The subject of disciplinary battalions is not a pleasant one in the opinion of the French soldier, but the formation of such battalions is a necessity in the conscript army of a nation which demands military service of all its citizens. For in such an army the criminal classes and bad characters are included with the rest, and, if they do not conform to military rules in a better way than they submit to the ordinary restrictions imposed on any law-abiding civil community, then some form of discipline must be adopted in order to coerce them. When the regimental authorities of any unit in the French Army have ascertained, by the repeated application of ordinary corrective methods, that it is impossible to make an efficient soldier of any man in the unit in question, the man concerned is taken before the conseil de discipline, which has power to recommend that he should be sent to service in the disciplinary battalion stationed in Algeria.

The conseil consists of a major as president, together with the two senior captains and two senior lieutenants of the regiment to which the man belongs, exclusive of his own squadron or company officer. The case against the man is presented by the senior officer of the squadron or company to which the man belongs; this evidence for the prosecution having been taken, the prosecuting officer retires, and the accused man is brought in to make his defence. Then the court, after due deliberation, makes its report, recommending either that the man shall be given another chance in the regiment, or sent to a disciplinary battalion. The report is then sent to the colonel of the regiment, who either endorses or rejects the decision of the court. Should his decision be favourable to the accused, the man is given another chance, but if, on the other hand, he endorses the recommendation of the court, the sanction of the general commanding the station is required in order to complete the proceedings. With this sanction the offender is sent to Algeria, where the disciplinary battalions are known as "Biribi" and are stationed on the most advanced posts of this French colony. Owing to their shaven heads, the men in these battalions are known as têtes des veaux, and their release from this form of service is entirely dependent on their own conduct. In one historic case, the son of a general served four years as a private in one of these battalions, which include, in addition to men of a distinctively criminal type, a number of social wrecks. A disciplinary battalion is a veritable lost legion.

Some years ago one of these battalions was on the march from Biskra in Southern Algeria, and on the march one unscrupulous ruffian, who cherished a grudge against the major commanding, fell back to the rear of the column, pretending to be ill. He feigned greater and yet greater exhaustion, and at last sat down as if unable to march further. The major came up and inquired kindly what was the matter, and on the soldier stating that he felt too exhausted to march, the major handed him a brandy flask, from which the man took a drink. As the major was occupied in returning the flask to his saddle wallet, the soldier fired his rifle at him, but fortunately missed, owing to the swerving of the officer's horse. At this the major realised with what a dangerous class of man he had to deal, and, drawing his revolver, he blew the man's brains out. Some time later another officer of the same battalion found a stone placed on the spot commemorating the memory of the soldier criminal; the stone was removed, but was replaced; six times in succession this was done, and yet it was never ascertained who was responsible for cutting inscriptions on the stones, or placing them there.

A very common mistake is made in confusing the disciplinary battalions of the Algerian frontier with the world-famous Foreign Legion of the French Army, and consequently the Foreign Legion has gained an undeserved reputation for iron discipline and unduly harsh treatment of its men. The chief disabilities attendant on service in the Foreign Legion consist in periods of service in some of the peculiarly unhealthy localities included in French colonial possessions. The Foreign Legion suffered more than any other unit of the French service during its period of active service in French Cochin-China, while inland in Algeria its members are subjected to a peculiarly trying climate, and in other parts of French Africa the Foreign Legion does duty in company with a considerable amount of epidemic disease.

Service in the Foreign Legion is, of course, a voluntary matter, and the fact that the Legion is always up to strength is sufficient evidence of methods adopted with regard to the discipline of the men and the treatment accorded to them. For, although the Legion itself is famous, its individual members are not, and it cannot be said to offer any conspicuous attractions to intending candidates for admission. It is probably the most cosmopolitan body of men in any part of the world, and the formation of such a body, in which the distinctions of nationality are abolished, is peculiar to the French nation. The Legion includes natives of every country populated by the Caucasian races, and especially of Italian, German, English, and French citizens. It is an agglomeration of adventurers, of whom the largest proportion desire only obscurity; it may be said that the Legion is made up of the bad bargains of half a world, but it is good fighting material, for all that. Ouida has drawn a highly coloured picture of service in the Foreign Legion in the book "Under Two Flags," but this picture consists mainly of romance with the soldiering left out, while actual service with the Legion involves soldiering with the romance left out. Hard soldiering, in various climates and under many conditions; in company with various kinds of men, of whom one never asks details of past history; one is accepted in the Legion for present soldierly qualities, and by tacit agreement the past is given the place allotted to most sleeping dogs. The period of service in the Legion has the merit of being intensely interesting to any man who, consciously or unconsciously, is a student of the psychology of his fellows. The Legion itself affords instances of devotion and self-denial as heroic as any that Ouida has penned, but it may be said here with regard not only to the Foreign Legion, but to all the armies of all the world, that such systematic persecution on the part of an individual officer toward any individual man as Ouida has pictured in "Under Two Flags" is a rank impossibility. The system of decentralisation of command, of interlinking authority and supervision, and of central control by heads of units, renders impossible the persistent gratification of spite by an individual officer against an individual soldier.

In this connection, stories of persecution of individuals who have done nothing to merit the punishment inflicted on them, especially in military service, should always be accepted with the proverbial grain of salt. For there is never smoke without fire, and the man who is unpopular with all his officers and non-commissioned officers to such an extent as to incur a succession of punishments is usually deserving of all that he gets. Humanity is so constituted that sympathy almost invariably goes to the individual who is at variance with the mass, and in the exercise of sympathy one is apt to overlook the qualities and characteristics of the object on which it is bestowed. We hear, usually, the story of the man who considers himself aggrieved or unjustly punished, and, without listening to the other side of the case, we immediately c............