ARMY
The second part of this essay
Charles Francis Atkinson
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition Volume II pgs 592-625
27. The English Civil War (see GREAT REBELLI0N)
The armies on either side which, about the same time, were
fighting out the constitutional quarrel in England were essentially different
from all those of the continent, though their formal organization was similar
to that of the Swedes. The military expression of a national conscience had
appeared rarely indeed in the Thirty Years' War, which was a means of
livelihood for, rather than an assertion of principle by, those who engaged in
it. In England, on the other hand, there were no mercenaries, and the whole
character of the operations was settled by the burning desire of a true
nation in arms to decide at once, by the arbitrament of battle, the
vital points at issue. A German critic (Fritz Hoenig) has indicated Worcester
as the prototype of Sedan; at any rate, battles of this kind invariably
resulted in failure when entrusted to a standing army of the 18th
century. But the national armies disappeared at the end of the struggle; after
the Restoration, English political aims became, so far as military activity was
concerned, similar in scope and execution to those of the continent; and the
example of Cromwell and the New Model, which might have
revolutionized military Europe, passed away without having any marked influence
on the armies of other nations.
28. Standing Armies
Nine years after Nordlingen, the old Spanish army fought its
last and most honourable battle at Rocroi. Its conquerors were the new French
troops, whose victory created as great a sensation as Pavia and Crecy had done.
Infusing a new military spirit into the formal organization of Gustavus'
system, the French army was now to set the fashion for a century.
France had been the first power to revive regular forces, and the famous
Picardie regiment disputed for precedence even with the old
tercios. The country had emerged from the confusion of the past century
with the foreign and domestic strength of a practically absolute central power.
The Fronde continued the military history of the army from the end of the
Thirty Years' War; and when the period of consolidation was finally closed, all
was prepared for the introduction of a standing army, practically
always at war strength, and entirely at the disposal of the sovereign. The
reorganization of the military establishments by Louvois may be taken as the
formal date at which standing armies came into prominence (see historical
sketch of the French army below). Other powers rapidly followed the lead of
France, for the defects of enlisted troops had become very clear, and the
possession of an army always ready for war was an obvious advantage in dynastic
politics. The French proprietary system of regiments, and the general scheme of
army administration which replaced it, may be taken as typical of the armies of
other great powers in the time of Louis XIV.
29. Character of the Standing Armies
A peculiar character was from the first imparted to the new
organizations by the results of the Thirty Years' War. A well- founded horror
of military barbarity had the effect of separating the soldier from the
civilian by an impassable gulf. The drain of thirty years on the population,
resources and finances of almost every country in middle Europe, everywhere
limited the size of the new armies; and the decision in 1648 of all questions
save those of dynastic interest dictated the nature of their employment. The
best soldiers of the time pronounced in favour of small field armies, for in
the then state of communications and agriculture large forces proved in
practice too cumbrous for good work. In every country, therefore, the army took
the form of a professional body, nearly though not quite independent of extra
recruits for war, set apart entirely from all contact with civil life, rigidly
restricted as to conduct in peace and war, and employed mostly in the
maintenance of their superiors private quarrels. Iron discipline
produced splendid tenacity in action, and wholesale desertion at all times. In
the Seven Years' War, for instance, the Austrians stated one-fifth of their
total loss as due to desertion, and Thackeray's Barry Lyndon gives no
untrue picture of the life of a soldier under the old régime. Further,
since men were costly, rigid economy of their lives in action, and minute care
for their feeding and shelter on the march, occupied a disproportionate amount
of the attention of their generals. Armies necessarily moved slowly and
remained concentrated to facilitate supply and to check desertion, and thus,
when a commander had every unit of his troops within a short ride of his
headquarters, there was little need for intermediate general officers, and
still less for a highly trained staff.
30. Organization in the 18th Century
All armies were now almost equal in fighting value, and war
was consequently reduced to a set of rules (not principles), since superiority
was only to be gained by methods, not by men. Soldiers such as Marlborough, who
were superior to these jejune prescriptions, met indeed with uniform success.
But the methods of the 18th century failed to receive full illustration, save
by the accident of a great captain's direction, even amidst the circumstances
for which they were designed. It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that
they failed, when forced by a new phase of development to cope with events
completely beyond their element. The inner organization was not markedly
altered. Artillery was still outside the normal organization of the line of
battle, though in the period 16601740 much was done in all countries to
improve the material, and above all to turn the personnel into
disciplined soldiers. Cavalry was organized in regiments and squadrons, and
armed with sabre and pistol. Infantry had by 1703 begun to assume its
three-deep line formation and the typical weapons of the arm, musket and
bayonet. Regiments and battalions were the units of combat as well as
organization. In the fight the company was entirely merged in the higher unit,
but as an administrative body it still remained. As for the higher
organization, an army consisted simply of a greater or less number of
battalions and squadrons, without, as a rule, intermediate commands and
groupings. The army was arrayed as a whole in two lines of battle, with the
infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, and an advanced guard;
the so-called reserve consisting merely of troops not assigned to the regular
commands. It was divided, for command in action, into right and left wings,
both of cavalry and infantry, of each line. This was the famous
linear organization, which in theory produced the maximum effort in
the minimum time, but in practice, handled by officers whose chief care was to
avoid the expenditure of effort, achieved only negative results. To see its
defects one need only suppose a battalion of the first line hard pressed by the
enemy. A battalion of the second line was directly behind it, but there was no
authority, less than that of the wing commander, which could order it up to
support the first. All the conditions of the time were opposed to tactical
subdivision, as the term is now understood. That the 18th century did not
revive schiltrons was due to the new fire tactics, to which everything
but control was sacrificed. This control, as has been said, implied
not so much command as police supervision. But far beyond any faults of
organization and recruiting, the inherent vice of these armies was, as
Machiavelli had pointed out two centuries previously, and as Prussia was to
learn to her cost in 1806, that once they were thoroughly defeated, the only
thing left to be done was to make peace at once, since there was no other armed
force capable of retrieving a failure.
31. Frederick the Great
The military career of Frederick the Great is very different
from those of his predecessors. With an army organized on the customary system,
and trained and equipped, better indeed, but still on the same lines as those
of his rivals, the king of Prussia achieved results out of all proportion to
those imagined by contemporary soldiers. It is to his campaigns, therefore,
that the student must refer for the real, if usually latent, possibilities of
the army of the 18th century. The prime secret of his success lay in the fact
that he was his own master, and responsible to no superior for the uses to
which he put his men. This position had never, since the introduction of
standing armies, been attained by any one, even Eugene and Leopold of Dessau
being subject to the common restriction; and with this extraordinary advantage
over his opponents, Frederick had further the firmness and ruthless energy of a
great commander. Prussia, moreover, was more strictly organized than other
countries, and there was relatively little of that opposition of local
authorities to the movement of troops which was conspicuous in Austria. The
military successes of Prussia, therefore, up to 1757, were not primarily due to
the system and the formal tactics, but were the logical outcome of greater
energy in the leading, and less friction in the administration, of her armies.
But the conditions were totally different in 17581762, when the full
force of the alliance against Prussia developed itself in four theatres of war.
Frederick was driven back to the old methods of making war, and his men were no
longer the soldiers of Leuthen and Hohenfriedberg. If discipline was severe
before, it was merciless then; the king obtained men by force and fraud from
every part of Germany, and had both to repress and to train them in the face of
the enemy. That under such conditions, and with such men, the weaker party
finally emerged triumphant, was indeed a startling phenomenon. Yet its result
for soldiers was not the production of the national army, though the dynastic
forces had once more shown themselves incapable of compassing decisive
victories, nor yet the removal of the barrier between army and people, for the
operations of Frederick's recruiting agents made a lasting impression, and,
further, large numbers of men who had thought to make a profession of arms were
turned adrift at the end of the war. On the contrary, all that the great and
prolonged tour de force of these years produced was a tendency, quite in
the spirit of the age, to make a formal science out of the art of war. Better
working and better methods were less sought after than systematization of the
special practices of the most successful commanders. Thus Frederick's methods,
since 1758 essentially the same as those of others, were taken as the basis of
the science now for the first time called strategy, the fact that
his opponents had also practised it without success being strangely ignored.
Along with this came a mania for imitation. Prussian drill, uniforms and
hair-powder were slavishly copied by every state, and for the next twenty
years, and especially when the war-trained officers and men had left active
service, the purest pedantry reigned in all the armies of Europe, including
that of Prussia. One of the ablest of Frederick's subordinates wrote a book in
which he urged that the cadence of the infantry step should be increased by one
pace per minute. The only excep tions to the universal prevalence of this
spirit were in the Austrian army, which was saved from atrophy by its Turkish
wars, and in a few British and French troops who served in the American War of
Independence. The British regiments were sent to die of fever in the West
Indies; when the storm of the French Revolution broke over Europe, the Austrian
army was the only stable element of resistance.
32. The French Revolution
Very different were the armies of the Revolution. Europe,
after being given over to professional soldiers for five hundred years, at last
produced the modern system of the nation in arms. The French
volunteers of 1792 were a force by which the routine generals of the enemy,
working with instruments and by rules designed for other conditions, were
completely puzzled, and France gained a short respite. The year 1793 witnessed
the most remarkable event that is recorded in the history of armies. Raw
enthusiasm was replaced, after the disasters and defections which marked the
beginning of the campaign, by a systematic and unsparing conscription, and the
masses of men thus enrolled, inspired by ardent patriotism and directed by the
ferocious energy of the Committee of Public Safety, met the disciplined
formalists with an opposition before which the attack completely collapsed. It
was less marvelous in fact than in appearance that this should be so. Not to
mention the influence of pedantry and senility on the course of the operations,
it may be admitted that Frederick and his army at their best would have been
unable to accomplish the downfall of the now thoroughly roused French.
Tactically, the fire of the regulars' line caused the Revolutionary levies to
melt away by thousands, but men were ready to fill the gaps. No complicated
supply system bound the French to magazines and fortresses, for Europe could
once more feed an army without convoys, and roads were now good and numerous.
No fear of desertion kept them concentrated under canvas, for each man was
personally concerned with the issue. If the allies tried to oppose them on an
equal front, they were weak at all points, and the old organization had no
provision for the working of a scattered army. While ten victorious campaigns
had not carried Marlborough nearer to Paris than some marches beyond the
Sambre, two campaigns now carried a French army to within a few miles of
Vienna. It was obvious that, before such forces and such mobility, the old
system was doomed, and with each successive failure the old armies became more
discouraged. Napoleon's victories finally closed this chapter of military
development, and by 1808 the only army left to represent it was the British.
Even to this the Peninsular War opened a line of progress, which, if different
in many essentials from continental practice, was in any case much more than
acopy of an obsolete model.
33. The Conscription
In 1793, at a moment when the danger to France was so great
as to produce the rigorous emergency methods of the Reign of Terror, the
combined enemies of the Republic had less than 300,000 men in the field between
Basel and Dunkirk. On the other hand, the call of the country in
danger produced more than four times this number of men for the French
armies within a few months. Louis XIV., even when all France had been awakened
to warlike enthusiasm by a similar threat (1709), had not been able to put in
the field more than one-fifth of this force. The methods of the great war
minister Carnot were enforced by the ruthless committee, and when men's lives
were safer before the bayonets of the allies than before the civil tribunals at
home, there was no difficulty in enlisting the whole military spirit of France.
There is therefore not much to be said as to the earliest application of the
conscription, at least as regards its formal working, since any system
possessing elasticity would equally have served the purpose. In the meanwhile,
the older plans of organization had proved inadequate for dealing with such
imposing masses of men. Even with disciplined soldiers they had long been known
as applicable only to small armies, and the deficiencies of the French, with
their consequences in tactics and strategy, soon produced the first
illustrations of modern methods. Unable to meet the allies in the plain, they
fought in broken ground and on the widest possible front. This of course
produced decentralization and subdivision; and it became absolutely necessary
that each detachment on a front of battle 30 m. long (e.g. Stokach) should be
properly commanded-and self-sufficing. The army was therefore constituted in a
number of divisions, each of two or more brigades with cavalry and
artillery sufficient for its own needs. It was even more important that each
divisional general, with his own staff, should be a real commander, and not
merely the supervisor of a section of the line of battle, for he was almost in
the position that a commander-in-chief had formerly held. The need of generals
was easily supplied when there was so wide a field of selection. For the allies
the mere adoption of new forms was without result, since it was contrary both
to tradition and to existing organization. The attempts which were made in this
direction did not tend to mitigate the evils of inferior numbers and moral.
The French soon followed up the divisional system with the further
organization of groups of divisions under specially selected general officers;
this again quickly developed into the modern army corps.
34. Napoleon
Revolutionary government, however, gave way in a few years to
more ordinary institutions, and the spirit of French politics had become that
of aggrandizement in the name of liberty. The ruthless application of the new
principle of masses had been terribly costly, and the disasters of reawakened
in the mass of the people the old dislike of war and service. Even before this
it had been found necessary to frame a new act, the famous law proposed by
General Jourdan (1798). With this the conscription for general service began.
The legal term of five years was so far exceeded that the service came to be
looked upon as a career, or servitude, for life; it was therefore both
unavoidable and profitable to admit substitutes. Even in 1806 one quarter of
Napoleon's conscripts failed to come up for duty. The Grande Armee thus from
its inception contained elements of doubtful value, and only the tradition of
victory and the 50 % of veterans still serving aided the genius of Napoleon to
win the brilliant victories of 1805 and 1806. But these veterans were gradually
eliminated by bloodshed and service exposure, and when, after the peace of
Tilsit, French armies began to be recruited from all sorts of nations, decay
had set in. As early as 1806 the emperor had had to anticipate the
conscription, that is, call up the conscripts before their time, and by 1810
the percentage of absentees in France had grown to about 8o, the remainder
being largely those who lacked courage to oppose the authorities. Finally, the
armies of Napoleon became masses of men of all nations fighting even more
unwillingly than the armies of the old régime. Little success attended
the emperor's attempt to convert a nation in arms into a great
dynastic army. Considered as such, it had even fewer elements of solidity than
the standing armies of the 18th century, for it lacked the discipline which had
made the regiments of Frederick invincible. After 1812 it was attacked by huge
armies of patriots which possessed advantages of organization and skillful
direction that the levee en masse oi had lacked. Only the now fully
developed genius and magnificent tenacity of Napoleon staved off for a time the
débacle which was as inevitable as had been that of the old
régime.
35. The Grande Armee
In 1805-1806, when the older spirit of the Revolution was
already represented by one-half only of French soldiers, the actual steadiness
and manceuvring power of the Grande Armee had attained its highest
level. The army at this time was organized into brigades, divisions and corps,
the last-named unit being as a rule a marshal's command, and always completed
as a small army with all the necessary arms and services. Several such corps
(usually of unequal strength) formed the army. The greatest weakness of the
organization, which was in other respects most pliant and adaptable, was the
want of good staff-officers. The emperor had so far cowed his marshals that few
of them could take the slightest individual responsibility, and the combatant
staff- officers remained, as they had been in the 18th century, either
confidential clerks or merely gallopers. No one but a Napoleon could have
managed huge armies upon these terms; in fact the marshals, from Berthier
downwards, generally failed when in independent commands. Of the three arms,
infantry and cavalry regiments were organized in much the same way as in
Frederick's day, though tactical methods were very different, and discipline
far inferior. The greatest advance had taken place in the artillery service.
Field and horse batteries, as organized and disciplined units, had come into
general use during the Revolutionary wars, and the division, corps and army
commanders had always batteries assigned to their several commands as a
permanent and integral part of the fighting troops. Napoleon himself, and his
brilliant artillery officers Sénarmont and Drouot, brought the arm to
such a pitch of efficiency that it enabled him to win splendid victories almost
by its own action. As a typical organization we may take the III corps of
Marshal Davout in 180ó. This was formed of the following troops:
Cavalry brigadeGeneral Vialannesthree regiments, 1538
men. Corps artillery, 12 guns.
1st DivisionGeneral Morandfive infantry regiments in three
brigades, 12 guns, 10,820 men.
2nd DivisionGeneral Friantfive regiments in three brigades, 8 guns,
8708 men.
3rd DivisionGeneral Gudinfour regiments in three brigades, 12 guns,
9077 men.
A comparison of this ordre de bataille with that of a modern
army corps will show that the general idea of corps organization has undergone
but slight modification since the days of Napoleon. More troops allotted to
departmental duties, and additional engineers for the working of modern
scientific aids, are the only new features in the formal organization of a
corps in the 20th century. Yet the spirit of 1806 and that of 1906 were
essentially different, and the story of the development of this difference
through the ,9th century closes for the present the history of progress in
tactical organization.
36. The Wars of Liberation
The Prussian defeat at Jena was followed by a national
surrender so abject as to prove conclusively the eternal truth, that a divorce
of armies from national interests is completely fatal to national well-being.
But the oppression of the victors soon began to produce a spirit of ardent
patriotism which, carefully directed by a small band of able soldiers, led in
the end to a national uprising of a steadier and more lasting kind than that of
the French Revolution. Prussia was compelled, by the rigorous treaty of peace,
to keep a small force only under arms, and circumstances thus- drove her into
the path of military development which she subsequently followed. The
stipulation of the treaty was evaded by the Krüm per system, by
which men were passed through the ranks as hastily as possible and dismissed to
the reserve, their places being taken by recruits. The regimental
establishments were therefore mere cadres, and the personnel,
recruited by universal service with few exemptions, ever- changing. This system
depended on the willingness of the reserves to come up when called upon, and
the arrogance of the French was quite sufficient to ensure this. The
dénouement of the Napoleonic wars came too swiftly for the full
development of the armed strength of Prussia on these lines; and at the
outbreak of the Wars of Liberation a newly formed Landwehr and numerous
volunteer corps took the field with no more training than the French had had in
1793 Still, the principles of universal service (allgemeine Wehrpfiicht)
and of the army reserve were, for the first time in modern history,
systematically put into action, and modern military development has concerned
itself more with the consolidation of the Krumper system than with the
creation of another. The debut of the new Prussian army was most unsuccessful,
for Napoleon had now attained the highest point of soldierly skill, and managed
to inflict heavy defeats on the allies. But the Prussians were not discouraged;
like the French in 1793 they took to broken ground, and managed to win combats
against all leaders opposed to them except Napoleon himself. The Russian army
formed a solid background for the Prussians, and in the end Austria joined the
coalition. Reconstituted on modern lines, the Austrian army in 1813, except in
the higher leading, was probably the best-organized on the continent. After
three desperate campaigns the Napoleonic régime came to an end, and men
felt that there would be no such struggle again in their lifetime. Military
Europe settled down into grooves along which it ran until 1866. France,
exhausted of its manhood, sought a field for military activities in colonial
wars waged by long- service troops. The conscription was still in force, but
the citizens served most unwillingly, and substitution produced a professional
army, which as usual became a dynastic tool. Austria, always menaced with
foreign war and internal disorder, maintained the best army in Europe. The
British army, though employed far differently, retained substantially the
Peninsular system.
37. European Armies 18151870
The events of the period 18151859 showed afresh that
such long- service armies were incomparably the best form of military machine
for the purpose of giving expression to a hostile view (not
feeling). Austrian armies triumphed in Italy, French armies in
Spain, Belgium, Algeria, Italy and Russia, British in innumerable and exacting
colonial wars. Only the Prussian forces retained the characteristics of the
levies of 1813, and the enthusiasm which had carried these through Leipzig and
the other great battles was hardly to be expected of their sons, ranged on the
side of despotism in the troubled times of 184850. But the principle was
not permitted to die out. The Bronnzell-Olmtitz incident of 1850 (see SEvEN
WEEKS' WAR) showed that the organization of 1813 was defective, and this was
altered in spite of the fiercest opposition of all classes. Soon afterwards,
and before the new Prussian army proved itself on a great battlefield, the
American Civil War, a fiercer struggle than any of those which followed it in
Europe, illustrated the capabilities and the weaknesses of voluntary-service
troops. Here the hostile view was replaced by a hostile
feeling, and the battles of the disciplined enthusiasts on either
side were of a very different kind from those of contemporary Europe. But, if
the experiences of i18611865 proved that armies voluntarily enlisted
for the war were capable of unexcelled feats of endurance, they
proved further that such armies, whose discipline and training in peace were
relatively little, or indeed wholly absent, were incapable of forcing a swift
decision. The European nation in arms, whatever its other failings,
certainly achieved its task, or failed decisively to do so, in the shortest
possible time. Only the special characteristics of the American theatre of war
gave the Union and Confederate volunteers the space and time necessary for the
creation of armies, and so the great struggle in North America passed without
affecting seriously the war ideas and preparations of Europe. The weakness of
the staff work with which both sides were credited helped further to confirm
the belief of the Prussians in their system, and in this instance they were
justified by the immense superiority of their own general staff to that
of any army in existence. It was in this particular that a corps of 1870
differed so essentially from a corps of Napoleon's time. The formal
organization had not been altered save as the varying relative importance of
the separate arms had dictated. The almost intangible spirit which animates the
members of a general staff, causes them not merely to think
that was always in the quartermaster-general's department but to
think alike, so that a few simple orders called
directives sufficed to set armies in motion with a definite purpose
before them, whereas formerly elaborate and detailed plans of battle had to be
devised and distributed in order to achieve the object in view. A comparison of
the number of orders and letters written by a marshal and by his chief of staff
in Napoleon's time with similar documents in 1870 indicates clearly the changed
position of the staff. In the Grande Armée and in the French army
of 1870 the officers of the general staff were often absent entirely from the
scene of action. ·In Prussia the new staff system produced a far different
resultindeed, the staff, rather than the Prussian military system, was
the actual victor of 1870. Still, the system would probably have conquered in
the end in any case, and other nations, convinced by events that their
departure from the ideal of 1813, however convenient formerly, was no longer
justified, promptly copied Prussia as exactly, and, as a matter of fact, as
slavishly, as they had done after the Seven Years' War.
38. Modern Developments
-Since 1870, then, with the single exception of Great Britain, all
the major European powers have adopted the principle of compulsory short
service with reserves. Along with this has come the fullest development of the
territorial system (see below). The natural consequence therefore of the heavy
work falling upon the shoulders of the Prussian officer, who had to instruct
his men, was, in the first place, a general staff of the highest class, and in
the second, a system of distributing the troops over the whole country in such
a way that the regiments were permanently stationed in the district in which
they recruited and from which they drew their reserves. Prussia realized that
if the reservists were to be obtained when required the unit must be strictly
localized; France, on the contrary, lost much time and spent much trouble, in
the mobilization of 1870, in forwarding the reservists to a regiment distant,
perhaps, 300m. The Prussian system did not work satisfactorily at first, for
until all the district staff-officers were trained in the same way there was
great inequality in the efficiency of tile various army corps, and central
control, before the modern development of railways, was relatively slight.
Further, the mobilization must be completed, or nearly so, before concentration
begins, and thus an active professional army, always at war strength, might
annihilate the frontier corps before those in the interior were ready to move.
But the advantages far outweighed the defects of tile system, and, such
professional armies having after 1870 disappeared, there was little to fear.
Everywhere, therefore, save in Great Britain (for at that time the United
States was hardly counted as a great military power, in spite of its two
million war-trained veterans in civil life), the German model was followed, and
is now followed, with but slight divergence. The period of reforms after the
Prussian model (about 18731890) practically established the military
systems which are treated below as those of the present day. The last quarter
of the century witnessed a very great development of military forces, without
important organic changes. The chief interest to the student of this period
lies in the severe competition between the great military powers for
predominance in numbers, expressed usually in the reduction of the period of
service with the colours to a minimum. The final results of this cannot well be
predicted: it is enough to say that it is the Leitmotiv in the present
stage in the development of armies. Below will be found short historical
sketches of various armies of the present day which are of interest in respect
of their historical development. Details of existing forces are given in
articles dealing with the several states to which they belong. Historical
accounts of the armies of Japan and of Egypt will be found in the articles on
those states. The Japanese wars of 189495 and 19045 contributed
little to the history of military organization as a pure science. The true
lessons of this war were the demonstration of the wide applicability of the
German methods, upon which exclusively the Japanese army had formed itself, and
still more the first illustration of the new moral force of nationalities as
the decisive factor. The form of armies remained unaltered. Neither the events
of the Boer War of 18991902 nor the Manchurian operations were held by
European soldiers to warrant any serious modifications in organization. It is
to the moral force alluded to above, rather than to mere technical
improvements, that the best soldiers of Europe, and notably those of the French
general staff (see the works of General H. Bonnal), have of late years devoted
their most earnest attention.
PRESENT-DAY ARMIES
39. The Main Principles
The main principles of all military organization as developed in
history would seem to be national recruiting and allegiance, distinctive
methods of training and administration, continuity of service and general
homogeneity of form. The method of raising men is of course different
indifferent states. In this regard armies may conveniently be classed as
voluntarily enlisted, levied or conscript, and militia, represented
respectively by the forces of Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland. It must
not be forgotten, however, that voluntary troops may be and are maintained even
in states in which the bulk of the army is levied by compulsion, and the simple
militia obligation of defending the country is universally recognized.
40. Compulsory Service
Universal liability to service (allgemeine Wehrpfiicht)
draws into the active army all, or nearly all, the men of military age for
a continuous period of short service, after which they pass successively to the
reserve, the second and the third line troops (Landwesr, Landsiurm,
&c.). In this way the greatest number of soldiers is obtained at the
cheapest rate and the number of trained men in reserve available to keep the
army up to strength is in theory that of the able-bodied manhood of the
country. In practice the annual levy is, however, not exhaustive, and increased
numerical strength is obtained by reducing the term of colour- service to a
minimum. This may be less in a hard-worked conscript army than in one which
depends upon the attractions of the service to induce recruits to join. In
conscript armies, training for war is carried out with undeviating rigour. In
these circumstances the recruits are too numerous and the time available is too
limited for the work of training to be committed to a few selected instructors,
and every officer has therefore to instruct his own men. The result is usually
a corps of officers whose capacity is beyond question, while the general staff
is composed of men whose ability is above a high general average. As to the
rank and file, the men taken for service are in many respects the best of the
nation, and this superiority is progressively enhanced, since increase of
population is not often accompanied by a corresponding increase in the military
establishments. In Germany in 1905, it is stated, nearly half the contingent
was excused from serving in peace time, over and above the usual numbers
exempted or medically rejected. The financial aspect of compulsory service may
be summed up in a few words. The state does not offer a wage, the pay of the
soldier is a mere trifle, and, for a given expenditure, at least three times as
many men may be kept under arms as under any known voluntary
system. Above all, the state has at its disposal for war an almost
inexhaustible supply of trained soldiers. This aspect of compulsory service has
indeed led its admirers sometimes to sacrifice quality to quantity; but,
provided always that the regular training is adequate, it may be admitted that
there is no limit to the numbers which are susceptible of useful employment.
There are, however, many grave defects inherent in all armies raised by
compulsory levy (see CONSCRIPTION, for a discussion of the chief economical and
social questions involved). Most of the advantages of universal service result,
not from the compulsory enlistment, but from the principle of short service and
reserves. But the cost of maintaining huge armies of the modern European type
on the voluntary system would be entirely prohibitive, and those nations which
have adopted the allgemeine Wehrpflicht have done so with full
cognizance of the evil as well as of the good points of the system.
The chief of these evils is the doubtful element which exists in
all such armies. Under the merciless discipline of the old régime the
most unwilling men feared their officers more than the enemy. Modern short
service, however, demands the good-will of all ranks and may fail altogether to
make recalcitrants into good soldiers, and it may be taken for granted that
every conscript army contains many men who cannot be induced to fight. Herein
lies the justification of the principle of masses, and of reduced
colour-service; by drawing into the ranks the maximum number of men, the
government has an eventual residuum of the bravest men in the nation left in
the ranks. What has been said of the officers of these armies cannot be applied
to the non- commissioned officers. Their promotion is necessarily rapid, and
the field of selection is restricted to those men who are willing to re-engage,
i.e. to serve beyond their compulsory term of two or three years. Many
men do so to avoid the struggles of civil life, and such fugitive and
cloistered virtue scarcely fosters the moral strength required for
command. As the best men return to civil life, there is no choice but to
promote inferior men, and the latter, when invested with authority, not
infrequently abuse it. Indeed in some armies the soldier regards his officer
chiefly as his protector from the rapacity or cruelty of his sergeant or
corporal. A true short-service army is almost incapable of being employed on
peace service abroad; quite apart from other considerations, the cost of
conveying to and from home annually one-third or one-half of the troops would
be prohibitive. If, as must be the case, a professional force is maintained for
oversea service many men would join it who would otherwise be serving as
non-commissioned officers at home and the prevailing difficulty would thus be
enhanced. When colonial defence calls for relatively large numbers of men,
i.e. an army, home resources are severely strained.
41. Conscription
-In the proper sense, i.e. selection by lot of a proportion
of the able-bodied manhood of a country, is now rarely practiced. The obvious
unfairness of selection by lot has always had the result of admitting
substitutes procured by those ow whom the lot has fallen; hence the poorer
classes are unduly burdened with the defence of the country, while the rich
escape with a money payment. In practice, conscription invariably produces a
professional long-service army in which each soldier is paid to discharge the
obligations of several successive conscripts. Such an army is therefore a
voluntary long-service army in the main, plus a proportion of the
unwilling men found in every forced levy. The gravest disadvantage is, however,
the fact that the bulk of the nation has not been through the regular army at
all; it is almost impossible to maintain a large and costly standing army and
at the same time to give a full training to auxiliary forces. The difference
between a national guard such as that of the siege of Paris in
187071 and a Landwehr produced under the German system, was very
wide. Regarded as a compromise between universal and voluntary service,
conscription still maintains a precarious existence in Europe. As the cardinal
principle of recruiting armies, it is completely obsolete.
42. Voluntary Service
Existing voluntary armies have usually developed from armies
of the old régime, and seem to owe their continued existence either to
the fact that only comparatively small armaments are maintained in peace, other
and larger armies being specially recruited during a war (a modification of the
enlistment system), or to the necessities of garrisoning colonial
empires. The military advantages and disadvantages of voluntary service are
naturally the faults and merits of the opposite system. The voluntary army is
available for general service. It includes few unwilling soldiers, and its
resultant advantage over an army of the ordinary type has been stated to be as
high as 30%. At all events, we need only examine military history to find that
with conscript armies wholesale shirking is far from unknown. That loss from
this cause does not paralyse operations as it paralysed those of the 18th
century is due to the fact that such fugitives do not desert to the enemy, but
reappear in the ranks of their own side; it must not therefore be assumed that
men have become braver because the missing are not so numerous. In
colonial and savage warfare the superior personal qualities of the voluntary
soldier often count for more than skill on the part of the officers. These'
would be diminished by shortening the time of service, and this fact, with the
expense of transport, entails that a reasonably long period must be spent with
the colours. On the other hand, the provision of the large armies of modern
warfare requires the maintenance of a reserve, and no reserve is possible if
the whole period for which men will enlist is spent with the colours. The
demand for long service in the individual, and for trained men in the
aggregate, thus produces a compromise. The principle of long service, i.e.
ten years or more with the colours, is not applicable to the needs of the
modern grande guerre; it gives neither great initial strength nor great
reserves. The force thus produced is costly and not lightly to be risked; it
affords relatively little opportunity for the training of officers, and tends
to become a class apart from the rest of the population. On the other hand,
such a force is the best possible army for foreign and colonial service. A
state therefore which relies on voluntary enlistment for its forces at home and
abroad, must either keep an army which is adaptable to both functions or
maintain a separate service for each.
In a state where relatively small armaments are maintained in
peace, voluntary armies are infinitely superior to any that could be obtained
under any system of compulsion. The state can afford to give a good wage, and
can therefore choose its recruits carefully. It can thus have either a few
incomparable veteran soldiers (long-service), or a fairly large number of men
of superior physique and intelligence, who have received an adequate
short-service training. Even the youngest of such men are capable of good
service, while the veterans are probably better soldiers than any to be found
in conscript armies. This is, however, a special case. The raw material of any
but a small voluntary army usually tends to be drawn from inferior sources; the
cost of a larger force, paid the full wages of skilled labourers, would be very
great, and numbers commensurate with those of an army of the other model could
only be obtained at an exorbitant price. The short-service principle is
therefore accepted. Here, however, as recruiting depends upon the good-will of
the people, it is impossible to work the soldiers with any degree of rigour.
Hence the voluntary soldier must serve longer than a conscript in order to
attain the same proficiency. The reserve is thus weakened, and the total
trained regular force diminished. Moreover, as fewer recruits are required
annually, there is less work for the officers to do. In the particular case of
Great Britain it is practically certain that in future, reliance will be placed
upon the auxiliary forces and the civil population for the provision of the
enormous reserves required in a great war; this course is, however, only
feasible in the case of an insular nation which has time to collect its
strength for the final and decisive blow overseas. The application of the same
principle to a continental military power depends on the capacity for stern and
unflagging resistance displayed by the corps de couverture charged with
the duty of gaining the time necessary for the development and concentration of
the national masses. In Great Britain (except in the case of a surprise
invasion) the place of this corps would be taken by command of the
sea. Abroad, the spirit of the exposed regiments themselves furnishes the
only guarantee, and this can hardly be calculated with sufficient certainty,
under modern conditions, to justify the adoption of this new enlistment
system. Voluntary service, therefore, with all its intrinsic merits, is
only applicable to the conditions of a great war when the war reserve can be
trained ad hoc.
43. The Militia
- The militia idea (see MILITIA) has been applied most completely
in Switzerland, which has no regular army, but trains almost the whole nation
as a militia. The system, with many serious disadvantages, has the great merit
that the maximum number of men receives a certain amount of training at a
minimum cost both to the state and to the individual. Mention should also be
made of the system of augmenting the national forces by recruiting
foreign legions. This is, of course, a relic of the Werbe-
system; it was practiced habitually by the British governments of the 18th
and early 19th centuries. Hessians figured conspicuously in the
British armies in the American War of Independence, and the King's German
Legion was only the best and most famous of many foreign corps in the
service of George III during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. A new
German Legion was raised during the Crimean War, but the almost universal
adoption of the Krumper system has naturally put an end to the old
method, for all the best recruits are now accounted for in the service of their
own countries.
ARMY ORGANIZATION
44. Arms of the Service
Organization into arms is produced by the
multiplicity of the weapons used, their functions and their limitations. The
three arms a term universally applied to infantry (q.v.),
cavalry (q.v.) and artillery (q.v.) coexist owing to the fact that each
can undertake functions which the others cannot properly fulfil. Thus cavalry
can close with an enemy at the quickest pace, infantry can work in difficult
ground, and artillery is effective at great ranges. Infantry indeed, having the
power of engaging both at close quarters and at a distance, constitutes the
chief part of a fighting force. Other arms, such as mounted
infantry, cyclists, engineers, &c., are again differentiated from the three
chief arms by their proper functions. In deciding upon the establishment in
peace, or the composition of a force for war, it is therefore necessary to
settle beforehand the relative importance of these functions in carrying out
the work in hand. Thus an army operating in Essex would be unusually strong in
infantry, one on Salisbury Plain would possess a great number of guns, and an
army operating on the South African veldt would consist very largely of mounted
men. The normal European war has, however, naturally been taken as the basis
upon which the relative proportions of the three arms are calculated. At the
battle of Kolin (1757) the cavalry was more than half as strong as the infantry
engaged. At Borodino (1812) there were 39 cavalry to 100 of other arms, and 5
guns per 1000 men. In 1870 the Germans had at the outset 7 cavalrymen to every
100 men of other arms, the French 10. As for guns, the German artillery had 3
the French 3 1/2 per 1000 men. In more modern times the proportions have
undergone some alteration, the artillery having been increased, and the cavalry
brought nearer to the Napoleonic standard. Thus the relative proportions, in
peace time, now stand at 5 or 6 guns per 1000 men, and i6 cavalry soldiers to
Too men of other arms. It must be borne in mind that cavalry and artillery are
maintained in peace at a higher effective than infantry, the strength of the
latter being much inflated in war, while cavalry and artillery are not easily
extemporized. Thus in the Manchurian campaign these proportions were very
different. The Russian army on the eve of the battle of Mukden (20th of
February 1905) consisted of 370 battalions, 142 squadrons and 153 field
batteries (1200 guns), with, in addition, over 200 heavy guns. The strength of
this force, which was organized in three armies, was about 300,000 infantry and
18,000 cavalry and Cossacks, with guns per 1000 men of other arms. The Japanese
armies consisted of 300,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry, 900 field and 170 heavy
guns, the proportion of field artillery being 2 1/2 guns per 1000 men.
It is perhaps not superfluous to mention that all the smaller units
in a modern army consist of one arm only. Formerly several dissimilar weapons
were combined in the same unit. The knight with his four or five variously
armed retainers constituted an example of this method of organization, which
slowly died out as weapons became more uniform and their functions better
defined.
45. Command
The first essential of a good organization is to ensure that
each member of the organized body, in his own sphere of action, should
contribute his share to the achievement of the common object. Further, it is
entirely beyond the power of one man or a few to control every action and
provide for every want of a great number of individuals. The modern system of
command, therefore, provides for a system of grades, in which, theoretically,
oficers of each grade control a group of the next lower units.. A
lieutenant-colonel, for insance, may be in charge of a group of eight
companies, each of which is under a captain. In practice, all armies are
permanently organized on these lines, up to the colonel's or
lieutenant-colonel's command , and most of them are permanently divided into
various higher units under general officers, the brigade, division and army
corps. The almost invariable practice is to organize infantry into
companies, battalions and regiments. Cavalry is divided into troops,
squadrons and regiments. Artillery is divided into batteries, these
being usually grouped in various ways. The other arms and departments are
subdivided in the same general way. The commands of general officers are the
brigade of infantry, cavalry and in some cases artillery, the
division of two or more infanry brigades and a force of artillery and
mouned troops, or of cavalry and horse artillery, and the army corps of
two or more divisions and "corps troops". Armies of several
corps, and groups of armies are also formed.
46. Brigade
A brigade is the command of a brigadier or major-general, or
a colonel. It consists almost in variably of one arm only. In armes of the old
regime it was not usual to assign troops of all arms to the subordinate
generals. Hence the brigade is a much older form of organization than the
division of all arms, and in fact dates frm the 16th century. The infantry
brigade consists, in the British service, of a brigadier and his staff, four
battalions of infantry, and administrative and medical units, the combatant
strength being about 4000 men. In Geermany and France the brigade is composed
of the staff, and two regiments (6 battalions) with a total of over 6000
combatants at war strength. Thecavalry brigade is sometimes formed of threed,
sometimes of two regiments; the njumb er of squadrons to a regiment on service
isusually four, exceptionally three, and rarely five or six.
The"brigade" of artillery in Great Britain is a lieutenant-colonel's
command, and the term here correspondes to theabtheilung of the German,
and the groupe of he French armies (see ARTILLERY). In Germany and
France, however, an artillery brigade consists of two or more regiments, or
twelve batteries at least, under the command of an artillery general
officer.
47. Division
A division is an organization containing troops of all arms.
Since the virtual abolition of the "corps artillery" (see ARTILLERY)
the force of field artillery forming part of an infantry division is somethimes
as high as 72 guns (Germany); in Great Britain the augmented division of 1906
has 54 field guns, 12 field howitzers, and 4 heavy gun, a total of 70, The term
"infantry" division is, in strictness, no longer aplicable, since
such a unit is a miniature army corps of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, with
the necessary services for the supply of ammunition, food and forage, and for
the care of the sick and wounded. A more exact title would be "army"
division. In general it is composed, so far as combatants are concerned, of the
divisional commander, and his saff, two or more infantry brigades, a number of
bateries of field artillery forming a regiment, brigade or group, a small
force, varying from a squadron to a regiment, of cavalry (divisional cavalry),
with some engineers. The force of the old British division (1905) may be taken,
on an average, as 10,000 men, increased in the1906 reorganization to about
15,000 combatants. In other armies the fighting force of the division amounts
to rather more than 14,000. The cavalry division (see CAVALRY) is
composed of the staff, two or three cavalry brigades, horse artillery, with
perhaps mounted infantry, cyclists,or even light infantry in addition. In many,
if not most, armies cavalry divisions are formed only in war. In the field the
cavalry division is usually an independent unit with its own commander and
staff. "Cavalry corps" of several divisions have very rarely been
formed in the past, a division having been regarded as the largest unit capable
of being led by one man. There is, however, a growing tendency in favour of the
corps organization, at any rate in war.
48. Army Corps
-The "corps' of the18th century was simply a large detachment,
more or less complete in itself, organized for some particular purpose (e.g. to
cover a siege), and placed for the time being under some general officer other
than the chief commander. The modern army corps is a development from the
division of all arms, which originated in the French Revolutionary wars. It is
a unit of considerable strength, furnished with the due proportion of troops of
all arms and of the auxilliary and medical services, and permanently placed
under thecommand of one general. The corps organization (though a corps
d'armee was ofen sponen of as a armee) was used in Napoleon's army
in all the campaigns of the Empire. It may be mentioned, as a curious feature
of Napoleon's methods, that he invariable constituted each corps d'armee
of a different strenght, so that the enemy would not be able to estimate his
force by the sinple process of counting the corps flags which marked the
marshals' headquaerters. Thus in 1812 he constituted one corps of 72,000 men,
while another had but 18,000. After the fall of Napoleon a further advance was
made. The adoption of universal service amongst the great military nations
brought, in its train the territorial organization, and the corps,
representinga large district, soon became a unit of peace formation. For the
smooth working of the new military system it was essential that the framework
of the war army should exist in peace. The Prussians were the first to bring
the system to perfection; long before 1866 Prussia was permanently divided into
army corps districts, all the trooops of the III army corps being
Brandenburgers. all those of the VI Silesians, and so on, thought political
reasons required, and to some extent still require, modifications of this
principle in dealing with annexed territory (e.g. Hanover and Alsace-Lorraine).
The events of 1866 and of 1870-71 caused the almost universal adoption of the
army corps regional system. In the case of the British army, operating as it
usually did in minor wars, and rarely having more than sixty or seventy
thousand men on one theater even in continental wars, there was less need of so
large a unit as the corps. Not only was a British army small in numbers, but it
preserved high traditions of discipline, and was sufficiently well trained to
be susceptible as a unit to the impulse given by one man. Eeven where the term
"corps" does appear in Peninsular annals, the implication is of a
corps in the old sense of a grand detachment. Neither cavalry nor artillery was
assisgned to any of the British "corps" at Waterloo.
49. Constitution of the Army Corps
-In 1870-71 the III German army corps (with which compare Marshal
Davout's ordre de bataille above) consised of the following combatant
units: (a) staff; (b) two infantry divisions (4 brigades, 8 regiments or 24
battalions), with, in each division, a cavalry regiment, 4 batteries of
artillery or 24 guns, and engineers, (c) corps troops, artillery (6 field
batteries), pioneer battalion (engineers), train battalion (supply and
transport). A rifle battalion was attached to one of the divisions. This
ordre de bataille was followed more or less generally by all conuntries
up to the most modern times, but between 1890 and 1902 came a very considerable
change in the point of view from which the corps was regarded as a fighting
unit. This change was expressed in the abolition of the corps artillery.
Formerly the corps commander controlled the greater part of the field
artillery, as well as troops of othe rarms; at the presentt ime he has a mere
handful of troops. Unless battalions are taken from the divisions to form a
corps reserve, the direct influence of the corps organization on the battle is
due almost solely to the fact that the commander has at his disposal the
special natures of artillery and also some horse artillery. Thus the
(augmented) division is regarded by many as the fighting unit of the 20th, as
the corps was that of the 19th century. In Europe there is even a tendency to
substitute the ancient phrase "reserve artillery" for "corps
artillery," showing that the role to be played by the corps batteries is
subordinated to the operations of the masses of divisional artillery, the whole
being subject, of course, to the technical ssupervision of the artillery
general officer who accompanies the corps headquarters. Thus limited, the army
corps has now come to consist of the staff, two or more divisions, the corps or
reserve artillery (of special batteries), a small force of corps
cavalry, and various technical and departmental troops. The cavalry is never
very numerous, owing to the demands of the independent cavalry divisions on the
one hand and those of the divisional cavalry on the other. The engineers of an
army corps include telegraph, balloon and pontoon units. Attached to the corps
are reserves of munitions and supplies in ammunition columns, field parks,
supply parks, &c. The term and the organ ization were discontinued in
England in 1906, on the augmentation of the divisions and the assignment of
certain former corps troops to the direct control of the army
commanders. It should be noticed that the Japanese, who had no corps
organization during the war of 19045, afterwards increased the strength
of their divisions from 15,000 to 20,000; the augmented division,
with the above peace strength, becomes to all intents and purposes a
corps, and the generals commanding divisions were in 1906 given the title of
generals-in-chief.