the counter, while jean will once more polish the seat of the office stool for a stated period each day. but jacques and pierre and jean will at times look back to the good days and the cheery comrades of the last manœuvres, and perhaps, although this is a conscript army, they will know a transient regret in that they will never again go out from the barrack gate as units of a column setting out on the long march.