How does three year conscription work?

A lot of stuff I read about pre-WWI France is that they implemented the three-year conscription in order to match Germany, who had two-year conscription, and a population half again as big as theirs. However, I don't really get how having 3-year conscription increases the size of their conscript pool enough to equal Germany's, unless there's something I'm missing; Because, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't it just mean that the conscripts spend more time doing their service before going back to civilian life?
 
Three years is half again as long as two, which means they can deploy half again as many standing troops at a time

This doesn't effect reserves but does equalize the standing forces
 
That. The main concern the French had at the time was not the total number of available military-age men (nobody thought of industrial warfare back then), but the number of regulars who could be deployed out of barracks at any given time. The going assumption was that reservists would be good only for police and garrison duty and that men without military experience could do nothing of value. Only those currently at the peak of their military potential, it was thought, could muster the skills, stamina and morale to win a modern battle. The idea was that you would march your army out of barracks, meet the boche in the field and have it over with in one titanic clash, home by Christmas one way or the other. There would not be time to train men once it started.
 
Interesting side-fact:

France also drafted a very high percentage of it's young men, as opposed to Germany which left almost 50% of its able-bodied boys unharrassed in the early 20th century.
 
However the German reserve system and the superior quality of German basic training meant that once the war got started the Germans comparative weakness in this area didn't hurt them too much.
 

Deleted member 1487

And they could be very picky about the quality of their recruits, meaning their standing army was of very high physical, morale, and motivational standards.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
From Memory.

Germany drafted about half of the population into the active army for two years, so we are talking about 1 man year out of the average man's life. Germany had about 1.8 million births per year, so 0.9 million men, which is about the size of there standing army. (0.8 million army, 0.1 million navy)

France drafted about 87% for 3 giving you 2.61 years average service. I don't have the births per year, but France had 40 million to Germany 65 million and this implies 0.45 million men per year and an army of 1.17 million. I think it was closer to 0.9 Army and 0.1 Navy. There error here is probably a combination of some of the following.

-Navy
-Other government jobs that count in lieu of military service.
-The 87% is a wee bit high.
-There service was a bit under 3 years. They either don't count men in basic training/MOS schools or they let some out a little early.

BTW, if you are curious what happens if their is no WW1 and Germany does not find better relations with Russia/France by 1917, this shows the likely solution. Germany has to have a bigger army which it both has the men for and the GDP, but would cause massive problems for the Reichstag. Also, France probably drops back to a 600K army, which will cause many difficult issues for them since many of their troops have to be stationed in the Empire.
 
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