French Conscription, 1906
France had conscription since the time of Napoleon, but if you had money you could buy an exemption. That changed in 1905, when universal military service for two years was introduced, with no exemptions except on medical grounds. All 19-year-old males had to go before a regional review board. The draftees had to strip naked and be examined by a medical officer in front of a councilor and all the local mayors.
Exemptions were hardly ever granted (although there was a minimum height, the subject of two of these postcards). Almost anyone who was breathing was pronounced "good for the Service". This set of humorous French postcards from 1906 illustrated the process.
"And you say you want to go to the cavalry with a chest measurement that's just as big as my calves!"
"If I can't read, Mr. Major, it's not that I have poor vision, but I've never been to school!"
"Come on, don't try to shrink! You're tall enough for an idiot!"
"So, you're as deaf as thirty-six pots?" (French "deaf as a pot" = English "deaf as a post.")
"Is he stupid! Come on, boy, have you lost something?"
"Breathe hard ... from above, of course!"
"Come on, Berluron, stand up straight!"
"Voila, Mr. Major."
"Let's try to gain a few centimeters."
I'm telling you that I passed the review board at _______
and that the Major pronounced me
Good for the Service.
On this last postcard, there's a spot for the sender to fill in the town where the review board met. At last we see the point of these postcards. The draftee would send them to friends and family to let them know, in a light-hearted way, that he had been drafted.
4 comments:
Sometimes I think we should go to mandatory military service stint here in the US. And, some illnesses/disabilities should NOT be an out. There are plenty of tasks which need to be dome. If one can work at a regular job outside the military, one can do that job within the military. Ah, well,.....😎
As a French young man, I did 16 months of military service back in 1985/86, when it was mandatory.
I first though it to be a waste of time and therefore kind of a stupid thing. However, along the way I met people of many kind's such as social backgrounds, cultures, educations. And I realised that that this duty time had the virtue to take young people out of their usual way of life to show them the variety, sometimes rudeness and harshness, of what their actual adult life to come would be.
Those who thought were strong, either by their muscles or their brain, sometimes discovered they were not that much so. Others, used to living in a restricted environment, had to spread their wings and embrace a world much bigger than they thought.
Not to mention the benefits of diagnosing the lack of basic skills such as good reading and writing which they still could be helped with.
All of it made it a transition experience from which the guys came out a bit more mature, hopefully enough to apprehend starting their adult lives.
This system ended in 1997 when President Chirac decided so, which in my opinion was a mistake and possibly a big one. Since then, too many youngsters speak of diversity without even knowing what the word truly means. Moreover they talk about 'respect' with approximate discernment, for they forget too often it goes both ways (they'd better say 'respect my selfishness', hu hu).
I hope I don't seem fogy. But I agree with whkattk, for experience has shown me that this institution proved to be more beneficial than 'useless' or 'outdated' as many said. I too hope one day we have in France someone smart enough to roll back to conscription, no matter the gender and the (dis)abilities.
Just my two cents.
And thanks a lot Unshamed Male for your blog which I just discovered.
I'll go on exploring it now :-))
Is there a card about the recruit from the provinces who can't understand Parisian French?
Must be like a mixture of pride and embarrassment from getting a boner when you need to go nude with your fellows at the doctor's review board.
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