When A Great Democracy Politicized The Military - American Thinker . . . "More than a decade of politicization of the military resulted in a French army that went to war in August 1914 with appallingly poor leadership and training. The great social experiment of the Left Bloc was a bloodbath. In the first month of the war, the French army lost 250,000 casualties—20% of the field army. Faced with an existential crisis, the French government announced a truce between the left and the conservatives. For the duration of the war, with France’s survival at stake, meritocracy would be the only standard in the French army.
"By 6 September 1914, General Joffre, French Commander-in-Chief, had relieved two army commanders, ten corps commanders, and thirty-three division commanders (half of the French Army divisional commanders) for incompetence. Some officers slated for retirement in 1914 and denied promotion for political and religious views, became full generals and army commanders within a year. France barely survived in 1914 thanks to the British Expeditionary Force and Russia’s invasion of East Prussia.
"We see an interesting historical parallel today, with a leftist government under Biden behaving much like the French Premier Combes in trying to impose a radical leftist orthodoxy and crush the conservative half of the nation. In Defense Secretary Austin we see a man obsessed with the internal politics of the army, just like French General André, intent on purging the armed forces of “extremists” rather than focusing on foreign threats.
"In France, the attempt to replace meritocracy with political loyalty resulted in military disaster. The moral of the story is simple. You can have armed forces that are completely loyal to the political leadership and rigidly follows its political ideology. Or you can have a military based on meritocracy and competence. You cannot have both."
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