UC 265 .F8 S8 Copy 1 RKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE OFFICERS OF THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS AND THE QUARTER- MASTER RESERVE CORPS ON MAY 11, 1917 :: :: By CAPT. CHARLES SWEENY FOREIGN LEGION, FRENCH ARMY WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1917 :vv> ..:> -^^ if?^M;^ REMARKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE OFFICERS OF THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS AND THE QUARTER- MASTER RESERVE CORPS ON MAY 11, 1917 :: :: By CAPT. CHARLES SWEENY FOREIGN LEGION, FREN'^H ARMY WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1917 102730—17 V)' D. of D. JUL 16 1917 J- REMARKS ON SUPPLY ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER. Gen. Sharpe's Introduction. It is a pleasure, gentlemen, to be able to have with us this evening an officer who can give us some viewpoints of the con- flict now taking place in Europe from the French Army stand- point. The officer that I am going to have the pleasure of in- troducing to you this evening is connected with the regiment known as the Foreign Legion of the French Army. You may be somewhat familiar with that regiment, having read that de- lightful book of Ouida's, " Under Two Flags." I am not going to give you an account of the Legion or its organization, except to say that in the French Army the For- eign Legion is that body of troops which foreigners may join without taking an oath of office to the French Government ; the oath that they take is one to obey their officers, but that does not oblige them to become citizens of France. The book to which I referred, as you will recall, was for dramatic and ro- mantic reasons somewhat changed because one of the principal characters of the book was an Englishman who was supposed to have joined the Foreign Legion in the Cavalry. Well, the Foreign Legion is not a Cavalry organization. It is an In- fantry organization, which really consists of two legions divided into a number of different regiments and a very goodly number of these regiments are now and have been all through the war serving on the western front. I have the pleasure of introducing to you an officer of this famous body of troops, who has had in addition the honor to serve in other corps of the French Army ; and who entered the Foreign Legion at the beginning of the war as a second-class private, and who is to-day not only a captain of this famous regiment, but also a knight of the Legion of Honor. I have the honor to present to you, gentlemen, Captain Sweeny, of the Foreign Legion. (3) 4 CAPTAIN SWEENY'S LECTURE. Gen. Sharpe, gentlemen of the Quartermaster Corps, per- mit me first to express my appreciation of tlie very kind words with which Gen. Sharpe has introduced me this evening and of the honor I consider it to have the unusual privilege of addressing to-night the officers of another service. Of course, as you know, we in the Infantry are doing prac- tically all the fighting to-day, and it is for us. more or less, that everything is done. It is, of course, we who never get a chance to say what we think of the other fellow. Here's my chance and I am going to take advantage of it. In order to start out on a firm basis, let us for a moment treat of first principles. As you all know, the art of war, which, in parentheses, is perhaps the most difficult of all the arts, is divided for purposes of study into tw^o branches, strategy and tactics. Strategy may be defined as the art by which a com- mander endeavors to arrive on a field of battle to fight under conditions favorable to himself and unfavorable to his adver- sary. It is therefore the art of handling troops before bringing them on the battle field. This explains why Napoleon when he spoke of strategy never called it that ; always called it maneu- vering. It is clear that a fundamental and vital branch of maneuvering is the art which treats of the supplying of the troops who are being rapidly moved about the region in which the campaign is being fought out. This subject, bringing up of supplies to the tactical field of operations, has already been treated of before you by two distinguished officers ot the Eng- lish Army. Therefore I shall not treat of it, but shall take up the question from a point where strategy ceases, that is to say, the railhead, and try to treat of the tactical section only. What is tactics? Tactics is the art by which a commander endeavors to defeat an enemy with whom his strategical plans have brought him in contact. Briefly, it is the art of handling troops on the battle field, and necessarily the art of keeping them supplied with everything needed to carry on the engagement and bring it to a successful conclusion. Therefore for the supply department it is the question of getting upon the battle field the supplies of all kinds needed by the troops. This is the field which interests you particularly, and the only thing I can tell you of value to-night is relative to the tactical development of the modern battle field, and, in particular, how it has changed your problem. That is to say. I shall not tell you in particular about the organization of supply service, but treat of the prob- lem of getting the supplies to the troops in the first line. Before the war in our studies of tactics we laid out a beauti- ful checkerboard scheme of the different phases of a modern battle. We had the approach of the enemy's position laid out with great nicety and precision, then the assault with its rules of action as hard, fast, and immutable as those of the Medes and Persians ; then the exploitation of the success and the occu- pation of the conquered territory. Well, when we got to war it was all changed. It has been frequently said that the only school which really teaches the practice of war is war (La guerre enseigne la guerre), and the best classes in this school are those which are held in imme- diate contact with the enemy, because it is there, after all, that all effort comes to its final expression and that all questions are decided. From this it is clear that it is the troop, and especially the Infantry troop, that must be first considered ; it is for them that everything must be done, and they alone can say with au- thority whether or not any military service was well done and whether or not anything was missing. This general principle being laid down, I shall now try to tell you the actual state of tactic.^; on the western front, and from this treat of the new duties which are laid upon supply officers due to the un- precedented and extraordinary conditions of a modern battle field. In the actual condition of trench warfare the only phase of a tactical battle, as we studied it in time of peace, that is ac- tually practiced is the assault. The first and only object of the modern battle is the preparation and launching of one assault after another. The first assaulting force goes as far as it can, and when it is stopped it forms a position for the launching of a new assault by fresh troops. This has brought on an unfortu- nate condition. The military educator applies himself almost uniquely to the formation of a troop for the assault. The art of bringing a troop up to the assault parallel and of supplying it once it has been launched has been left in the shadow. The problem, however, is even more complicated under actual con- ditions than it was under the old conditions of open-field maneu- vers. Formerly a troop, a supply train, a convoy, or a part was spread over a more or less large space of ground, but was rela- tively under the direct control of its chief. Under actual condi- tions an approach takes place in miles of communicating trenches. 6 • the men marching in Indian file, and there is no possibility of control between the point of entrance and the " debouchee." This qiiestion of approach I am trying to insist upon to l)ririg home to you, gentlemen of the Quartermaster Corps, the problem that you are going to be called upon to solve when you arrive on the battle fields of France. The modern battle field is very dense. In the battle of Champagne we were three army corps deep. The trenches went back over 5 or 6 kilo- meters. In this distance there was massed on a front of 1,500 meters eight regiments of 3,000 men; you can figure out for yourselves the difficult problem of supply under these con- ditions. By this long introduction I have arrived at the only thing of value I have to say to you. I should like to insist upon the extreme importance that all officers of the supply service wlio are charged or who might be charged with the duty of bringing supplies on a battle field should .study the elementary rules of Infantry tactics, and especially the ways and means of an Infantry approach. This means especially that all supply officers should know and should strictly apply the rules of circulation in communicating ti-enches, and as a corollary to these phouUl establish a close liaison between themselves and the commander of their unit. Communicating trenches are now built from the first line back to the zone in which the artillery fire of the enemy is no longer efficacious. This has taken a great extension since the battle of Verdun. Before that battle we established our liasis through woods or behind hills screened from the enemy's view and considered that we had no need of communicating trenches. We very soon found out our mistake, as the Germans submitted our communicating lines to a zone bombardment and cut ofL' completely the forces in the first lines. This is the real cause of the rapid German advance in the first stage of this battle. At the present time the trenches go back six or seven Icilometers from the front. The men in charge of the supply department have really at the present a very easy job as long as their troops remain in a quiet sector. The officer in charge of the regimental train takes the supplies at the railhead, transports them to a point of meeting indicated by the colonel of the regiment or the commander of the battalion, where he is met by the fatigue parties of the different companies. These fatigue parties come- back from the front carrying shelter tents, halves, marmits, or Nvater buckets in canvas, and by this means provisions are carried from the supply point to the front-line trenches. How- ever, when your regiment is sent to the attack the problem changes completely. The law is very strict at the present time ; no man shall be sent from the front to the rear under any pretext whatever unless to carry orders or wounded. Anything that comes from the back must be sent up by tJie services of the rear bv their own means. For this purpose at the beginning of an attack a certain number of territorial troops are put at the disposition of the officer charged with the supplying of the firing line Immediately he has before him the problem which I have been trying to make clear— the problem of transportation in under- ground circulating trenches. But first he has the problem of finding out where his regiment is. If your regiment happens to have been one of those which lead the attack, it could easily happen that after two or four hours of battle it would have been passed by three or four supporting regiments and would be necessarily more or less mixed up in them. Napoleon said that the thing that counted most in war was the morale of the troops. Now, the morale of the Infantrv is something very delicate, something that you have to keep up m any and every way, and which must be carefully nursed along. Troops are good one minute and half an hour after- guards go to pieces. No one ever knows why. There is nothing better to keep up the morale than to have supplies come promptly to the front. The infantryman going to the front is very likely to throw away everything he has— preserved meat, bread, etc.— to carry grenades, ammunition, etc., and for him it is a very comfortable thing after the hard labor of difficult assault to have something to eat, and especially something hot to drink, promptly from the rear. If the supply officer really knows his business he will, as a rule, keep the kitchens working- at all times, so that he will be able to send up at the psycho- logical moment a cup of hot coffee, which is worth a good many cartridges and shells. This suggests another idea. It is evident that in times of great distress the circulation on the roads behind the front be- comes very intense. I have already told you how deep an attacking force is. At the Battle of the Somme we were four army corps deep. We, the First Colonial Army Corps, were ia 8 the first front line, back of us was the Sixth Army Corps, back of the Sixth the Twentieth, and back of the Twentieth the Eleventh. You can imagine the roads which were used to feed this attack were encumbered — four army corps of about 35,000 men each, one behind the other, and the supply trains behind them. From this it is clear that the supply officer must have on the end of his fingers the rules of circulation of troops and trains — marching tactics. We must know the length, the prob- able lengthening out, the speed of march of columns, as also the rules which govern the crossings of routes and the passing of columns. This may not seem very important, but anyone Mho has read of the awful mix up which took place when Bazaine tried to cross the Moselle, and afterwards in his retreat to Metz, would appreciate what I mean. These rules of terrestrial circulation have been carefully studied out, but the correspond- ing rules for subterranean circulation are only commencing to be known. Conclusion : The study of tactics and especially of marching tactics is of the first importance to all supply officers and espe- cially to those who are actually in command of supply trains at the front. Now that I have told you what is not at the present time published, I shall say a few words about the organization of a supply department of the French Army as an Infantry officer sees it. We have in France two officers who are charged in each battalion with the supplying of the troops — the " officier d'approvisionment " and the " officier de details." The " officier d'approvisionment " commands the regimental train, which is divided into three sections, two sections carry each of them a day's rations and assure alternatively the revictualing of the regiment. The third section is the reserve section and carries l)esides the war bread enough necessary supplies to complete the two other sections if needed. The regimental train as actually formed at the front consists of: For the regiment, 13 fourgons of supplies, 3 meat wagons, 2 forage wagons, 2 wagons for supplies and baggage, a rolling kitchen, a forge, and finally a light wagon for tools prepared for the transportation of a light forge; for each battalion, one wagon for supplies and baggage; for each company and machine-gun company, one wagon for su])- plies and baggage and one rolling kitchen. When the troops are in quiet secture the role of this train is to take the supplies from the railhead to a central rendezvous 4 D Avhere it is met by the fatigue details of the different companies which carry the provisions into the trenches. In times of attack the problem is more difficult, as I have indicated above, and the supplies must be transported right into the first line. The '* officier de details " commands the combat train. It con- sists of: For the regiment, 2 light wagons for tools, 1 large wagon for wounded, 1 wagon for wheel barrels, stretchers, and material to counteract asphyxiating gases ; 3 wagons with tele- phonic material, barb wire, and grenades; 6 water wagons; for each battalion, a medical wagon and an ammunition wagon ; for each company, an ammunition wagon ; for each machine-gun company, four ammunition caissons. In France the combat train is divided into two echelons which we call T Ci and T C2. T Ci, which marches immediately after its unit, and T. C2, which in general are reunited by brigade under the conniiand of the oldest and the officier de details. The difference between this and what you will find in books you read about the formation of the trains in the French Army before tlie war — that is, at that time the trains were united by regiments. We also considered the bringing up of supplies by fatigue parties sent from the front. That, as I have explained, has all been changed. Let me thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind atten- tion and appreciation.