Eating and drinking on campaign
How did yesterday’s soldiers eat and drink while on campaign? And what about their modern counterparts?
Eating
Eating has always been a daily concern for soldiers on campaign – after all, don’t we say “when the appetite goes, everything goes”?
Under the First Premier Empire, given the number of soldiers to provide for, access to food was a recurrent problems and life in the field was often hard. Soldiers were forced to fend for themselves, by hunting or by pillaging, despite its prohibition.
Assiette en argent aux armes de l'Empereur Napoléon 1er Assiette en argent aux armes de l'Empereur Napoléon 1er by Martin-Guillaume Biennais (goldsmith)Musée de l'Armée - Hôtel des Invalides
Napoleon I took care to bring shock-resistant travel essentials with him on campaigns, with silver replacing the traditional porcelain. This plate belonged to a set of travelling silverware estimate to weigh 180 kilos. He knew how to travel light!
Une boulangerie de campagne devant la cathédrale de Soissons, vers 1865 (Ca.1865) by AnonymousMusée de l'Armée - Hôtel des Invalides
Throughout history, bread has always been the soldier’s staple food. As it’s a voluminous and often stale foodstuff, solders developed the habit of taking their grain along with them, so obliging the army to provide itself with mobile equipment for making bread on demand.
Before your very eyes, a field bakery in front of Soissons Cathedral circa 1865. Most field bakeries were composed of two superimposed ovens each with a capacity of 80 rations, making 160 loaves per batch.
In 1915, field kitchens were set up behind the front lines. They improved soldiers’ lives enormously, as they enabled them to eat hot meals. Supply duties were usually carried out at night in order to avoid enemy fire.
Without rutabagas or Jerusalem artichokes like the Germans, the so-called “soup” was a mixture of vegetables (beans, carrots and potatoes), sometimes improved by the addition of meat and rice or sticky macaroni. Not exactly the last word in gastronomy!
In 1940, the French army provided its men with individual cooking pots. With three separate receptacles in his possession – cooking pot, frying pan and mess tin – the soldier could carry fresh food with him and cook it whatever the circumstances.
Opération Sangaris. Repas dans le véhicule blindé pendant une patrouille (August 21, 2014) by Édouard Élias (Photographer)Musée de l'Armée - Hôtel des Invalides
These days, the French armed forces are provided with a variety of rations depending on the mission involved, composed of a starter (fish rillettes or terrine), a ready-cooked meal and complementary items (caramels, nougat, chewing-gum, etc.). With an energy value of 3,200 calories, the individual combat ration covers a soldier’s daily needs.
Drinking
Plonk, hooch, booze. Let’s talk about wine. After all, the French have a reputation to keep up, don’t they?
Tonnelet de cantinière ayant appartenu à Mme Chevereau, cantinière au 137è de ligneMusée de l'Armée - Hôtel des Invalides
The cantinières (camp follower cooks) who accompanied the troops in the field supplied soldiers with food and basic necessities. They were traditionally provided with a keg usually filled with eau-de-vie, intended to keep the soldiers in good spirits.
Usually decorated, it often bore an inscription stating the unit to which the cantinière belonged. This one was used by Mme Chevereau, cantinière to the 137th Line Infantry Regiment, who was killed in the fighting during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.
Le Pinard (between 1929 and 1930) by René-Marie Castaing (Drawer)Musée de l'Armée - Hôtel des Invalides
In the trenches, the soldiers drank in order to forget the horrors of battle, overcome their fear, stoke up their courage before a confrontation, or celebrate a victory. In 1914, the men were provided with a quarter of a litre of wine, half a litre in 1916, and almost a litre in 1918.
Don’t go thinking that our Poilus got drunk on Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Their wine was pretty poor stuff. With an 8 or 9° alcohol content, it was a rough-and-ready assemblage of wines from various regions, sometimes even watered down a bit.
Let’s get back to water, if you don’t mind. This prototype CamelBak hydration backpack was tested in 2003 by soldiers in Djibouti, in temperatures between 40 and 50°C, during which sweat losses reached 4.5 litres for a 2½-hour mission. The test was conclusive and it’s been used by French soldiers ever since.
A story written and edited by the teams of the Army Museum.
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