ORGANIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
A SKETCH OF THE ORIGIN OF ORGANIZATION AS SEEN IN THE EARLY STANDING
ARMIES OF EUROPE
The organization of armies in the ancient world, or in Asia in more
recent times, must be regarded as beyond the scope of this work. The
history of Organization will be taken up at the time when the use of
firearms had begun to revolutionize fighting, and transform the feudal
levies of the Middle Ages into regular armies.
Modern organization dates from the close of the Feudal Epoch in the
fifteenth century, after which wars were waged less for national
purposes than for the furtherance of dynastic or State interests, and
were no longer carried on by the levy of the nation, but by mercenaries
hired by the Monarch or the State.
This process originated in Italy, where the rivalry of the trading
republics caused them to engage Swiss, English, and other mercenaries
to fight their neighbours. Hence we find that military organization
in its modern form originated in Italy, and that in consequence
most military terms are derived from Italian, as may be seen in such
words as _infantry_, _cavalry_, _colonel_, _squadron_, _battalion_,
_regiment_. This nomenclature was definitely adopted by the French
after their invasion of Italy in 1496, and, through French, has
passed into universal use. Thus, by 1524, we find _Colonel_ used in
France, whence it reached England in the time of Elizabeth, along with
_Regiment_, _Cavalry_, and _Infantry_.
Permanent regular forces are first found in France near the end of the
fifteenth century, when the King raised _Companies_ of men-at-arms
(gens d’armes) or armoured horsemen, and of foot archers and
halberdiers, of whom his Scottish Guards were the finest type. Up to
that time the “Lance”--that is, the fully armoured knight with his
retinue of a squire, a page, and three or four mounted men--formed the
principal element of every military force. A number of such independent
Lances, jealous of each other, and untrained to act together, could
not be _organized_ in the modern sense. Besides these mounted men,
there was usually a mass of men on foot unarmoured and ill-armed,
undisciplined and untrained. In feudal times it was only the English
archers, the Genoese crossbowmen, and the Swiss halberdiers who had the
discipline and training to make them of any account as Infantry.
The word _company_ in its military sense denoted originally the
gathering of feudal retainers who followed their lord to the wars; it
then came to mean the band who obeyed a _Captain_ (_caput_, _head_),
some noted leader among the mercenaries from whom regular armies
sprang. The word _company_ is derived from the Old French _compainie_,
the Latin _companion-em_ (_companion_), from _cum-pane_ (_with bread_),
implying an intimate association of men in one mess.
The Company of Horse was soon differentiated from that of Foot, by
being called a _Troop_--a word of uncertain origin, by some connected
with _turba_ (a _crowd_), by others with the root of the Teutonic
_treiben_ (_drive_), and akin to a _drove_.
The strength of a Company was at first indefinite, and amounted to
some hundreds of men, but it was gradually made smaller, so as to be
more flexible and mobile. The practice of the most successful leaders
finally reduced it to a definite body of about a hundred men, which it
was found was the largest number which could with certainty be reached
by the voice, and commanded by one man, in battle.
This strength of one hundred men was that of a Company of the Scottish
Guards in France, and is found in England in the troops and companies
of the army of Henry VIII.; it is still that of our Companies to-day.
The assemblage of a number of Companies and Troops made up the _Army_
(from the French _Armée_, Italian _Armata_, or _armed host_). Its
_Commander_ (Old French _Commandaire_, Late Latin _Commandator_, a
word which occurs in English in the fourteenth century) was styled
the King’s _Constable_ (_Comes Stabuli_, or _Master of the Horse_),
a dignity as old as the early Frankish Kings. His Second-in-Command
was the _Marshal_ (Old French _Mareschal_, Late Latin _Mariscalcus_,
from Teutonic _mara_, _horse_, and _skalk_, _servant_). Down to our
day the title of the highest military rank in France has always been
_Maréchal de France_. But there was also a _Maréchal de Camp_ of
lower rank, only immediately senior to a Colonel, so that the Germans
made a mistake when, in the eighteenth century, they translated the
latter, and not the former, title, and called their highest rank of
Officer _Feld-Marschal_, which we have adopted as _Field-Marshal_.
The difference between the two titles may be exemplified by Marshal
Belleisle’s remark on Montcalm’s exploit at Ticonderoga: “If it were
_possible_ for the King to make a Maréchal de Camp a Maréchal de
France, he would do it for Montcalm.”
The term _Constable_ for the Supreme Commander soon dropped out, and
was replaced by _Marshal_, and later by _Captain-General_, which lasted
down to Marlborough’s time. The word _Commander-in-Chief_, which does
not occur in English till the middle of the seventeenth century, came
into use as the official title early in the eighteenth.
THE REGIMENT
It had become usual by the sixteenth century to raise soldiers by
larger bodies than the Company or Troop, and these were called
_Regiments_, from being under the _regiment_, or _rule_, of one man.
This officer was called the _Oberst_, or _uppermost man_, in Germany,
but in other countries the _Colonel_. This word comes from the Italian
_Colonello_ (_little column_), which perhaps meant the leading Company,
or that of the Colonel. In Spanish it is _Coronel_, which seems to have
given rise to our pronunciation of the word.
The Colonel practically owned the Regiment he raised, and especially
the first Company of it, from which he derived his emoluments. It thus
became a practice for men of position to raise Regiments, first of
Horse--then the nobler Arm--and later of Foot also. Such noblemen were
often too busy, or too grand, to attend personally to their Regiment,
and soon became mere absentees. Their Command was then gradually
transferred to their _locum tenens_, the _lieu-tenant_ of the Colonel,
so called because the Command of the Company, or Troop, of which the
Colonel was nominally the Captain, always devolved on his Lieutenant.
Thus the officer styled the _Lieutenant-Colonel_ began to act as
Commander of the Regiment, as he is to this day in England.
EARLIEST REGIMENTAL ORGANIZATION
The origin of the modern organization of Regiments of Horse and
Foot can be traced in most of its details to that of the German
_Landsknecht_ Infantry and _Reiter_ Cavalry in Germany towards
the end of the fifteenth century. The organization of both was
nearly identical, being no doubt adapted from the Swiss, and the
Italian _Condottieri_, or the English _Free Companies_, typical
fourteenth-century mercenaries.
The Regiment was raised as follows: A leader of distinction, the
_Colonel_, selected his _Captains_; the latter raised the Troops
or Companies to form the Regiment, by enlisting recruits in their
districts with beat of drum and proclamation, exactly as in England for
centuries later. The Captain of Horse was called _Rittmeister_ (_Reiter
meister_, or _master of Reiters_), and the Captain of Foot, _Hauptmann_
(_Head-man_), as they are in Germany to this day.
The Colonel chose his _locum tenens_, or _Lieutenant_, as did also each
Captain. A _Fähnrich_ (_Flagbearer_) was appointed to each Troop or
Company, that his flag might present a conspicuous rallying point. To
the Flagbearer was attached a _Trumpeter_ in each Troop of Horse, or a
_Fifer_ and _Drummer_ in each Company of Foot, so that the men could
rally to the flag by sound, as well as by sight, in the confusion of
battle. The flag of the Horse was triangular or hornshaped, whence it
was called in French a _Cornette_, while that of the Foot was square,
and termed the _Enseigne_ (Latin _Insignium_). Hence the officers
who carried the flags were later designated _Cornets_ and _Ensigns_,
in Cavalry and Infantry Regiments respectively. These titles for the
junior Lieutenants who carried the flags survived in England till
late in the nineteenth century, and it seems a pity to have replaced
so picturesque and concise a designation of rank by the cumbrous and
un-English term _Second Lieutenant_.
There were thus, in each Troop or Company, three Officers, the
_Captain_, the _Lieutenant_, and the _Ensign_, the same found in the
subsequent organization of all armies.
Besides these three officers, each Troop of Reiters had a
_Wachmeister_, and each Company of Landsknechts a _Feldwebel_, terms
still retained in Germany with the meaning of _Sergeant_. This officer
was of great importance in the unit, as he was charged with its drills
in peace, and with its manœuvres in battle, when the other officers
were in front fighting, and could not watch the men. As the Sergeant
had to give orders in action, he became also responsible for Orders at
all times, so that he was virtually a kind of Adjutant to the unit.
In battle the Infantry Sergeant had to run up and down the Company to
supervise its movements; he, therefore, could not well be encumbered
with the long pike, but retained the earlier halberd, which survived as
the special arm of the Sergeant of Infantry in England down to 1829.
There was similarly in the _Regiment_ a corresponding officer, the
_Sergeant-Major_, later styled simply the _Major_, as he still is. He
was practically a Staff Officer, or Adjutant, to the Colonel, exactly
as the _Sergeant_ was to the Captain. He issued the Colonel’s orders to
the Sergeants, and was responsible for the drill of the Regiment, and
its manœuvres in battle. He was therefore mounted, even in the Infantry
Regiment, like our Adjutant to-day, in order that he might move rapidly
up and down the Regiment, to superintend its movements and give orders
to the Sergeants of the various Companies.
There was also in the Reiters a _Quarter-Master_, the _Fourier_
(as the French still style him), with a subordinate (now the
Quarter-Master-Sergeant). His duties were to provide _quarters_,
and, as the men had to be fed in these quarters, he became charged
in addition with _subsistence_, exactly as is our Quarter-Master
to-day. In old times the Quarter-Master was also responsible for
_reconnaissance_, which was no doubt due to the fact that, having
to precede the troops on the march, so as to provide quarters for
them that evening, it fell to him to decide on the correct route,
and he had, therefore, to reconnoitre to the front. What are now the
Staff duties of reconnaissance and directing marches became thus
associated with the Quarter-Master of each unit, and afterwards with
the corresponding officer, the Quarter-Master-General of the whole
army. Therefore, down to a few years ago, the Q.M.G. was charged
with all Staff work connected with marches, routes, reconnaissance,
and information--a curious survival through four centuries of the
organization of the Reiters.
As regards subordinates, or, as we should now say, non-commissioned
officers, there was a _File-Master_ (_Rottmeister_) at the head of each
file, for the Troop or Company was drawn up in very deep formation.
This specially selected soldier was called _Capo di Squadra_ (_Head
of the Squad_) in Italian, a reminiscence of the early formation of
the smallest fighting body (our _Squad_) in a square (_Squadra_). From
_Capo di Squadra_ came the French _Caporal_ (which we have rendered
_Corporal_, by false derivation from _corporalis_, _corpus_, _body_),
who is still the Squad leader. The fact that they originally stood
in the ranks at the head of the files accounts for the inclusion of
Corporals, but not Sergeants, in the expression _Rank and File_, for
the Sergeants were out of the ranks, superintending the men, as they
are to-day.
The organization of a Regiment of Reiters or of Landsknechts, as
described above, became by the end of the sixteenth century general
in all armies, and has, in essentials, survived in modern Regimental
organization. The Regiment bore the name of the man who raised it
or succeeded to its command, down into the nineteenth century,
although _Numbers_ began to replace personal _Names_ as titles of
Regiments, during the eighteenth. The Regiment, whether of Cavalry or
Infantry, was rather the administrative than the tactical unit on the
battlefield, and formed, as to-day, the permanent organization through
which the men received their pay, clothing, and subsistence. Hence
arose the strong and lasting regimental traditions and esprit-de-corps,
which survive in the older armies to-day.
The first country to possess a formidable Standing Army was Spain, in
the sixteenth century, and her example was soon followed by France,
the Empire, and the Netherlands, and in the next century by Sweden,
England, and Prussia.
The most important developments in war organization were due to great
military reformers, whose armies became the model of their day to all
other countries. These were Maurice of Nassau, who led the Dutch in
their terrible struggle with Spain towards the close of the sixteenth
century, and Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who a few years later
formed the famous army which carried all before it during the Thirty
Years’ War. The improvements introduced by these great soldiers will be
described in the following chapters, which deal with the evolution of
the organization of each Arm separately.