Camp followers have been part of military history since soldiers have been deployed, but the French kept up a regulated system of prostitutes to serve their armies well into the 20th century. These were the “BMCs” or “Bordelles Militaires de Champagne,” aka Military Field Bordellos.
In fact, they really only got going during the colonial wars in Africa, when the French government started requiring the prostitutes to pay heavy taxes with licencing fees. The acronym “BMC” started only after the First World War, but the government had been organizing prostitutes — often into 10-women groups of entertainers — to service their soldiers throughout the war. You can see a postcard with a soldier in bed with a prostitute in the first image.
The BMCs were also a way the French tried to get a handle on syphilis, which took about 400,000 men out of WWI. By regulating the prostitution they could keep track of outbreaks and treat the disease, since antibiotics for it didn’t come round until 1944.
After the Second World War brothels were banned on the continent in France, but the BMCs continued to exist on the down-low in other French countries. You can see “Buffalo Park”, a well known place to pick up prostitutes in Vietnam, in the second image. The last BMC in French New Guiana was only closed in 1995 after a local pimp sent an official complaint that he was experiencing unfair competition.
Source(s): “France’s military brothels: hidden history of the First World War,” Dec 13, 2014, @france24.com. “The French military recruited colonial sex workers: Paris ran ‘mobike field brothels’ from World War I to the Vietnam War,” @warisboring.com, Dec 17, 2018, Sebastien Roblin. Wikipedia.
