| Volume Thirty-Five | 1993 | |
1. For a succinct account of the history of the Intendance dating back to the 16th century, see Jean Milot, "L'evolution du Corps des intendants militaires" Revue du Nord 50 (1968) 198. Pierre Chalmin, L'Officier francaise de 1815 a 1870 (Paris, 1957), 43-44; Richard Holmes, The Road to Sedan: the French Army, 1866-1870 (London, 1984), 77; John van Rensselaer Hoff, "Outlines of the Sanitary Organisation of some of the Great Armies of the World" Fourth Annual Proceedings of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (1894),428. For a helpful overview of how all the services interacted vis-a-vis the sanitation service, see Jean Charles Chenu, Statistique Medico-chirurgicale de la Campagne d 'ltalie en 1859 et 1860, Service des Ambulances et de Hôpitaux (Paris, 1869),69-75, 109-116.
2. Chalmin, L'Officier francaise, 44-45.
3. Ibid., 46; Pierre Jean Linon, Officiers d'administration du service de santé: Monographie d'un corps, d'une association (Paris, 1983), 19ff, 41-52, 57-58; 61-62; Holmes, Road to Sedan, 77; Albert Fabre and Pierre Julliet, eds., Histoire de la medecine aux armées, tome II: De la Revolution Francaise au conflict mondial de 1914 (Paris, 1984), 206-207.
4. Chalmin, L'Officier francaise, 44- 48;Linon, Officiers d'administration du service de santé. 57-61. 70.
5. See: J. L. Poirier, Medecine et philosophie a la fin du XIXe siecle (Paris 1982)Jean-Baptiste-Eugine Rieux and J. Hassenforden, Centenaire de l'école d 'application du service de santé militaire, 1850-1950. Histoire du Service de santé militaire et du Val-de-Grâce , (Paris, 1951),46-57; Robert Heller, "Officers de Santé: The second-class doctors of nineteenth-century France," Medical History 22 (1978) 25-43 Chalmin L'Officier francaise, 45-48; Jean de Blonay, 1870: Une revolution chirurgicale les origines et le development de la chirurgie civile et militaire moderne (Geneva,1975) 64-65; Linon, Officiers d'administration du service de sant‚, 41-70; Holmes, Road to Sedan, 77-78; Hoff, "Outlines of the Sanitary Organisations of some of the Great Armies of the World," 428.
6. Blonay, 1870: Une revolution chirurgicale, 65, gives these figures of comparative remuneration for the Prussian and French medical services in the 1860s:
France Prussia (converted by Blonay to francs)
at start of career 2,050 fr. 250 fr.
at end of career, 8,500 fr. 1 250 fr.
with normal advancement.
Attrition among officers of the sanitation service at mid-century averaged over 5 l/2 percent per year. There were an average of 150-200 vacancies -- 10 to 15 percent of the entire authorized strength -- in the ranks of the physicians during the same years. These discrepancies were roughly double that of the army as a whole. Chenu Statistique medico- chirurgicale, 86.
7. See Rieux and Hassenforden, Centenaire de l'école d'application du service de santé militaire, 47-50; Hoff "Outlines of the Sanitary Organisation of some of the Great Armies of the World", 428; Rene Izac, "La creation de l'école du service de santé militaire de Strasbourg d'Apres de documents inedits (1856)" Histoire des Sciences Medicales 10 (1976) 202-218; Ch. Deporq, "L'école du service de santé militaire et la formation des officiers d'administration du service de santé,"Revue du Corps de Santé Militaire 15 (1959) 404-414; Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 173-175, 181.
8. Helpful for the focus of the analysis here has been: Thomas 1. Adriance The Last Gaiter Button: A Study of the Mobilization and Concentration of the French Army in the War of 1870 (London, 1987); Rieux and Hassenforden, Centenaire de l'école d 'application du service de santé militaire, 56-57; Holmes, Road to Sedan, Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 210-250; and Blonay, 1870: Une revolution chirurgicale .
9. Ibid., 63. In fact, they actually did better by their animals. During the war, the French veterinary service fielded one veterinarian for every 250 horses -- Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 212.
10. Blonay, 1870: Une revolution chirurgicale, 66. This is somewhat misleading because in time of war the French provided the Service de santé with stretcher bearers from the ranks of the regular army. Even then, however, the total number of men assigned to duty with the sanitation service was comparatively low, to say nothing of the qualitative gap that resulted from the lack of training.
11. Holmes, Road to Sedan, 78-79.
12. For a brief account of Prussian/German military medical arrangements during this period, see William B. McAllister's unpublished M.A. thesis , Fighting the Good Fight: German Military Medicine, 1860-1914 (University of Virginia, 1990).
13. Blonay, 1870: Une revolution chirurgicale, 77.
While exact figures vary a great deal, and differences in "accounting" make figures not fully comparable, some reliable representative estimates record approximately:
French German
Total mobilization 800,000 1,113,000
Mean Strength 534,000 788,000
Sick 339,000 475,000
Killed, Missing and Died
from Wounds and Disease 136,500 26,000
Cases of Smallpox 15,000 5,000
Deaths attributed to Smallpox 2,000 300
From Valentine. J. Swain, "The Franco Prussian War of 1870-71: Voluntary Aid for the Wounded and Sick,"British Medical Journal 3 (1970) 511-514; and Feilding H. Garrison, Notes on the History of Military Medicine (Washington, 1922), 177-79.
14. See: Allan Mitchell, "`A Situation of Inferiority': French Military Reorganization after the Defeat of 1870," American Historical Review 86 (1981) 49-67, and "The Freycinet Reforms and the French Army, 1888-1893,"Journal of Strategic Studies 4 (1981) 19-28. See also Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne: the French Army 1871-1914 (New York,1981). Not only the army, but many other aspects of French society came under inspection in the years following the defeat. For related debates that have application to army reform and medical issues, see Allan Mitchell, Victors and Vanquished: The German Influence on Army and Church in France after 1870 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), and Poirier, Medecine et philosophie a la fin du XlXe siêcle.
15. As early as September 1871, Le Temps was already able to list fourteen different reorganization plans that had been published in book or pamphlet form; see 1 Sept.,34; see also 31 July, 3(c). For Le Temps, whenever desirable, a lower-case letter indicating the column in which the article begins is given in parentheses after the page number.
16. Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 173- 75, 179, 254.
17. For the extent of the involvement of doctors in parliament see Jack D. Ellis, The physician-legislators of France (Cambridge, 1990);see also Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 254-258.
18. Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 258- 259.
19. See Milot, "L'evolution du Corps des intendants militaires," especially 401-402; Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 153.
20. For the opinions of an apparently small group of "Officers of Administration" who were in favor of submission to the sanitation service, see the Journal Officiel, (1880) 1478; Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 253-254, and Linon, Officiers d'administration du service de santé, 76-79.
21. Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 253.
22. For overviews of the 1871-1889 period from secondary sources, see Fabre and Julliet,Histoire, 251- 253,259-261 and Linon, Officers d'administration du service de santé, 72-75.
23. Le Temps, 22 Sept. 1871, 1; 10 Nov. 1871, 1-2; 15 Nov. 1871, 2(c). For other opening rounds in the debate see, for example, the occasional publication of comparative health statistics in Le Temps, 9 Nov.1872,3(d),and in the Journal Officiel, (1871) 5010-11, and (1892) 6039-40.
24 For a succinct account of the deliberations of this committee see Le Temps, 3 Aug">">.
26. For the text of the 1873 law, see the Journal Officiel, (1873) 5281-3.
27. See Le Temps, 19 Oct.1875, 1-2; 30 Oct.1875,1-2; 5 Nov.1875 1-2,29 Nov.1875 2(a); 3 Apr.1876,1; 19 May 1876,1(c); 7 June 1876,1(e); 8 Aug. 1876,1(d)- 19 Aug 1876,1-2; 8 Nov.1876,1-2; 13 Nov.1876,1(e); 23 Nov.1876 1-2,31 Jan 1877,1(a) 10 Feb.1877,1(d). In addition, see the Journal Officiel, (1874) 5737-38, (1876) 2146-48, 2226-31, 2361-64, 2411, 6955-64, 8019, 8302-10, 9026-27, 9050-52.
28. See Le Temps, 14 Aug. 1878, 2(e); 21 Aug. 1878, 1(c).
29. For the series of hearings held during 1878-79, see the Journal Officiel, (1880) 1266-77,1311-25,1361-74, 1405-12,1451-61,1475-95,1510-14. For Vigo-Roussillon see ibid., 1324-25, 1405, 1486-95, 1507-10.
30. Ibid., (1880) 1478-80.
31. Ibid., (1880) 1480-86.
32. Ibid., (1880) 1475-78.
33. See, for example, editorials in Le Temps, 14 Mar.1879,1(e),4 July 1879,1(c), and 25 Mar. 1880, 1(d). See Journal Officiel, (1880) 1846-49; (1881) 1596-97.
34. This running debate can be followed most easily in Le Temps, 7 June 1880,3ff, 9 June 1880, 1(b), and 3(d); and 10 June 1880, 1(b).
35. See Journal Officiel, ( 1880) 8377-78.
36. For the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Farre's maneuver see Le Temps 16 June 1880,1(c), and 3(b); 19 June 1880, 1(a); 20 June 1880,1(b); 23 June 1880, 1(c) 24 June 1880, 1(c); 27 June 1880, 4(f); 10 July 1880, 1(d).
37. For the painfully slow process of hammering out a new project de loi, see Journal Officiel, (1881) 1203-18,1590-94; (1882) 177-80,351-55. For the continuing pressure for and resistance to reforms, see ibid.,(1881) 121-22, 785; and Le Temps, 24 Feb.1881 1(b); 30 Sept. 1881, 2(e); 10 Nov. 1881, 2(e); 1882: 13 Feb. 1882, 1(d).
38. For the actual text of the new law and the explanations of its provisions, see Journal Officiel, (1882) 1625-29, 2850-51.
39. See ibid., (1883) 228, 297-99; and Le Temps, 25 Dec. 1884, 2(a); 23 Nov. 1886, 2(d); 9 Jan.1887,3(b); 28 Jan.1887,2(e); 3 June 1887,1(c); 9 Sept.1887,1(d); 31 Mar. 1888, 2(d); 18 June 1889, 2(c).
40. For the beginnings of discussion about this issue, see the numerous references to it on page 22-23 of the "Table Alphabetique" of the 1884 Journal Officiel.
41. See Le Temps, 22 Mar.1887,4(c); 27 Sept.1887, 2(e); 3 Mar.1889, 2(d); 5 Mar. 1889, 2(c); 11 Mar. 1889, 2(b); 11 May 1889, 2(c);Journal Officiel, (1888) 5490-95; Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 261-69.
42. See Journal Officiel, (1887) 814,443; (1889) 698-700,1213-14,1218-19,3138-39, 7735; Le Temps,27 Sept.1887, 2(e); 4 June l889, 2(d); Linon, Officiers d'administration du service de santé, 87; Fabre and Julliet, Histoire, 260-261.