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Claret: what fighting men drink!
Posted: 18:30 Thu 23 Dec 2010
by DRT
I am currently reading a small book, "Through the Wine List", by A. E. Manning Foster, publshed in 1924, which says:
During the war the French Government gave each
poilu a daily ration of claret. The total army consumption exceeded two million bottles each day.
That's a lot of wine!
Re: Claret: what fighting men drink!
Posted: 21:55 Thu 23 Dec 2010
by JacobH
DRT wrote:I am currently reading a small book, "Through the Wine List", by A. E. Manning Foster, publshed in 1924, which says:
During the war the French Government gave each
poilu a daily ration of claret. The total army consumption exceeded two million bottles each day.
That's a lot of wine!
Of course the tragedy is, looking at the first
vague figures of French mobilisation I came across, it doesn’t look like they got much more than a glass each...
Re: Claret: what fighting men drink!
Posted: 22:03 Thu 23 Dec 2010
by DRT
JacobH wrote:DRT wrote:I am currently reading a small book, "Through the Wine List", by A. E. Manning Foster, publshed in 1924, which says:
During the war the French Government gave each
poilu a daily ration of claret. The total army consumption exceeded two million bottles each day.
That's a lot of wine!
Of course the tragedy is, looking at the first
vague figures of French mobilisation I came across, it doesn’t look like they got much more than a glass each...
I don't think that was the real tragedy, but with a 75% casualty rate there was probably more to go around than you have assumed.