French Army
The French Army is the land service branch of the French Armed Forces. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Staff of the French Army, who is subordinate to the Chief of the Defence Staff, who in turn is responsible to the President of France. CEMAT is also directly responsible to the Ministry of Armed Forces for administration, preparation, and equipment.
The French Army, following the French Revolution, has generally been composed of a mixed force of conscripts and professional volunteers. It is now considered a professional force, since the French Parliament suspended the conscription of soldiers.
History
Early history
The first permanent army of France, which was paid with regular wages instead of being supplied by feudal levies, was established in the early 15th century under Charles VII. It was formed due to the need for reliable troops during the Hundred Years' War, though the Army was not disbanded because it saw continued use by the Kings of France following the conflict. Upon the outbreak of a conflict, an ordonnance would be issued to govern the length of service, composition and payment of units.The Compagnies d'ordonnance formed the core of the Gendarme well into the 16th century, and were stationed throughout France and summoned into larger armies as needed. There was also provisions made for francs-archers, which was a militia of bowmen and foot soldiers raised from the non-noble classes, but the units were disbanded once war ended.
Meanwhile, the bulk of infantry was still provided by urban or provincial militias, which were raised from an area or city to fight locally and that were named for their recruiting grounds. Gradually, the units became more permanent, and in the late 15th century, Swiss instructors were recruited, and some of the 'Bandes' were combined to form temporary 'Legions' of up to 9000 men. The men would be paid, contracted to fight and receive military training.
Henry II further regularised the French Army by forming standing infantry regiments to replace the Militia structure. The first of them were called Les Vieux Corps. It was normal policy to disband regiments after a war was over as a cost-saving measure with the Vieux Corps and the French Royal Guard being the only survivors.
File:Villars a Denain1.jpg|thumb|The Battle of Denain by Jean Alaux, 1839. The French Royal Army at the Battle of Denain in 1712
Regiments could be raised directly by the King and so be called after the region in which they were raised or by the nobility and so called after the noble or his appointed colonel. When Louis XIII came to the throne, he disbanded most of the regiments in existence, leaving only the Vieux and a handful of others, which became known as the Petite Vieux and also gained the privilege of not being disbanded after a war.
File:Battle-of-Fontenoy.jpg|thumb|The Gardes françaises at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745
In 1684, there was a major reorganisation of the French infantry and another in 1701 to fit in with Louis XIV's plans and the War of the Spanish Succession. The reshuffle created many of the modern regiments of the French Army and standardised their equipment and tactics. The army of the Sun King tended to wear grey-white coats with coloured linings. There were exceptions and the foreign troops, recruited from outside France, wore red or blue while the French Guards wore blue. In addition to the regiments of the line the Maison du Roi provided several elite units, the Swiss Guards, French Guards and the Regiments of Musketeers being the most famous. The white/grey coated French Infantry of the line Les Blancs with their Charleville muskets were a feared foe on the battlefields of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fighting in the Nine Years' War, the Wars of Spanish and Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution.
Wars of the Coalition
The French Revolution caused the Army to lose most of its officers to aristocratic flight or the guillotine, and thus it became demoralised and ineffective. The revolutionary militias of Sans-culottes, and the bourgeoise National Guard formed the nucleus of the French Revolutionary Army alongside the remnants of the dissolved Royal French Army; it was created following the storming of the Tuileries palace, where the French National Guard joined the revolt, the loyal Swiss Guards were massacred and the King was deposed.From 1792, the Revolutionary Army fought against a combination of European powers in the French Revolutionary Wars, with the state directing most of its industry and population to war efforts, marking the start of modern conscription in the world, it also allowed more flexible military strategies, setting way for Napoleonic warfare. Moreover, many noble officers were retired, decreasing stratification and increasing military specialism. These, and the extreme investments into war efforts allowed France to begin a steady advance into Europe.
Under Napoleon I, the French Imperial Army conquered most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. Professionalising again from the Revolutionary forces and using columns of attack with heavy artillery support and swarms of pursuit cavalry the French army under Napoleon and his marshals was able to outmanoeuvre and destroy the allied armies repeatedly until 1812. Napoleon introduced the concept of all arms Corps, each one a traditional army 'in miniature', permitting the field force to be split across several lines of march and rejoin or to operate independently. The Grande Armée operated by seeking a decisive battle with each enemy army and then destroying them in detail before rapidly occupying territory and forcing a peace.
File:Charles Meynier - Entrée de Napoléon à Berlin. 27 octobre 1806.jpg|thumb|Entry of Napoleon into Berlin by Charles Meynier. After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the Grande Armée entered Berlin on 27 October 1806
In 1812, Napoleon invaded the Russian Empire with a new Grande Armee, seeking to remove their influence from eastern Europe and secure the frontiers of his empire and client states. The campaign initially went well, but the vast distances of the Russian Steppe and its cold winter forced his army into a shambling retreat preyed on by Russian raids and pursuit. This force could not be replaced and with the "ulcer" of the ongoing war in the Iberian peninsula against Britain and Portugal, the French Army was badly short of trained troops and French manpower was almost exhausted.
After Napoleon's abdication and return, halted by an Anglo-Dutch and Prussian alliance at Waterloo, the French army was placed back under the restored Bourbon Monarchy. The structure remained largely unchanged and many officers of the Empire retained their positions.
The 19th century
The Bourbon restoration was a time of political instability with the country constantly on the verge of political violence. The army was committed to the restoration of Spanish monarchial absolutism in 1824. It achieved its aims in six months, but did not fully withdraw until 1828. By comparison with the earlier Napoleonic invasion, this expedition was rapid and successful.Taking advantage of the weakness of the local bey, the French invasion of Algiers in 1830 again rapidly overcame initial resistance. The French government formally annexed Algeria but it took nearly 45 years to fully pacify the country. This period of French history saw the creation of the Army of Africa, which included the Légion étrangère. The Army was now uniformed in dark blue coats and red trousers, which it would retain until the First World War.
The news of the fall of Algiers had barely reached Paris in 1830 when the Bourbon Monarchy was overthrown and replaced by the constitutional Orleans Monarchy. During the July 1830 revolution, the Paris mobs proved too much for the troops of the Maison du Roi and the main body of the French Army, sympathetic to the crowds, did not become heavily involved.
In 1848 a wave of revolutions swept Europe and brought an end to the French monarchy. The army was largely uninvolved in the street fighting in Paris which overthrew the King but later in the year troops were used in the suppression of the more radical elements of the new Republic which led to the election of Napoleon's nephew as president.
The Pope had been forced out of Rome as part of the Revolutions of 1848, and Louis Napoleon sent a 14,000 man expeditionary force of troops to the Papal State under General Nicolas Charles Victor Oudinot to restore him. In late April 1849, it was defeated and pushed back from Rome by Giuseppi Garibaldi's volunteer corps, but then recovered and recaptured Rome.
The French army was among the first in the world to be issued with Minié rifles, just in time for the Crimean War against Russia, allied with Britain. This invention gave line infantry a weapon with a much longer range and greater accuracy and lead to new flexible tactics. The French army was more experienced at mass manoeuvre and war fighting than the British and the reputation of the French army was greatly enhanced.
A series of colonial expeditions followed and in 1856 France joined the Second Opium War on the British side against China; obtaining concessions. French troops were deployed into Italy against the Austrians, the first use of railways for mass movement.
The French army was now considered to be an example to others and military missions to Japan and the emulation of French Zouaves in other militaries added to this prestige. However, an expedition to Mexico failed to create a stable puppet régime.
France was humiliated following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, and while the army had far superior infantry weapons in the form of the Chassepot and Mitrailleuse, its tactics and artillery were inferior, and by allowing the Prussian Army to take the initiative, the French Army was rapidly bottled up into its fortress towns and defeated. The loss of prestige within the army lead to a great emphasis on aggression and close quarter tactics.