French Army - History

History

The first permanent army, paid with regular wages, was established under Charles VII of France. From 1792, the French Revolutionary Army fought the allies. Under Napoleon I, the French Army conquered most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. In August 1914, the French Armed Forces numbered 1,300,000 soldiers. During the First World War the French Armed Forces reached a size of 8,300,000 soldiers, of which about 300,000 came from the colonies. During the war around 1,400,000 soldiers were killed. It was the most deadly conflict in French history. The main generals were: Joseph Joffre, Ferdinand Foch, Charles Mangin, Philippe Pétain, Robert Nivelle, Franchet d'Esperey and Maurice Sarrail (See French Army in World War I).

At the beginning of the war, the French Army was wearing the uniform of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, but the uniform was maladapted to the trenches, and so in 1915 the Army replaced the uniform, with the Adrian helmet replacing the képi. A uniform with a capote, of bleu-horizon colour adopted to the trenches, was adopted, and the uniform for colonial soldiers coloured khaki.

At the beginning of the Second World War the Army deployed 2,240,000 combatants grouped into 94 divisions (of which 20 were active and 74 were reservists) from the Swiss border to the North Sea. These numbers were limited to 12% of the Wehrmacht forces, however, the Army of the Alps facing Italy and 600,000 men dispersed through the French colonial empire are not included in this figure. After 1945, despite enormous efforts in the First Indochina War of 1945–1954 and the Algerian War of 1954–62, both lands eventually left French control.

During the Cold War, the French Army, though not part of NATO's military command structure, planned for the defence of Western Europe. In 1977 The French Army switched from multi-brigade divisions to smaller divisions of about four to five battalions/regiments each. After 1977, II Corps (France) was stationed in South Germany, and effectively formed a reserve for NATO's Central Army Group. In the 1980s, III Corps headquarters was moved to Lille and planning started for its use in support of NATO's Northern Army Group. The Rapid Action Force of five light divisions was also intended as a NATO reinforcement force. In the late 1970s an attempt was made to form 14 reserve light infantry divisions, but this plan, which included the recreation of the 109th Infantry Division, was too ambitious. The planned divisions included the 102nd, 104e, 107e, 108e, 109e, 110e, 111e, 112e, 114e, 115th, and 127th Infantry Divisions. From June 1984, the French Army reserve consisted of 22 military divisions, administering all reserve units in a certain area, seven brigades de zone de defence, 22 regiments interarmees divisionnaires, and the 152nd Infantry Division, defending the ICBM launch sites. The plan was put into action from 1985, and brigades de zone, such as the 107th Brigade de Zone, were created. But with the putting-in-place of the "Réserves 2000" plan, the brigades de zone were finally disbanded by mid-1993.

In February 1996 the President of the Republic decided on a transition to a professional service force, and as part of the resulting changes, ten regiments were dissolved in 1997. The specialist brigades were transferred on 1 July 1997 to Lunéville for the engineers, Haguenau (the artillery brigade) and Strasbourg (engineers). The 2nd Armoured Division left Versailles on 1 September 1997 and was installed at Châlons-en-Champagne in place of the disbanding 10th Armoured Division. On 5 March 1998, in view of the ongoing structural adoptions of the French Army, the Minister of Defence decided to disband III Corps, and the dissolution became effective 1 July 1998. The headquarters transitioned to become Headquarters Commandement de la force d'action terrestre (CFAT) (the Land Forces Action Command.

During the late 1990s, during the professionalisation process, numbers dropped from the 1996 236,000 (132,000 conscripts) to around 140,000. By June 1999, the Army's strength had dropped to 186,000, including around 70,000 conscripts. 38 of 129 regiments were planned to be stood down from 1997–99. The previous structure's nine 'small' divisions and sundry separate combat and combat support brigades were replaced by nine combat and four combat support brigades. The Rapid Action Force, a corps of five small rapid-intervention divisions formed in 1983, was also disbanded, though several of its divisions were re-subordinated.