First get the maxim gun, then you will have morale. Unless your soldiers are irredeemable cowards. Get decent soldiers and the maxim gun, and the morale will take care of itself.

This is a truth that works well, right up until it runs into a well-positioned Maxim gun or two. At that point, morale usually goes into the shitter.

It is interesting, though, as an illustrative vignette descriptive of the very French concept of elan in war. An equally well-prepared British or American unit might have done something similar, but the manner in which they’d have done it would have been totally different. Only the French would have been so insouciant, so casual about the whole thing. Which, in and of itself, would be a rather horrible thing for the Chinese to encounter. Not only did they only set a single squad on the attacking Chinese, the rest of the unit kept right on with their smoke break. One shudders to think what might have happened to the poor Chinese had they made the mistake of attacking when the Goumiers were low on tobacco, and suffering the ill effects of nicotine withdrawal. It would have been like attacking a very large and cranky car shredder…