This is about
all that are fit for service. They are required to serve for only two
years. If the change ended there our army would be still more a militia
than it is now. It would be the Prussian Landwehr. But those entitled to
their discharge are to be enticed by higher pay, promotions, bounties,
and retiring pensions--in short, by all means of seduction, to re-enter
for long periods, for ten, or fifteen, or perhaps twenty years. It is
hoped that thus a permanent regular army may be formed, with an _esprit
de corps_ of its own, unsympathising with the people, and ready to keep
it down; and such will, I believe, be the result. But it will take nine
or ten years to produce such an army--and the dangers that I fear are
immediate.'
'What are the motives,' I asked, 'for the changes as to the conscription,
the increase of numbers, and the diminution of the time of service?'
'They are parts,' he answered, 'of the system. The French peasant, and
indeed the _ouvrier_, dislikes the service. The proportion of conscripts
who will re-enlist is small. Therefore the whole number must be large.
The country must be bribed to submit to this by the shortness of the
term.
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