All thinking Frenchmen, including the Emperor, were aware of grave defects--the lack of training of the officers[36], and the want of adaptability in the General Staff, which had little of that practical knowledge that the German Staff secured by periods of service with the troops.

Add to this the leaven of republicanism working strongly in the army as in the State, and producing distrust between officers and men; above all, the lack of men and materials; and the outlook was not reassuring to those who knew the whole truth.

Inclusive of the levies of the year 1869, which were not quite ready for active service, France would have by August 1, 1870, as many as 567,000 men in her regular army; but of these colonial, garrison, and other duties claimed as many as 230,000--a figure which seems designed to include the troops that existed only on paper.

Not only the _personnel_ but the _materiel_ came far below what was expected.

General Leboeuf, the War Minister, ventured to declare that all was ready even to the last button on the gaiters; but his boast at once rang false when at scores of military depots neither gaiters, boots, nor uniforms were ready for the reservists who needed them.
[Footnote 36: M.de la Gorce in his _Histoire du second Empire_, vol.
vi., tells how the French officers scouted study of the art of war, while most of them looked on favouritism as the only means of promotion.
The warnings of Colonel Stoffel, French Military Attache at Berlin, were passed over, as those of "a Prussomane, whom Bismarck had fascinated."] Even where the organisation worked at its best, that best was slow and confused.