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The French Army, 1914
The French Army of 1914 was a large structure consisting of 5 field armies (numbered 1-5) made up of 21 field corps (including 1 corps of colonial soldiers numbered I to XXI). A corps was usually 2 divisions, while an army would add 2-3 reserve divisions that could be attached to corps when needed.
The French army was one of the largest professional military forces in the world, and until 1910, one of the most technologically impressive. She was the first army to adopt smokeless power firearms (1888), and had one of the first recoil buffer artillery pieces (the famous French 75mm). Unfortunately it suffered under poor leadership in the 1910s and adopted an outmoded theory of combat known as Élan vital, a school of thought taken from the philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution. As a result it saw the human wave charge as the key to any attack when, in an age of machine guns, technology and firepower were essential ingredients in combat.
The French army of 1914 was lead by a mediocre general, Joseph Joffre, who was (along with the strategic thinker Foch) enamored with the potential for offensive spirit to overcome modern weapons. Joffre's weak points were not quickly understood as extensive censorship was applied to the front line in the beginning days of the war, and the general staff created a myth after the battle of the Marne that Joffre was the architect of a great victory with stunning losses for the Germans that has become embedded in history books to this day.
Despite its failures the French Army of 1914 showed one characteristic that would be impressive in later years, the ability to sustain damage and still maintain cohesion. The battle of the Marne may not have been a great victory that saved France, but it was a demonstration that the French had staying power and that the German hopes that a knockout blow followed by occupation of the industrial north would lead to a French negotiated surrender allowing them to turn east where there was more land and resources to be had was a pipe dream. The French army, although hard pressed, never disintegrated, and with the formation of the 6th Army, was able to hold the far left with British help and dig in for a long war.
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