Talk:Army of Africa (France)

Composition

I get the impression that a sentence has been taken from its context within a larger paragraph, translated, and put into this article.

Prior to World War I, one battalion of each of the four zouave regiments then in existence, was recruited in France,

to provide a link between the African and Metropolitan armies.

The second part of the sentence does not clearly explain why these four battalions are in Paris and Lyon from 1901 onwards. Are you able to reproduce a bit more text here, in either French (preferred) or in English from Larcade as to why this decision was made, please?Keith H99 (talk) 12:09, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

My thanks to Buistr for the following:

content copied from Talk page

On 9 February 1899 legislation was passed providing for the creation of one additional battalion for each of the four zouave regiments historically based in Algeria and Tunisia. These 5é bataillions were to be recruited from the Paris and Lyon Military Districts of mainland France, providing a framework for régiments de marche in the event of general mobilisation. Jean-Louis Larcade devotes several sections of his two-volume work Zouaves & Tirailleurs. Les régiments de marche et les régiments mixtes (1914-1918) to the role played by the metropolitan conscripts who applied to undertake their compulsory military service in one of the 5é bataillions of zouaves The remaining four battalions of each zouave regiment continued to be based in, and raised from, the 19é Military Region in Algeria/Tunisia. Larcade focuses on describing and illustrating such details as the training camps maintained in France, and the exotic "oriental" dress worn even for mainland service. However he notes that one incentive for peacetime enlistment in the metropolitan zouaves was the possibility (high after 1907) of transferring to one of the units permanently located in French North Africa. For a young conscript unlikely to have been outside France, there was prestige in seeing active service in Morocco. From the perspective of the French Army any short-falls in recruitment from the European settler communities in Algeria or Tunisia, could be met from mainland sources.

Received with thanks Keith H99 (talk) 11:06, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Keith H99:, if you are talking about this diff, there's no need to duplicate it here; you can just link it: User talk:Keith H99#French Army of Africa. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 11:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I have looked elsewhere to see if I can better understand why this happened. The following was forthcoming from a contact, and are a translation of his words.

The relocation of the battalions was done under the pretext of making them the core of the mobilisation of their reservists from mainland France, is how it has been explained to me. The military threat from Germany had not diminished. The troops in Algeria were not a "colonial police force", as such activity was undertaken elsewhere by the troupes coloniales. The Zouaves had redeployed to mainland France in the Franco-Prussian war. Paradoxically, they had reservists living in mainland France who had to travel to North Africa in 1870 as part of their mobilisation instructions, only to return from whence they came. Having a Zouave presence at Paris and Lyon would facilitate any redeployments from the 19th military region to these two key garrison zones, in the event that France was under attack from Germany. The Armée d'Afrique does seem to have been able to intervene with greater logistical efficiency in 1914 than in 1870. The Algerian troops of the 19th military district are becoming more and more an extension of the Metropolitan military system in case of future conflict in Europe.

With regard to conscripts from mainland France serving, there was a large pool of men available from both Paris and Lyon that could be used to man these battalions. Whilst these battalions being "based" in France was new, the presence of men from the 19th military district in France was not unprecedented. There had been a Zouave regiment in the Imperial Guard, and battalions of Tirailleurs Algériens were rotated to serve garrison duty in Paris. The presence of these Zouave battalions served to showcase the Armée d'Afrique

So, to conclude, it made sense to have these battalions in France, as they were based close to where the nearest threat was: Germany. This avoided the logistical difficulties of the previous conflict. It had the potential to facilitate further reinforcements from the 19th military region, which I understand did indeed happen in 1914. I guess this fits in with what is stated in the book by Larcade: 'These 5é bataillions were to be recruited from the Paris and Lyon Military Districts of mainland France, providing a framework for régiments de marche in the event of general mobilisation.' Keith H99 (talk) 13:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

On the subject of conscripts, an old German friend of mine did his compulsory national service in the Kriegsmarine in 1991. Most of his intake were Bavarians, and he was possibly the only one from the coast of the North Sea. This was commonplace. Given that Bavaria is a long way from the sea, it was a popular choice to perform National Service with the Kriegsmarine, to see the Mediterranean or the Eastern seaboard of the US. It was seen as a more beneficial life experience than doing service locally with the army. Keith H99 (talk) 15:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)