Customer Reviews

French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War: 2 Republican Troops (Men-At-Arms Series, 237)

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Unlike many titles in the Osprey series that only deal with the uniforms as objects ( colours, buttons, insigna, etc.), this one is a good and short synthesis about the republican army of 1870-71. No such book was available before. The only noticeable defect is that there is no bibliography.
The army described in the book was raised by the new republican government of France in 1870 to try to repel invasion by the Prussian and German armies, after the two main French Imperial armies had surrendered at Sedan and Metz and the Second Empire had collapsed as a consequence.
(NB: The Imperial army is covered in The French Army of the Franco-Prussian War - part 1).
The republican army was composed of the remnants of the regular army that had not surrendered, as well as the " Garde Mobile" and "Garde Nationale mobilisee" ( made up of people who had drawn a " good number" and were not conscripted in the regular army; they were untrained civilans) and various volunteer or partisan forces.
This books explains clearly and simply what each component of this army was made of, how it was raised, their equipment, weapons and uniforms, their battle records.
At the time, republican France took American civil war armies as their model; they had also been citizen armies raised in haste. Only their opponents, the German armies, were revolutionizing warfare at the time, with their very organized general staff, officer and non-commissioned officer corps, mobilization of well-trained reserve troops, as well as a superior artillery ( Krupp breech-loading steel cannon).
The improvised French army did not stand a chance and all it did in the end was to save the honour of France, that had been badly tarnished by the disasters at Sedan and Metz.

As in every book in the Man-at-arms series there is a series of colour-plates illustrating the uniforms worn by combatants.
The uniforms of this army were quite colourful and the artist has done a good job at reconstructing them.
For more pictures of those uniforms and the battles of the time, the paintings of Edouard Detaille and Alphonse de Neuville, the two most famous French military painters of the time, are THE SOURCE. They are reproduced in many books but the few monographs covering their work in pictures are in French and are very difficult to find.
I would however warmly recommend an excellent recent book by Francois Robichon: L'Armee francaise vue par les peintres, 1870-1914, available from Amazon.fr.

For a thorough account of the war, you can refer to "The Franco-Prussian war" by Michael Howard and a few other titles.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was a dark page in French history, and ended with the destruction of the Second Empire,But even after the surrender and abdication of Napoleon III, the french army continued to battle in the ranks of the Republican armies. The Turcos,The chasseur's d'Afrique,The foreign Legion, The infanterie Legere d'Afrique and the Spahis with a detachment of Papal Zouaves which was dispatched by Pius IX to aid France in the conflict were ready to continue the fighting. Despite the disastrous result of the war, the republican troops took the arms and decide not to surrender but The newly raised republican armys had no chance against the german troops.In January Paris surrendered. This Book covers the last part of the Second Empire with information on the uniforms,eigth full color plates with black and white photos. If you are interesting in the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR you can also consider the Next Titles The Debacle by Emile Zola, Art, War and Revolution in France, 1870-1871, and a Beautiful title from the master of illustration L'Armee Francaise : An Illustrated History of the French Army, 1790-1885(Edoaurd Detaille)