Democratic Armies?
It is a part of the essence of a democratic army to be very numerous in
proportion to the people to which it belongs, as I shall hereafter
show. On the other hand, men living in democratic times seldom choose a
military life. Democratic nations are therefore soon led to give up the
system of voluntary recruiting for that of compulsory enlistment. The
necessity of their social condition compels them to resort to the latter
means, and it may easily be foreseen that they will all eventually adopt
it. When military service is compulsory, the burden is indiscriminately
and equally borne by the whole community. This is another necessary
consequence of the social condition of these nations, and of their
notions. The government may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it
appeals to the whole community at once: it is the unequal distribution
of the weight, not the weight itself, which commonly occasions
resistance. But as military service is common to all the citizens, the
evident consequence is that each of them remains but for a few years
on active duty. Thus it is in the nature of things that the soldier in
democracies only passes through the army, whilst among most aristocratic
nations the military profession is one which the soldier adopts, or
which is imposed upon him, for life.
This has important consequences. Amongst the soldiers of a democratic
army, some acquire a taste for military life, but the majority, being
enlisted against their will, and ever ready to go back to their
homes, do not consider themselves as seriously engaged in the military
profession, and are always thinking of quitting it. Such men do not
contract the wants, and only half partake in the passions, which that
mode of life engenders. They adapt themselves to their military duties,
but their minds are still attached to the interests and the duties which
engaged them in civil life. They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of
the army--or rather, they infuse the spirit of the community at large
into the army, and retain it there. Amongst democratic nations the
private soldiers remain most like civilians: upon them the habits of the
nation have the firmest hold, and public opinion most influence. It is
by the instrumentality of the private soldiers especially that it may
be possible to infuse into a democratic army the love of freedom and
the respect of rights, if these principles have once been successfully
inculcated on the people at large. The reverse happens amongst
aristocratic nations, where the soldiery have eventually nothing in
common with their fellow-citizens, and where they live amongst them as
strangers, and often as enemies. In aristocratic armies the officers
are the conservative element, because the officers alone have retained a
strict connection with civil society, and never forego their purpose
of resuming their place in it sooner or later: in democratic armies the
private soldiers stand in this position, and from the same cause.
It often happens, on the contrary, that in these same democratic armies
the officers contract tastes and wants wholly distinct from those of
the nation--a fact which may be thus accounted for. Amongst democratic
nations, the man who becomes an officer severs all the ties which bound
him to civil life; he leaves it forever; he has no interest to resume
it. His true country is the army, since he owes all he has to the rank
he has attained in it; he therefore follows the fortunes of the army,
rises or sinks with it, and henceforward directs all his hopes to that
quarter only. As the wants of an officer are distinct from those of the
country, he may perhaps ardently desire war, or labor to bring about
a revolution at the very moment when the nation is most desirous of
stability and peace. There are, nevertheless, some causes which allay
this restless and warlike spirit. Though ambition is universal and
continual amongst democratic nations, we have seen that it is seldom
great. A man who, being born in the lower classes of the community, has
risen from the ranks to be an officer, has already taken a prodigious
step. He has gained a footing in a sphere above that which he filled
in civil life, and he has acquired rights which most democratic nations
will ever consider as inalienable. *a He is willing to pause after so
great an effort, and to enjoy what he has won. The fear of risking what
he has already obtained damps the desire of acquiring what he has not
got. Having conquered the first and greatest impediment which opposed
his advancement, he resigns himself with less impatience to the slowness
of his progress. His ambition will be more and more cooled in proportion
as the increasing distinction of his rank teaches him that he has more
to put in jeopardy. If I am not mistaken, the least warlike, and also
the least revolutionary part, of a democratic army, will always be its
chief commanders. [Footnote a: The position of officers is indeed much
more secure amongst democratic nations than elsewhere; the lower the
personal standing of the man, the greater is the comparative importance
of his military grade, and the more just and necessary is it that the
enjoyment of that rank should be secured by the laws.]
But the remarks I have just made on officers and soldiers are
not applicable to a numerous class which in all armies fills the
intermediate space between them--I mean the class of non-commissioned
officers. This class of non-commissioned officers which have never acted
a part in history until the present century, is henceforward destined,
I think, to play one of some importance. Like the officers,
non-commissioned officers have broken, in their minds, all the ties
which bound them to civil life; like the former, they devote themselves
permanently to the service, and perhaps make it even more exclusively
the object of all their desires: but non-commissioned officers are men
who have not yet reached a firm and lofty post at which they may pause
and breathe more freely, ere they can attain further promotion. By
the very nature of his duties, which is invariable, a non-commissioned
officer is doomed to lead an obscure, confined, comfortless, and
precarious existence; as yet he sees nothing of military life but its
dangers; he knows nothing but its privations and its discipline--more
difficult to support than dangers: he suffers the more from his present
miseries, from knowing that the constitution of society and of the army
allow him to rise above them; he may, indeed, at any time obtain his
commission, and enter at once upon command, honors, independence,
rights, and enjoyments. Not only does this object of his hopes appear to
him of immense importance, but he is never sure of reaching it till it
is actually his own; the grade he fills is by no means irrevocable; he
is always entirely abandoned to the arbitrary pleasure of his
commanding officer, for this is imperiously required by the necessity of
discipline: a slight fault, a whim, may always deprive him in an instant
of the fruits of many years of toil and endeavor; until he has reached
the grade to which he aspires he has accomplished nothing; not till he
reaches that grade does his career seem to begin. A desperate ambition
cannot fail to be kindled in a man thus incessantly goaded on by his
youth, his wants, his passions, the spirit of his age, his hopes,
and his age, his hopes, and his fears. Non-commissioned officers are
therefore bent on war--on war always, and at any cost; but if war be
denied them, then they desire revolutions to suspend the authority
of established regulations, and to enable them, aided by the general
confusion and the political passions of the time, to get rid of their
superior officers and to take their places. Nor is it impossible for
them to bring about such a crisis, because their common origin and
habits give them much influence over the soldiers, however different may
be their passions and their desires.
It would be an error to suppose that these various characteristics of
officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, belong to any particular
time or country; they will always occur at all times, and amongst
all democratic nations. In every democratic army the non-commissioned
officers will be the worst representatives of the pacific and orderly
spirit of the country, and the private soldiers will be the best. The
latter will carry with them into military life the strength or weakness
of the manners of the nation; they will display a faithful reflection of
the community: if that community is ignorant and weak, they will allow
themselves to be drawn by their leaders into disturbances, either
unconsciously or against their will; if it is enlightened and energetic,
the community will itself keep them within the bounds of order.