French Poilu 1914-18

I. Summer

Why, the Kaiser enquired of Czar Nicholas in 1913, did he wish to ally himself with France when the Frenchman is no longer capable of being a soldiera Indeed, during World War I the French Army was in a state of disarray, plagued by indiscipline, mutinies and desertion. The ordinary French citizens that were called upon to defend their motherland, the Poilu, were disrespected and demoralized, and the infamous mutinies of 1917 by the Poilu were not protests against the war itself, but against