On the mortality of the infantry of the French army / [Henry Marshall].

  • Henry Marshall
Date:
[1834]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the mortality of the infantry of the French army / [Henry Marshall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pline. To these circumstances may be added certain moral in¬ fluences, such as—aversion to a military life, involuntary separa¬ tion from former associates, despondency, love of home, intem¬ perance, and other excesses. Many of these causes operate in¬ juriously upon the health of individuals in proportion to their youth, and hence the propriety of not enlisting men until both mind and body be matured, so as to qualify them for the various duties of a soldier, and to enable them to endure the privations of a military life. Any exercise to which a soldier may be ex¬ posed which is disproportioned to his strength, is a fertile source of disease. <e Les soldats qui ont moins de vingt ans resistent difficilement aux fatigues de la guerre. Ce sont ceux qui ont peri les premiers dans la retraite de Moscou.r>—(Sarlandiere.) Conscripts are peculiarly liable to the moral causes of impaired health, many of which cannot be obviated, as they follow the victim wherever he goes, and under whatever circumstances he may be placed. This must obviously be more or less the case in all compulsory levies. Nostalgia seems to be much more frequent in the French than in the British army. During the seven years embraced in the foregoing returns, 97 men died from this cause. Suicide is also apparently much more fre¬ quent in the French army. Duelling, which never occurs among the non-commissioned officers and privates of the British army, occasions about one death annually for every 1000 men in the French service. May not the comparatively low ratio of mortality in the Bri¬ tish army be in part owing to greater care in the selection of recruits than obtains in the French military service ? This is a very difficult question to solve. The rules and usages of the two countries in regard to the examination of men for the army are so dissimilar, that the results will not admit of close com¬ parison. It may, however, be useful to give a brief account of the mode by which the respective armies of France and Eng¬ land are recruited, as far as health and efficiency are concerned. Until the period of the Revolution, the French army was re¬ cruited by voluntary levies. Since 1798 it has been recruited both by voluntary enlistment and by conscription. Volunteers may be enlisted at eighteen years of age, and their period of ser¬ vice is eight years. A small portion of the recruits required is ob¬ tained by voluntary enlistment; for, on an average of thirteen years, the mean annual number thus engaged amounted only to about 3000. The total annual number of men required to fill up the vacancies in the army is about 60,000. Conscription is therefore the chief mode of recruiting the French army. Ac¬ cording to the conscription law, every male upon reaching twenty years of age, is bound to enrol himself at the office of the muni¬ cipality. Each canton is assessed with a certain number of con-
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