ARMY

The term army in its widest. sense signifies the force available to conduct operations against an enemy on land, and therefore includes men, horses, weapons, and other material of war. In a more restricted sense an army is any military force acting independently. The word is also used for legal and administrative purposes in various senses. On looking backwards we find that an army has always been a reflection of the state of society or the stage of civilization which called it into being. An army has no inherent vitality, no germ of development. It flowers only to decay. In the earliest ages tribes of shepherds took up arms and laid them aside again, becoming a nation at peace or a nation at war under the leadership of their chiefs. In countries where the population was agricultural, some division of labor became nece ary, since each tribe on taking the field was compelled to leave behind some men to sow and reap. Later still, when artificers had settled in towns, the trade of a soldier became specialized, and yet the army remained practically a militia, inasmuch as, the character of the civilian predominated over that of the soldier, and troops could not be carried into distant countries for long periods without danger of mutiny. The first armies of which we have any definite knowledge are those which fought at Marathon (490 B.C.), where Greek and Persian met. The Persian army of bowmen had reached some degree of perfection under Cyrus and his succe or, Darius, but the A then i an spearmen under Miltiades won the victory; yet the Persians had overcome bowmen like the Medes, the Lydian lancers, and armored hosts like the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks, and we must therefore attribute the A then i an victory at Marathon to superior leadership. The seeming phenomenon that an army will grow and diminish, prove irresistible and. decline again, within a century, is accounted for _by considering an army as the creation of a general with a genius for war, Br as the instrument of a feeble ruler. Three — Roman legions were exterminated by — German in militia raised by Arm in i us; the armies of Sparta and other Gr. _ ys republics could not withstand a force trained by Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. The armies of Persia, of Carthage, of Macedon, and of Greece dwindled one by one as their leaders perished; the Roman army expired in its effort to check the Huns under Attila, who in the year 451 threatened to sweep away all trace of civilization and Christianity in Western Europe. Since the time of AbdulRahman, whom Charles Martel defeated at Tours in 732, we have seen no Oriental army capable of invading France. In England, King Alfred (A.D. 871) raised a national army of militia to expel the Danes, but it proved unequal two centuries later under Harold to withstand the army of knights brought over by William of Normandy. Then came the feudal period, when powerful nobles exacted military service from their dependents, and hired these forces out to support any cause they adopted—at one time aiding their king, at another time opposing the king’s forces, or even, as in the Wars of the Roses (1455), destroying one another. But not until the 16th cent. do we learn of an army fit to be compared with those of Greece and Rome. It was Philip II. of Spain who then incontestably bore the palm in respect of army and navy; but in the next cent. Gustavus Adolphus a umed the position which the death of Philip had left vacant, and became the military _ head of Europe, perfecting his army during the Thirty Years’ War. The Civil War in this country produced the formidable militia of the Commonwealth, which subsequently was replaced by the royal standing army. Meanwhile Gustavus Adolphus had yielded place in the military world to Louis XIV, whose army procured him. ali that Napoleon coveted at a later period, but the rise of the Duke of Marl borough proved fatal to the Fr. army at the beginning of the 18th cent. Modern Armies.—In the middle of the 18th cent. we find the modern army in embryo. Frederick the Great po e ed about 50,000 Pru ian infantry, cavalry, and artillery, an army which in the course of twenty years he developed to the highest pitch of excellence. He overcame the armies of France, Austria, and Ru ia in turn, and established a system of drill, discipline, and manuoevre which ensured succe in battle. But ‘the soul of an army is the mind of a great commander,’ and on Frederick’s demise the Pru ian army declined. Meanwhile with the Fr. Revolution many of the characteristics of primitive warfare were reproduced in the Fr. levies which fought at Valmy and Jemappes. The male population of France found occupation in the army when civil disturbance had virtually put an end to the pursuits of peace. Untrained and undisciplined, but filled with an energy and spirit of adventure hard to realize to-day, they overthrew the royal standing armies of Europe and carried the tricolor beyond the Alps. ‘This weapon the republican government placed in the hands of the world’s. greatest soldier. Napoleon, at Austerlitz and Jena, showed what was. po ible to an absolute ruler at the head of a large well-trained and well-equipped. army; but his foes were not long in learning the le on he had to teach them, and then the tide turned. After Waterloo the Fr. army, as Europe had known it for twenty years, ceased to exist. Compulsory Service.—Scharnhorst and other army leaders in Pru ia now showed the advantages to be gained by a nation which, in regard to its army, was independent of local and ephemeral opinion, by enacting laws under which the entire male population were subject to military service; and what is more, to rigid and continuous military training. Pru ian commanders in the field were never again to fail for want of numbers of trained soldiers. Moreover, the universal obligation to serve put a premium on military rank, so that the profe ion of arms became one to which the élite of society naturally turned. A war school was established at Berlin, out of which grew a great general staff, which in turn produced men of the type of Moltke and von Roon. Royal personages were bred to arms, and when in 1866 Pru ia invaded Austria she had at head of her armies the king and his two sons. Their easy victory over the Austrians at Sadowa, and four years later over the French at Grave lotte and Sedan convinced the world that her methods were perfect; and from that time up to the Great War it was toe aim of every first-cla continental power to model its national forces upon the Pru ian army. The rigid Pru ian method, while it had its virtues, showed clearly during the Great War that it also had the seeds of weakne within itself. It especially failed to produce soldiers of initiative, capable of ‘carrying on’ without the direction and stimulus of officers., Up to the year 1916 Great Britain was the most notable exception to the rule of universal service. When the World War ended, there was an almost universal sentiment among the peoples who had been at war for a reduction in the military strength and a strong effort was made to incorporate in the League of Nations provisions providing for practical disarmament. It was, however, found impo ible to bring about this result, and the victorious nations were left. practically free to raise and equip armies. Great Britain rapidly demobilized her army until it had reached practically pre-war strength, and was composed of about 250,000 men. The French army, on account of threatened conditions on the continent, continued to maintain a large military force, numbering nearly 500,000 men and officers. The largest army maintained was that of Ru ia, where it was claimed that the Red Army numbered over 1,000,000 men. Little actual information was available as to the truth of these figures. The German army was reduced by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles to a maximum of 100,000 men. Asa result of disturbances in Germany, however, an increase to 200,000, composed of various kinds of organizations, was permitted. Poland maintained an army of considerable strength, and as a result of the’ war with Ru ia and the constant threat of Ru ian aggre ion, the army numbered, in 1923, about 250,000 men of all cla es. Nearly all the countries of Europe maintained armies of considerable strength, and the dream of military disarmament appeared to be far in the future. For the organization of the strength of the army of the United States,, see Army, Unirep StTaTEs.