Army

Army, a collection of men armed, drilled, and organised as a military machine, for fighting purposes. Its rudest form is that which obtained in the early history of every nation, when all the able-bodied males of a tribe bore arms and fought offensively or defensively under a chosen chief. This prevailed when nomad or simple agrarian life was the rule, but later on, as civilisation became more complex, and commercial enterprise increased, they divided naturally into fighters and workers. The essential difference between these two conditions is that, in the latter case, the armed men are specially organised and trained, and their military service is more or less continuous.

Among the more ancient races, Egypt provided the first organised army, which was supported at a cost of one-third the revenue, and was divided into infantry, cavalry, and charioteers. It was practically a militia, liable to prolonged embodiment for such expeditions as the invasion of India by Sesostris, the success of which depended on its excellent organisation.

Greece followed next in importance, every free man, with a few exceptions, serving from 18 to 60 years of age, but it was still practically not a standing army but a very experienced militia. There were only two "Arms;" cavalry provided by the wealthier classes, and infantry by those of a lower degree, the latter being classed in four groups, depending on the amount of armour worn.

There were the Hoplitai, forming the bulk of the heavy column called the phalanx (from 2,000 to 4,000 strong), and the number of whom gave the numerical strength in a battle, the other troops frequently not being counted. The Peltastai, the Psiloi or skirmishers (usually slaves), and the Gymnetas or irregulars, who were frequently foreigners. Philip of Macedon adopted the same system, but kept the men permanently embodied, thus creating the first standing army. His infantry were heavy, light, and irregular; he introduced heavy and light cavalry. The Macedonian phalanx contained 1,600 heavy infantry, armed with 24-feet pikes, and arranged in 16 ranks, together with the same number of cavalry and irregular troops, thus resembling in number a modern army corps. Organisation, drill, and discipline all improved, and regular preparations were made for recruiting and reinforcing a field army. Greece seems to have furnished the first mercenary soldiers, as for example Xenophon's 10,000 Greeks in the army of Cyrus the Persian. In the Roman army the service was from 17 to 46 years of age, and at first compulsory; no one being entitled to take office until he had served ten years in the infantry or five in the cavalry. The conscripts were chosen by lot, divided into classes according to wealth, and after taking a military oath, were embodied in legions of about 4,500 men, formed somewhat like the phalanx, but in three lines. These were arranged with, first, the Hastati, medium infantry, next the heavily armed Principes and Triarii, and lastly the Velites or light troops, with a small force of cavalry. The legion was divided into ten maniples or companies, each with two centurions and two ensigns, and the velites were equally divided among the 30 maniples. Later on, allies or Socii were added, and the legion, now about 6,000 strong, was divided (by Gains Marius, about 100 B.C.) into ten cohorts, resembling a weak modern division. Though at first a militia, as time advanced it became permanent and was paid. Drill and discipline were rigorous; and books such as that of Vegetius show that with them began the art of war, as distinguished from mere personal bravery in battle.

But with the fall of the Roman Empire this art fell also. Gauls and Goths fought as clans under chiefs, and this system gradually crystallised into the feudal system, which began by the natural assembly of the boldest youths round the best or most popular leaders, and gradually developed until, both with leader and followers, the chieftaincy and service became hereditary. The riches of the chief furnished the arms and armour, for which the retainer paid in service, and the money was provided by the more peaceful classes, whom he professed to protect from others to plunder them himself. Armies in those days were militia with a warlike training, the retainers serving for periods of from twenty days to three months, when the army was disbanded. As the evils of feudalism became more pronounced, many of these disbanded men, or others who had lost their all in the internecine struggles such a system infallibly produced, became mercenaries in the service of foreign powers, as "Dugald Dalgetty" or "Quentin Durward" did. The armies had little or no organisation or drill, and were composed of the knights and men-at-arms or cavalry furnished by the upper classes, and the vassals or infantry provided by the serfs and peasants. The arms of the knight were sword, lance and dagger; of the infantry, the pike or bill, and the bow and swords. Increase in wealth and the upgrowth of a powerful middle class, through the extension of trade, led to a greater use of mercenaries; the giving charters and freedom to cities was naturally followed by the formation of a permanent militia for their defence, and these soon surpassed in military value the less orderly following of the feudal chiefs; lastly, the Swiss infantry showed at Granson and Nancy that the days of mail-clad cavalry were passing away, and with the advent of gunpowder, which led to the disuse of the cumbrous body armour, the value of the knight as a fighting machine passed away too.

The beginning of standing armies in Europe dates back to 1445, when Charles VII. of France formed for permanent service and regular pay the "compagnies d'ordonnance," each of which contained 100 men-at-arms, with their attendants, and therefore numbered 9,000 cavalry, to which were added, in 1448, 16,000 infantry, called "franc-archers." Even then this army was not so much national as foreign and mercenary; but the marked improvement in the drill, discipline, and organisation of men thus regularly paid and subsisted, led to a higher training of the force, and to a revival of the art of war. For in the sixteenth century the infantry were formed into definite fighting units called battaglia, whence the modern term battalion comes. The true tactical employment of cavalry as an arm, auxiliary to the infantry, began to be understood, and though the battaglia were at first composed of about equal numbers of pikemen and musketeers, or "shot," the rapid improvement in firearms soon led to the abolition of the pike altogether, and to the armament of the whole body with muskets furnished with the bayonet. This, the "plug-bayonet," a dagger fitting into the muzzle of the gun, soon developed into the socketed bayonet; and the invention of flint locks in place of the match, with the substitution of iron for wooden ramrods, at length produced the "Brown Bess," so called from the colour of the barrel, which, until long after Waterloo, was the weapon of the infantry soldier throughout the world. Discipline further improved and was methodised by the introduction of "Articles of War" for the government of troops in the field, by Ferdinand I. of Spain, Francis I. of France, and Charles V. They were curious in their details and severe in their punishments. In the "Articles and Military Lawes to be observed in the Warres," whereby the "King of Sweden governed his army," the first clause states that "No Commander, nor private Souldier, whatsoever, shall use any kind of Idolatry, Witchcraft or Inchanting of Armes, whereby God is dishonoured, upon pain of death." Artillery improved with the musket, and, better mounted and better made, both in bronze and iron, it became more mobile; and with better powder and more carefully cast shot its range and accuracy increased. The tactical use of the arm, however, did not advance until the end of the eighteenth century; guns were not till then massed, and were attached singly to battalions and even cavalry squadrons. The effect of firearms at that time was not great, except at very close quarters. The field gun ranged 1,500 to 2,000 yards, the "Brown Bess" was good at 150 yards. Even as late as 1829 an old drill book introduces the following answer : "If a man do not strike the target at forty yards, I decrease the distance to thirty yards, and so on till he hits it." On these facts depend the formation and even composition of the armies of those days. The density of the masses diminished by degrees. The battalions of Maurice of Nassau, each built up of 250 pikes and 250 shot, and deployed in ranks ten deep, had, by the seventeenth century, been reduced to four ranks all armed with firearms. Eugene and Marlborough, Conde and Turenne improved the administration of the armies by the formation of brigades and divisions; while to Frederick the Great is due the further reduction to three ranks, which obtained in Prussia till recently and in the English army until the Peninsular War, the introduction of horse artillery to work with cavalry, and a definite and concise drill-book. But for long years the peace strength of standing armies was very small. Forces raised by voluntary enlistment for a war were disbanded when it ceased. Though organised in battalions, the troops were often raised by contract, and were often built up of independent companies carrying each its own colour. A survival of this principle, which applied both to cavalry and infantry, is seen in colours carried by each squadron of the Life and Horse Guards. Both companies and battaglia were far stronger then than now. The former have diminished from 600 to 120 of the British, and 250 of the German army; the latter from many thousands have fallen to two battalions of British and three battalions of Germany, each of which numbers 1,000 men. The number of companies in a battalion has remained practically unchanged. In Britain there are still six to eight or ten, and in Prussia the number has only fallen from five in Frederick's reign to four now. The French Revolution caused a complete change in the art of war. Divisions, with a proportion of the three "Arms," infantry, cavalry and artillery, appeared in 1792; army corps in 1804. The Germans and English fought in line, the French in column; but the use of skirmishers to cover the deployment of both became universal as time went on. The most marked result of the Napoleonic wars was the birth of the present system which obtains throughout all Europe, except in Great Britain. The French formed armies by conscription under the "law of 1798," whereby all able-bodied men were bound to serve from their 20th to their 25th year. After the crushing defeat of Jena the Prussians were compelled, by the treaty of Tilsit, to maintain an army of only 43,000 men permanently embodied, but Scharnhorst evaded this by introducing a system of very short service in the ranks, and thus having behind the annual armed strength of the country a great body of trained men, who, when recalled to the colours, increased it at once to three times its nominal numerical value. This system of short service and reserves has spread broadcast, and has once more made armies "national." Only by its means can the vast armies of modern times be kept up. Napoleon's effort to keep Prussia in subjection after 1805 resulted in the commencement of a "system that led to his own defeat at Waterloo, and the equally crushing defeat of his descendant at Sedan. England alone, of all the European powers, still holds the system of voluntary enlistment; all other nations have accepted the evil of conscription. Her army has grown and kept pace with those of the Continent, though in a different way, owing to the authority of Parliament over it. The first clause of the Army Annual Act, which fixes the exact number of men to be paid in the army, commences, "Whereas the raising or keeping a standing army within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Parliament, is against law."

It only differs from the preamble of the "Mutiny Act" which it replaced, by the omission of the words "and for the protection of the balance of power in Europe," The tenacious insistence that the army is that of the Parliament and not of the sovereign dates far back. Cromwell's army was at the end a standing army (this was the commencement of a standing army in England), being permanently paid and embodied, but was disbanded at the Restoration. Charles II. was allowed 3,000 men for "guards and garrison," composed of the Yeomen of the Guard, the Gentlemen-at-Arms, Monk's Regiment (afterwards the Coldstream Guards), the two Regiments of Life, and one of Foot Guards. These had by the end of the reign increased to 16,500 men, by the addition of three regiments of foot, but the militia was then, as it is now, the constitutional army of the state, to which all owe service by ballot, which is even now not abandoned but only in abeyance. It was only when the first Mutiny Act was passed by Parliament in 1689, giving officers the right to punish for the offences of mutiny and desertion, that a standing army was reluctantly acknowledged to be a necessity. It was raised by voluntary enlistment, at first for life or for a campaign, then in 1847 for continuous short service of ten years, then in 1866 for twelve years, and in 1870 to a limited engagement of twelve years, of which three should be passed with the colours and the remainder with the reserve. In the last century regiments were raised by contract, the contractors receiving the nomination of officers to whom they sold the commissions. This laid the foundation of the system of purchase, abolished in 1871. At that date a commission for an ensign cost £450, and for a lieutenant-colonel of the Life Guards £7,250: but in addition a variable sum of "over-regulation" money was paid. There are, therefore, still three plans of forming an army in the world, of which the militia system is illustrated in America and in Switzerland; conscription in Germany, France, and elsewhere; and voluntary enlistment, as in England; but in all European countries the recruits, however selected, pass a small portion of their enlistment time only with the colours, and a larger portion with the reserve. In Switzerland the army is cheap, costing about £5 per head for an assumed effective of about 140,000 men. Men are liable to serve from 20 to 44, serving a period varying from five to fourteen years in the "Elite" (representing the permanent force), a further period in the reserve, and up to 44 in the landwehr. America recruits a standing army of 30,000 for five years' service by voluntary enlistment, each State furnishing and controlling in addition its own militia; but the civil war of 1864 showed its power of expansion when the Northern States provided 2,056,053 men. and those of the Southern Confederacy 1.100,000 men. Great Britain maintains a native army in India, officered chiefly by Europeans; a small colonial force, a regular army of about 163,000 men, with a reserve of 78,000 (exclusive of about 68,000 in India), a militia force of 140,000, and a third line of Yeomanry and Volunteers numbering some 570,000 men. It has no fixed organisation into divisions or corps, though nominally the latter consists of three divisions, 84 guns, corps troops, and a cavalry brigade. These are practically more or less improvised in time of war. Germany affords the most complete type of a continental army. The conscripts, who are selected by ballot for the annual draft, serve three years with the army, four years with the reserve, and five in the landwehr. They are strictly localised. There are four companies to each battalion, three of the latter to a regiment; two of these form a brigade, two brigades compose a division, and two divisions an army corps (of about 36.000 men all told), to which are attached 84 guns. The cavalry are administered in brigades attached to the corps in peace, and as independent divisions with horse artillery in war. The staffs are kept up and appointed in peace, and the organisation is so complete that in twelve days the armed strength of Germany, numbering some 4,300,000 men, is ready to march anywhere, complete in every necessary of equipment, food, and transport, Finally, the introduction of breechloading firearms has dissolved the old close formation of the Napoleonic era, and fighting in loose or open order has taken the place of the line and columnar formations of Waterloo and Austerlitz.