French Combat Boots

A Look at French Military Boots

The French have been some of the leaders and forerunners in the fight to find the best combat boots.  French combat boots have often times been the top line boots that other military set out to replicate.  Prior to World War I the boots that were used by the French soldiers seemed to have problems all their own.  These boots were not known as being comfortable and since most of the battles that the French had fought in were the same type of terrain the boots had little need for being different or having to be able to withstand a variety of different types of terrain.  The military boots were top quality and good for the land that they were meant to be used in.  However as things changed there seemed to be a number of things that were needed to consider.  One of the main attractions of the French combat boots was that they were able to be shined and look shiny longer than many of the competitor boots.  This was important as at the time having shiny boots was preferred by many of the armies.  Other armies even tried to replicate these boots as their shine was much better than some of the other armies’.  With the addition of the new terrain during World War II there needed to be a trench style boot.  This was so that soldiers who were in trenches would have the same foot protection that others had.  These boots had special plates in the heel that were aimed at protecting the heel.

Even though these boots were great they still had some problems.  One problem in particular with the French combat boots of this time was that the waterproofing was not as well functioning as one would have hoped.  This meant that the French army would have to continue to try to find the perfect modern combat boot to keep up with the changes that were occurring in militia.  The next set of boots that were created combined many things from these previous boots but made them sturdier and therefore they were not as comfortable so the search for the perfect French combat boot continued. 

Depending on the battlefield that the soldiers were fighting in, it was discovered that here needed to be different types of boots.  The boots needed to be worn depending on where the soldiers were fighting.  All of the boots needed to be comfortable as well.  It was hard to develop the perfect French combat boots for all of the soldiers as well.  This was because while remaining comfortable some boots had to protect from a variety of problems while others just needed to focus on keeping parasites and water away from the foot.  There were those boots that required that the soldiers wear their trousers inside of  the boot and those that required that the soldiers were the trousers outside of the boot.   No matter how they were to be worn however there still needed to be certain protections and certain things.  With the boots that had the trousers on the outside there had to be some way of sealing the boot to the leg to prevent anything from coming in through the top.