The 1914 French mobilization was the set of operations at the very start of World War I that put the French Army and Navy in a position for war, including the theoretical call to arms of all Frenchmen fit for military service. Planned long before 1914 (via Plan XVII), each man's assignment was based on his age and residence.
It was triggered in response to equivalent measures taken by Germany, the French mobilization took place over 17 days, from August 2 to 18, 1914, and involved transporting, clothing, equipping and arming more than three million men in all French territories, both in metropolitan France and in some of the colonies, and then transporting them by rail to the potential theater of war, which at the time was considered to be the Franco-German border.
Such event had political (Sacred Union), socio-economic (due to the departure of almost all young men) and, of course, military consequences (the start of the Battle of the Frontiers). It was the first time that a general mobilization was declared in France (in 1870, only the professional army was mobilized); the second took place in 1939. In August 1914, 3,780,000 men were mobilized; in total, throughout the war, some 8,410,000 French soldiers and sailors were mobilized, including 7% indigenous soldiers.
Preparation The Industrial Revolution transformed the art of warfare, not only through the development of weapons and equipment, but above all through the ability of states to effectively mobilize armies with million of men. Since it was economically and socially impossible to keep them all permanently in uniform, they were left to live civilian lives during peacetime, and states mobilized them in the event of conflict, hoping to keep it short.
From the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th century, the French army was a conscription army, like all the armies of the great European continental powers of the time: A small cadre of volunteer career officers and NCOs would be supplemented by millions of reservists, who had received training through their mandatory two-year-service at age 20 and periodic refresher trainings. Only a small proportion of its units were fully composed of professional soldiers (notably some of the colonial troops and the Foreign Legion).
This was in line with the egalitarian ideology of some Republicans under the Third Republic, in a more militaristic and patriotic context: after 1871, conscript societies (whose members practiced gymnastics, shooting and military instruction from adolescence) multiplied, the Ministry of National Education set up a military education commission in 1881, the League of Patriots was founded in 1882, and schools formed school battalions as part of citizenship education, marching in uniform on July 14th and carrying "school rifles" from 1882 to 1889. By 1913, 221 provincial towns had garrisons, making uniforms a common sight on the streets, with parades, retreats (evening marches through the streets), military music and more.
Legislation
Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Third Republic organized the recruitment for its armies with the law of July 27, 1872 (or the Cissey law): "" ("any Frenchman may be called up, from the age of twenty to that of forty"),Army Recruitment Act of July 27, 1872, published in the Journal Officiel of August 17, 1872. (In French). service was for five years, with selection by lottery, but with the possibility of being discharged (short stature, deformity, respiratory illness, etc.), replaced or exempted (family responsibilities, clergymen, teachers, etc.). Service was reduced from five to three years by the law of July 15, 1889 (or the Freycinet law).Army Recruitment Act of July 15, 1889, published in the Journal Officiel of July 17, 1889. (In French). This situation was reformed by the law of March 21, 1905 (or the Berteaux law),The 1905 law on universal service is explained partly by the warmongering and Germanophobic climate that culminated in the Tangier crisis that same year, but also by the domestic policies of the Rouvier government (which was predominantly radical) with the law on the separation of Church and State that same year. which abolished the drawing of lots, replacements and exemptions: henceforth, all men could be called up for two years.Law of March 21, 1905 amending the law of July 15, 1889 on Army recruitment and reducing to two years the length of service in the active Army, promulgated in the Journal Officiel of March 23, 1905, (In French). Finally, the law of August 7, 1913 (or the Barthou law) increased military service from two to three years.Law of August 7, 1913, amending the laws concerning the infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers, with regard to the size of units and setting the conditions for recruitment into the active army and the duration of service in the active army and its reserves, promulgated in the Journal officiel of August 8, 1913, (In French).
The theoretical consequence of these laws was that, between 1905 and 1914, every French male who reached the age of 20 (just before the age of majority at the time) had to be registered on a nomination list, then do his military service for two, then three years in the active army (from age 21 to 23), before being returned to civilian life. For the eleven years following his service, men were assigned to the military reserve force (from age 24 to 34), then to the Territorial Army for seven years (from age 35 to 41), and finally to the Territorial Army Reserve for another seven years (from age 42 to 48). Men doing their service were transferred to active regiments, theoretically recruited locally; after their service, they were called up three times for maneuvers and exercises, two times for reservists (each one for four weeks) and one time for territorial army reservists (of only two weeks). In theory, men declared unfit for service due to physical incapacity were still subject to military obligations, in the form of auxiliary service (in offices, depots, the health service, etc.). A final case is that of the "special assigned", i.e. customs officers, forest hunters, men in field railway sections, and post and telegraph officers. Each year, a "class" of conscripts was recruited: a class is a group of men born in the same year and fit for service. The number of a class corresponds to the year of its census, generally taken in December of the year in which they turned twenty; conscription took place the year after the census, in autumn. When mobilized, men from the active forces and the youngest reservists formed the units sent into combat, while older reservists were destined to form reserve regiments kept behind the front or to fill depots while waiting to replace casualties. The men of the territorial army formed units for tasks behind the front, such as the garrisoning of squares or entrenchment work. Finally, men from the Territorial Army Reserve were to be used to guard railroads and the coast.
The French Navy recruited its personnel in a different way, based on maritime recruitment: men engaged in maritime or river navigation were required to serve in the "army of the sea",Regulation of November 7, 1866 and law of December 24, 1896 on maritime registration, published in the Journal officiel of December 27, 1896, (In French). with a five-year term of service in peacetime. However, as the fleet needed a large number of qualified technicians, recruitment was nationwide, with maritime enrollment providing only half of the fleet's manpower in the event of mobilization.
Planning
The entire mobilization was planned by the General Staff of the Army, headed since 1911 by Major General Joffre, in particular its 1st bureau (organization and mobilization of the army, headed in 1914 by Lieutenant colonel Émile Giraud) and 4th bureau (stages, railroads, troop transport by rail and water, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Camille Ragueneau).
The plan applied in 1914 was Plan XVII, prepared in 1913 by the General Staff and validated by the Superior War Council. It provided for the mobilization of men, their concentration on the borders, their organization into several armies and the direction of the first offensives. But as all this would take around a fortnight, some of the active troops also needed to cover this mobilization. The role entrusted to the navy, which was outclassed by the German navy, was simply to protect troop convoys from Algeria and Morocco (in the hope that Italy would be neutral) and to block the English Channel to German ships (in the hope of British support).
Troops organization In the event of partial mobilization (motivated by the "threat of aggression characterized by the gathering of armed foreign forces"), only the two youngest reserve units were called up. In the event of general mobilization, everyone was called up, without any individual notification. In his military brochure, each man was given a route sheet ("fascicule de mobilisation", or mobilization booklet, model A was pink if he needed to use the railroads, model A1 was light green if he had to march ) with his call-up date and route (free of charge) to his base, where he was dressed, equipped and armed.
The different types of unit, theoretically recruited locally, were housed in the same barracks:
Men doing their military service formed the backbone of the active regiments, mainly the 173 infantry regiments (numbered from 1 to 173), plus the 59 colonial and indigenous infantry regiments, the 89 cavalry regiments, the 87 artillery regiments, the 11 engineer regiments, as well as the service units (crew, management, health, aeronautics corps, etc.) On Day 2, the arrival at the depots of the three youngest classes of reservists must bring all active regiments up to full wartime strength They were then replaced by the remaining reservists, who were to form reserve infantry regiments created during mobilization (numbered 201 to 421) in infantry regiment depots (numbered by adding 200 to the number); Finally, the territorial infantry, who formed 145 territorial infantry regiments, at least one in each military district subdivision.
Each infantry depot completes an active regiment (with three battalions), increasing it from 2,000 men to just over 3,200, then sets up a reserve regiment (with two battalions, numbered 5 and 6), followed by a territorial regiment. Finally the guard posts for communication routes (railroads, canals, telephone and telegraph lines). Each cavalry depot reinforces its cavalry regiment with two reserve squadrons; each artillery depot completes its artillery regiment and creates a reserve group (composed of several batteries); each engineer depot reinforces its regiment with new companies. A few hundred reservists are maintained in each depot to replace future losses.
The vote by the Chamber of Deputies on the Law of Three Years in 1913 was requested by the Army Staff, which wanted to have as many active units as its German counterpart, the Deutsches Heer (for fear of a possible sudden attack). Thanks to this law, the peacetime army grew from 520,000 to 736,000 men in uniform, each company from 90 to 140 men, with ten new infantry regiments (nos. 164 to 173). This force was structured into 22 corps, each assigned to a military region (or "corps region": in 1914 there were twenty in Metropolitan France, plus one in Algeria).
Between 1914 and 1918, the core tactical element was the infantry division. On August 2, 1914, France mobilized 93 divisions, including 45 active, 25 reserve, 11 territorial, 2 colonial and 10 cavalry divisions. By November 11, 1918, France had 119 infantry divisions.
In 1914 the infantry division comprised: 4 infantry regiments with 3 battalions 1 field artillery regiment with 3 groups 1 cavalry squadron 1 engineer company
3 infantry regiments with 3 battalions 1 field artillery regiment with 3 groups 1 heavy artillery group 1 cavalry squadron 1 engineer company 1 squadron