Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE ARMY: "The infantry brigade consists, in the British
service, of the brigadier and his staff, four battalions of
infantry, and administrative and medical units, the combatant
strength being about 4000 men." 'administrative' amended from
'adminstrative'.
ARTICLE ARMY: "The question of the value of auxiliary forces, then,
as between the continuous work of, say, English territorials, and
the permanent though dwindling influence of an original period of
active soldiering, is one of considerable importance." 'continuous'
amended from 'continous'.
ARTICLE ARMY: "Louvois, who was minister of Louis XIV., was the
true creator of the French royal army." Added 'who' after
'Louvois'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME II, SLICE VI
Armour Plates to Arundel, Earls of
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
ARMOUR PLATES ARRONDISSEMENT
ARMS AND ARMOUR ARROWROOT
ARMSTEAD, HENRY HUGH ARROWSMITH
ARMSTRONG, ARCHIBALD ARROYO
ARMSTRONG, JOHN (British physician) ARSACES
ARMSTRONG, JOHN (American diplomat) ARS-AN-DER-MOSEL
ARMSTRONG, SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARSCHOT, PHILIPPE DE CROY, DUKE OF
ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM GEORGE ARSENAL
ARMY ARSENIC
ARNAL, ETIENNE ARSENIUS
ARNALDUS DE VILLA NOVA ARSENIUS AUTORIANUS
ARNAUD, HENRI ARSES
ARNAULD ARSINOE
ARNAULT, ANTOINE VINCENT ARSINOITHERIUM
ARNDT, ERNST MORITZ ARSON
ARNDT, JOHANN ARSONVAL
ARNE, THOMAS AUGUSTINE ARSOT
ARNETH, ALFRED ARSUF
ARNHEM ARSURE
ARNICA ARSURES
ARNIM, ELISABETH ART
ARNIM, HARRY KARL KURT EDUARD VON ARTA
ARNIM, LUDWIG ACHIM (JOACHIM) VON ARTA, GULF OF
ARNIM-BOYTZENBURG, HANS GEORG VON ARTABANUS
ARNO (bishop of Salzburg) ART AND PART
ARNO (river of Italy) ARTAPHERNES
ARNOBIUS (early Christian writer) ARTAXERXES
ARNOBIUS (Christian priest) ARTEDI, PETER
ARNOLD ARTEGA
ARNOLD, BENEDICT ARTEL
ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN ARTEMIDORUS
ARNOLD, GOTTFRIED ARTEMIS
ARNOLD, MATTHEW ARTEMISIA (daughter of Lygdamis)
ARNOLD, SAMUEL ARTEMISIA (wife of Mausolus)
ARNOLD, THOMAS ARTEMON
ARNOTT, NEIL ARTENA
ARNOULD-PLESSY, JEANNE SYLVANIE ARTERIES
ARNSBERG ARTERN
ARNSTADT ARTESIAN WELLS
ARNSWALDE ARTEVELDE, JACOB VAN
ARNULF ARTEVELDE, PHILIP VAN
AROIDEAE ART GALLERIES
AROLSEN ARTHRITIS
ARONA ARTHROPODA
ARPEGGIO ARTHUR
ARPI ARTHUR I
ARPINO ARTHUR III
ARQUA PETRARCA ARTHUR, CHESTER ALAN
ARQUEBUS ARTHURIAN LEGEND
ARQUES-LA-BATAILLE ARTICHOKE
ARRACK ARTICLE
ARRAH ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION
ARRAIGNMENT ARTICULATA
ARRAN, EARLS OF ARTICULATION
ARRAN ARTILLERY
ARRANT ARTIODACTYLA
ARRAS ARTISAN
ARRAY ARTOIS
ARRENOTOKOUS, ARRENOTOKY ART SALES
ARREST ARTS AND CRAFTS
ARRESTMENT ART SOCIETIES
ARRETIUM ART TEACHING
ARRHENIUS, SVANTE AUGUST ARTUSI, GIOVANNI MARIA
ARRIA ARU ISLANDS
ARRIAN ARUNDEL, EARLDOM OF
ARRIS ARUNDEL, EARLS OF
ARMOUR PLATES.
Defence for ships.
History.
The earliest recorded proposal to employ armour for ships of war (for
body armour, &c., see ARMS AND ARMOUR) appears to have been made in
England by Sir William Congreve in 1805. In _The Times_ of the 20th of
February of that year reference is made to Congreve's designs for an
armoured, floating mortar battery which the inventor considered would be
proof against artillery fire. Among Congreve's unpublished papers there
is also a suggestion for armour-plating the embrasures of casemates.
Nothing, however, seems to have come of these proposals, and a similar
lack of appreciation befell the next advocate of armour, John Stevens of
New Jersey, U.S.A., who submitted the plans of an armoured vessel to
Congress in 1812. The Stevens family, however, continued to work at the
subject, and by 1841 had determined by actual experiment the thickness
of wrought-iron armour which was proof against the projectiles then in
use. The necessity for armouring ships as a protection against shell
fire was again pointed out by General Paixhans in 1841, and in 1845
Dupuy de Lome had prepared the designs of an armoured frigate for the
French government. During the period between 1827 and 1854, experiments
in connexion with the proposed application of armour to both ships and
forts were carried out in England, the United States and France, but the
question did not get beyond the experimental stage until the latter
year, when armoured floating batteries were laid down in all three
countries, probably as the immediate outcome of the destruction of the
Turkish fleet by shell fire at Sinope on the 30th of November 1853.
Three of the French floating batteries were in action at the bombardment
of Kinburn in 1855, where they achieved a conspicuous success, silencing
the Russian forts after a four hours' engagement, during which they
themselves, although frequently struck, were practically uninjured,
their loss in personnel being but trifling. To quote Very: "This
comparatively insignificant action, which had little if any effect upon
the course of the Crimean War, changed the whole condition of armour for
naval use from one of speculation to one of actual and constant
necessity." The military application of armour for the protection of
guns mounted in permanent fortifications followed. Its development,
however, took rather a different course, and the question of armour
generally is of less importance for the military engineer than for the
naval constructor. For the employment of armour in ship construction and
in permanent works on land, see the articles SHIPBUILDING; FORTIFICATION
AND SIEGECRAFT; the present article is concerned solely with the actual
armour itself.
Construction and testing.
The earliest armour, both for ships and forts, was made of wrought iron,
and was disposed either in a single thickness or in successive layers
sandwiched with wood or concrete. Such armour is now wholly obsolete,
though examples of it may still be found in a few forts of early date.
The chief application of armour in modern land defences is in the form
of shields for the protection of guns mounted _en barbette_. Examples of
such shields are shown in figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1 shows a 4.5-in. steel
shield for the U.S.A. government, face-hardened by the Harvey process,
to which reference is made below. It was attacked by 5-in. and 6-in.
armour-piercing shot, and proved capable of keeping out the 5-in. up to
a striking velocity of nearly 1800 ft. per second, but was defeated by a
6-in. capped A.P. shot with a striking velocity of 1842 ft. per second.
The mounting was not seriously damaged by the firing, but could be
operated after the impact of one 3.2-in., five 5-in. and three 6-in.
projectiles. Fig. 2 shows a gun-shield, manufactured by Messrs Hadfield
of Sheffield, after attack by 4.1-in., 4.7-in. and 6-in. armour-piercing
and other projectiles. The limit of the shield's resistance was just
reached by an uncapped 4.7-in. A.P. shell with a striking velocity of
2128 ft. per second. The shield (the average maximum thickness of which
was 5.8 in.) showed great toughness, and although subjected to a severe
battering, and occasionally outmatched by the attacking projectiles,
developed no visible crack. It is chiefly remarkable for the fact that
it was cast and not forged. As is evident from the fringing around the
hole made by the 6-in. A.P. shell, the shield was not face-hardened. A
more highly developed form of the gun-shield is to be found in the
armoured cupola, which has been employed to a very considerable extent
in permanent fortifications, and whose use is still strongly advocated
by continental European military engineers. The majority of the cupolas
to be found in continental forts are not, however, of very recent date,
those erected in 1894 at Molsheim near Strassburg being comparatively
modern instances. Any cupolas constructed nowadays would be of steel,
either forged or cast, and would probably be face-hardened, but a large
number of those extant are of compound or even of iron armour. Many of
those on sea-fronts are made of chilled cast iron. Such armour, which
was introduced by Gruson of Magdeburg in 1868, is extremely hard, and
cannot be perforated, but must be destroyed by fracture. It is thus the
antithesis of wrought iron, which, when of good quality, does not break
up under the impact of the shot but yields by perforation. Armour of the
Gruson type is well adapted for curved surfaces such as cupolas, which
on account of their shape are scarcely liable to receive a direct hit,
except at distant ranges, and its extreme hardness would greatly assist
it to throw off shot striking obliquely, which have naturally a tendency
to glance. Chilled iron, on account of its liability to break up when
subjected to a continuous bombardment by the armour-piercing steel
projectiles of guns of even medium calibre, was usually considered
unsuitable for employment in inland forts, where wrought iron, mild
steel or compound armour was preferred. On the other hand, as pointed
out by the late Captain C. Orde Browne, R.A., it was admirably adapted
to resist the few rounds that the heavy guns of battleships might be
expected to deliver during an attack of comparatively limited duration.
Chilled iron was never employed for naval purposes, and warship armour
continued to be made exclusively of wrought iron until 1876 when steel
was introduced by Schneider. In an important trial at Spezzia in that
year the superiority in resisting power of steel to wrought iron was
conclusively proved, but, on the other hand, steel showed a great
tendency to through-cracking, a defect which led Messrs Cammell of
Sheffield in 1877 to introduce compound armour consisting of a steel
surface in intimate union with a wrought-iron foundation plate. In
Cammell plates, which were made by the Wilson process, the steel face
was formed by running molten steel on to a white-hot foundation plate of
iron, while in the compound plates, made by Messrs John Brown & Co.
according to the patent of J.D. Ellis, a thin steel surface plate was
cemented on to the wrought-iron foundation by running in molten steel
between. Compound armour possessed the advantages of a harder face than
was then possible in a homogeneous steel plate, while, on the other
hand, the back was softer and less liable to crack. Its weak point was
the liability of the surface plate to crack through under fire and
become detached from its iron backing. The manufacture of steel,
however, continued to improve, so that in 1890 we find steel plates
being made which were comparatively free from liability to
through-cracking, while their power to resist perforation was somewhat
greater than that of the best compound. The difference, however, was at
no time very marked, and between 1880 and 1890 the resistance to
perforation of either steel or compound as compared with wrought iron
may be taken as about 1.3 to 1.
Compound armour required to be well backed to bring out its best
qualities, and there is a case on record in 1883 when a 12-in. Cammell
plate weighing 10-1/2 tons, backed by granite, stopped a 16-in. Palliser
shot with a striking energy of nearly 30,000 foot tons and a calculated
perforation of 25 inches of wrought iron. As steel improved, efforts
were made to impart an even greater hardness to the actual surface or
skin of compound armour, and, with this object in view, Captain T.J.
Tresidder, C.M.G., patented in 1887 a method of chilling the heated
surface of a plate by means of jets of water under pressure. By this
method it was found possible to obtain a degree of hardness which was
prevented in ordinary plunging by the formation of a layer of steam
between the water and the heated surface of the plate. Compound plates
face-hardened on this system gave excellent results, and forged-steel
armour-piercing projectiles were in some cases broken up on their
surfaces as if they had been merely chilled iron. Attempts were also
made to increase the toughness of the back by the substitution of mild
nickel steel for wrought iron. The inherent defect of compound armour,
however--its want of homogeneity,--remained, and in the year 1891 H.A.
Harvey of Newark, N.J., introduced a process whereby an all steel plate
could be face-hardened in such a way that the advantages of the compound
principle were obtained in a homogeneous plate. The process in question
consisted in carburizing or cementing the surface of a steel plate by
keeping it for a fortnight or so at a high temperature in contact with
finely divided charcoal, so that the heated surface absorbed a certain
amount of carbon, which penetrated to a considerable depth, thus causing
a difference in chemical composition between the front and back of the
plate. After it had been left a sufficient time in the cementation
furnace, the plate was withdrawn and allowed to cool slowly until it
reached a dull red heat, when it was suddenly chilled by the application
of water, but by a less perfect method than that employed by Tresidder.
Steel plates treated by the Harvey and Tresidder processes, which
shortly became combined, possessed about twice the resisting power of
wrought iron. The figure of merit, or resistance to penetration as
compared with wrought iron, varied with the thickness of the plate,
being rather more than 2 with plates from 6 to 8 in. thick and rather
less for the thicker plates. In 1889 Schneider introduced the use of
nickel in steel for armour plates, and in 1891 or 1892 the St Chamond
works employed a nickel steel to which was added a small percentage of
chromium.
All modern armour contains nickel in percentages varying from 3 to 5,
and from 1.0 to 2.0% of chromium is also employed as a general rule.
Nickel in the above quantities adds greatly to the toughness as well as
to the hardness of steel, while chromium enables it to absorb carbon to
a greater depth during cementation, and increases its susceptibility to
tempering, besides conducing to a tough fibrous condition in the body of
a plate. Alloy steels of this nature appear to be very susceptible to
thermal treatment, by suitable variation of which, with or without oil
quenching, the physical condition of the same steel may be made to vary
to an extraordinary extent, a peculiarity which is turned to good
account in the manufacture of the modern armour plate.
The principal modern process is that introduced by Krupp in 1893.
Although it is stated that a few firms both in Great Britain and in
other countries use special processes of their own, it is probable that
they differ only in detail from the Krupp process, which has been
adopted by the great majority of makers. Krupp plates are made of
nickel-chrome steel and undergo a special heat treatment during
manufacture which is briefly described below. They can either be
cemented or, as was usual in England until about 1902 in the case of the
thinner plates (4 in. and under) and those used for curved structures
such as casemates, non-cemented. They are in either case face-hardened
by chilling. Messrs Krupp have, however, cemented plates of 3 in. and
upward since 1895. Although the full process is now applied to plates of
as little as 2 in. in thickness, there is some difference of opinion
between manufacturers as to the value of cementing these very thin
plates. The simple Harvey process is still employed to some extent in
the case of plates between 5 and 3 in. in thickness, and excellent
results are also stated to have been obtained with plates from 2 to 4
in. in thickness, manufactured from a special steel by the process
patented by M. Charpy of the St Jacques steel works at Montlucon. A
Krupp cemented (K.C.) plate is not perhaps harder as regards surface
than a good Harveyed plate, but the depth of hard face is greater, and
the plate is very much tougher in the back, a quality which is of
particular importance in the thicker plates. The figure of merit varies,
as in Harveyed plates, with the thickness of the armour, being about 2.7
in the case of good 6-in. plates while for the thicker plates the value
gradually falls off to about 2.3 in the case of 12-in. armour. This
figure of merit is as against uncapped armour-piercing shot of
approximately the same calibre as the thickness of the plate. The
resisting power of the non-cemented Krupp plates is usually regarded as
being considerably less than that of the cemented plates, and may be
taken on an average to be 2.25 times that of wrought iron.
Figs. 3, 4 and 5 are illustrations of good cemented plates of the Krupp
type. Fig. 3 shows an 11.8-in. plate, tried by Messrs Krupp in 1895,
after attack by three 12-in. steel armour-piercing projectiles of from
712.7 to 716.1 lb. in weight. In the third round the striking velocity
of the projectile was 1993 ft. per second, the calculated perforation of
wrought iron by Tresidder's formula being 25.9 in. The attack was
successfully resisted, all the projectiles being broken up without
effecting perforation, while there were no serious cracks. The figure of
merit of the plate was thus well in excess of 2.2. The great toughness
of the plate is perhaps even more remarkable than its hardness; its
width was only 6.28 ft., so that each shot head formed a wedge of
approximately one-sixth of its width. The excellence of the metal which
is capable of withstanding such a strain is apparent.
Fig. 4 is of a 9-in. K.C. plate, made by Messrs Armstrong, Whitworth &
Co. for the Japanese government, after undergoing an unusually severe
official test. The fourth round was capable of perforating 22 in. of
wrought iron, so that the figure of merit of the plate must have been
considerably in excess of 2.45, as there were no through-cracks, and the
limit of resistance was far from being reached.
Fig. 5 shows the front of an excellent 6-in. cemented plate of Messrs
Beardmore's manufacture, tried at Eskmeals on the 11th of October 1901.
It withstood the attack of four armour-piercing 6-in. shot of 100 lb.
weight, with striking velocities varying from 1996 to 2177 ft. per
second. Its limit of resistance was just passed by the fifth round in
which the striking velocity was no less than 2261 ft. per second. The
projectile, which broke up in passing through the plate, did not get
through the skin plate behind the wood backing, and evidently had no
surplus energy left. The figure of merit of this plate was between 2.6
and 2.8, but was evidently much closer to the latter than to the former
figure. A sixth round fired with a Johnson capped shot weighing 105.9
lb. easily perforated both plate and backing with a striking velocity of
1945 ft. per second, thus reducing the figure of merit of the plate to
below 2.2 and illustrating very clearly the advantage given by capping
the point of an armour-piercing projectile. There were no through-cracks
in the plate after this severe trial, the back being evidently as tough
as the face was hard.
Fig. 6 shows a 3-in. K.N.C. plate of Messrs Vickers, Sons & Maxim's
manufacture, tested privately by the firm in November 1905. It proved to
be of unusual excellence, its limit of resistance being just reached by
a 12-1/2-lb. armour-piercing shell of 3 in. calibre with a striking
velocity of 2558 ft. per second, a result which, even if the projectiles
used were not relatively of the same perforating power as those used in
the proof of 6-in. and thicker plates, shows that its resisting power
was very great. At a low estimate its figure of merit against 3-in. A.P.
_shot_ may be taken as about 2.6, which is exceptionally high for a
non-cemented, or indeed for any but the best K.C. plates.
The plate also withstood the attack of a 4.7-in. service pattern steel
armour-piercing shell of 45 lb. weight striking the unbacked portion
with a velocity of 1599 ft. per second, and was only just beaten by a
similar shell with a velocity of 1630 ft. per second. The effect of all
the above-mentioned rounds is shown in the photograph. The same plate
subsequently kept out two 6-in. common shell filled up to weight with
salt and plugged, with striking velocities of 1412 and 1739 ft. per
second respectively, the former being against the unbacked and the
latter against the backed half of the plate,--the only effect on the
plate being that round 6 caused a fragment of the right-hand top corner
of the plate to break off, and round 7 started a few surface cracks
between the points of impact of rounds 1, 2 and 3.
Within the limitations referred to below, the resisting power of all
hard-faced plates is very much reduced when the armour-piercing
projectiles used in the attack are capped, the average figure of merit
of Krupp cemented plates not being more than 2 against capped shot as
compared with about 2.5 against uncapped. So long ago as 1878 it was
suggested by Lt.-Col. (then Captain) T. English, R.E., that
armour-piercing projectiles would be assisted in attacking compound
plates if caps of wrought iron could be fitted to their points.
Experiments at Shoeburyness, however, did not show that any advantage
was gained by this device, and nothing further was heard of the cap
until 1894, when experiments carried out in Russia with so-called
"magnetic" shot against plates of Harveyed steel showed that the
perforating power of an armour-piercing projectile was considerably
augmented where hard-faced plates were concerned, if its point were
protected by a cap of wrought iron or mild steel. The conditions of the
Russian results (and of subsequent trials in various parts of the world
which have confirmed them) differed considerably from the earlier
English ones. The material of both projectiles and plates differed, as
did also the velocities employed--the low velocities in the earlier
trials probably contributing in large measure to the non-success of the
cap. The cap, as now used, consists of a thimble of comparatively soft
steel of from 3 to 5% of the weight of the projectile, attached to the
point of the latter either by solder or by being pressed hydraulically
or otherwise into grooves or indentations in the head. Its function
appears to be to support the point on impact, and so to enable it to get
unbroken through the hard face layers of the plate. Once through the
cemented portion with its point intact, a projectile which is strong
enough to remain undeformed, will usually perforate the plate by a true
boring action if its striking velocity be high enough. In the case of
the uncapped projectile, on the other hand, the point is almost
invariably crushed against the hard face and driven back as a wedge into
the body of the projectile, which is thus set up so that, instead of
boring, it acts as a punch and dislodges or tends to dislodge a coned
plug or disk of metal, the greatest diameter of which may be as much as
four times the calibre of the projectile. The disproportion between the
maximum diameter of the disk and that of the projectile is particularly
marked when the calibre of the latter is much in excess of the thickness
of the plate. When plate and projectile are equally matched, e.g. 6"
versus 6", the plug of metal dislodged may be roughly cylindrical in
shape, and its diameter not greatly in excess of that of the projectile.
In all cases the greatest width of the plug or disk is at the back of
the plate.
A stout and rigid backing evidently assists a plate very much more
against this class of attack than against the perforating attack of a
capped shot. Fig. 7 shows the back of a 6-in. plate attacked in 1898,
and affords an excellent illustration of the difference in action of
capped and uncapped projectiles. In round 7 the star-shaped opening made
by the point of a capped shot boring its way through is seen, while
rounds 2, 3, 4 and 5 show disks of plate partially dislodged by uncapped
projectiles. The perforating action of capped armour-piercing
projectiles is even better shown in fig. 8, which shows a 250-mm. (9.8
in.) Krupp plate after attack by 150-mm. (5.9 in.) capped A.P. shot. In
rounds 5 and 6 the projectiles, with striking velocities of 2302 and
2281 ft. per second, perforated. Round 7, with a striking velocity of
2244 ft. per second, just got its point through and rebounded, while
round 8, with a striking velocity of 2232, lodged in the plate. In many
cases a capped projectile punches out a plug, usually more or less
cylindrical in shape and of about the same diameter as the projectile,
from a plate, and does not defeat it by a true boring action. In such
cases it will probably be found that the projectile has been broken up,
and that only the head, set up and in a more or less crushed condition,
has got through the plate. This peculiarity of action can best be
accounted for by attributing either abnormal excellence to the plate or
to that portion of it concerned--for plates sometimes vary considerably
and are not of uniform hardness throughout,--or comparative inferiority
to the projectile. Whichever way it may be, what has happened appears to
be that after the cap has given the point sufficient support to get it
through the very hard surface layers, the point has been flattened in
the region of extreme hardness and toughness combined, which exists
immediately behind the deeply carburized surface. The action from this
point becomes a punching one, and the extra strain tends to break up the
projectile, so that the latter gets through wholly or partially, in a
broken condition, driving a plug of plate in front of it. At low
striking velocities, probably in the neighbourhood of 1700 ft. per
second, the cap fails to act, and no advantage is given by it to the
shot. This is probably because the velocity is sufficiently low to give
the cap time to expand and so fail to grip the point as the latter is
forced into it. The cap also fails as a rule to benefit the projectile
when the angle of incidence is more than 30 deg. to the normal.
[Illustrstion: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.--HARVEYIZED SHIELD, 4.5 INCHES THICK, ON 6-INCH PEDESTAL
MOUNT, AFTER ATTACK BY 5-INCH AND 6-INCH CAPPED ARMOUR-PIERCING SHOT.
FIG. 2.--GUN SHIELD, 6 INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK. (HADFIELD.)
FIG. 3.--KRUPP-CEMENTED PLATE, 11.8 INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK.
(KRUPP, MEPPEN.)
FIG. 4.--KRUPP-CEMENTED PLATE, 9 INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK.
(ARMSTRONG, WHITWORTH & CO.)]
[Illustrstion: PLATE II.
FIG. 5.--BEARDMORE CEMENTED PLATE, 6-INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK BY
6-INCH SHOT. (From Brassey's Naval Annual, 1902 by permission)
FIG 6.--KRUPP-CEMENTED PLATE, 3 INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK. (VICKERS,
SONS & MAXIM)
FIG. 7.--BACK OF A 6-INCH PLATE SHOWING ACTION OF CAPPED AND UNCAPPED
PROJECTILES.
FIG. 8.--BACK OF KRUPP PLATE 9.8 INCHES THICK, AFTER ATTACK, WITH
CAPPED PROJECTILE. (KRUPP, MEPPEN.)
(From Brassey's Naval Annual, by permission.)]
Laws of Resistance.
The laws governing the resistance of armour to perforation have been the
subject of investigation for many years, and a considerable number of
formulae have been put by means of which the thickness of armour
perforable by any given projectile at any given striking velocity may be
calculated. Although in some cases based on very different theoretical
considerations, there is a general agreement among them as far as
perforation proper is concerned, and Tresidder's formula for the
perforation of wrought iron, t^2 = wv^3/dA, may be taken as typical.
Here t represents the thickness perforable in inches, w the weight of
the projectile in pounds, v its velocity in foot seconds, d its diameter
in inches and A the constant given by log A = 8.8410.
For the perforation of Harveyed or Krupp cemented armour by capped
armour-piercing shot, this formula may be employed in conjunction with a
suitable constant according to the nature of armour attacked. In the
case of K. C. armour the formula becomes t^2 = wv^(3)/4dA. A useful
rough rule is t/d = v/1900.
Hard armour, such as chilled cast iron, cannot be perforated but must be
destroyed by fracture, and its destruction is apparently dependent
solely upon the striking energy of the projectile and independent of its
diameter. The punching of hard-faced armour by uncapped projectiles is
intermediate in character between perforation and cracking, but
approaches the former more nearly than the latter. The formula most used
in England in this case is Krupp's formula for K.C., viz. t^2 =
wv^2/dA^1, where t, w, v and d are the same as before, and log A^1 =
6.3532. This, if we assume the sectional density (w/d^3) of projectiles
to be constant and equal to 0.46, reduces to the very handy rule of
thumb t/d = v/2200, which, within the limits of striking velocity
obtainable under service conditions, is sufficiently accurate for
practical purposes. For oblique attack up to an angle of 30 deg. to the
normal, the same formula may be employed, t sec [theta] being
substituted for t, where [theta] is the angle of incidence and t the
normal thickness of the plate attacked. More exact results would be
obtained, however, by the use of Tresidder's W.I. formula, given above,
in conjunction with a suitable figure of merit, according to the nature
and thickness of the plate. It should be remembered in this connexion
that the figure of merit of a plate against a punching attack falls off
very much when the thickness of the plate is considerably less than the
calibre of the attacking projectile. For example, the F.M. of a 6-in.
plate may be 2.6 against 6-in. uncapped A.P. projectiles, but only 2.2
against 9.2-in. projectiles of the same character. In the case of the
perforating action of capped projectiles, on the other hand, the ratio
of d and t does not appear to affect the F.M. to any great extent,
though according to Tresidder, the latter is inclined to fall when d is
considerably less than t, which is the exact opposite of what happens
with punching.
Another method of measuring the quality of armour, which is largely
employed upon the continent of Europe, is by the ratio, r, between the
velocity requisite to perforate any given plate and that needed to
pierce a plate of mild steel of the same thickness, according to the
formula of Commandant Jacob de Marre, viz. v = Ae^(0.7).a^(0.75)/p^(0.5)
where e = the thickness of the plate in centimetres, a = the calibre of
the projectile in centimetres, p = the weight of the projectile in
kilogrammes, v = the striking velocity of the projectile in metres per
second, and log A = 1.7347. Converted into the usual English units and
notation, this formula becomes v = A^1t^(0.7).d^(0.75)/w^(0.5), in
which log A^1 = 3.0094; in this form it constitutes the basis of the
ballistic tests for the acceptance of armour plates for the U.S. navy.
Common shell, which are not strong enough to remain undeformed on
impact, derive little benefit from the cap and usually defeat a plate by
punching rather than by perforation. Their punching power may be taken
roughly as about 2/3 that of an uncapped armour-piercing shot. Shells
filled with high explosives, unless special arrangements are made to
deaden the bursting charge and so obviate detonation upon impact, are
only effective against the thinnest armour.
Manufacture.
With regard to manufacture, a brief account of the Krupp process as
applied in one of the great English armour plate works (omitting
confidential details of temperature, &c.) will illustrate the great
complexity of treatment which the modern armour plate has to undergo
before its remarkable qualities of combined hardness and toughness can
be developed. The composition of the steel probably differs slightly
with the manufacturer, and also with the thickness of the armour, but it
will usually contain from 3 to 4% of nickel, from 1.0 to 2.0% of
chromium and about 0.25 to 0.35% of carbon, together with from 0.3 to
0.7% of manganese. After being cast, the ingot is first heated to a
uniform degree of temperature throughout its mass and then generally
forged under the hydraulic forging press. It is then reheated and passed
through the rolls. After rolling, the plate is allowed to cool, and is
then subjected to a thermal treatment preparatory to surfacing and
cutting. Its surface is then freed from scale and planed. After planing,
the plate is passed into the cementation furnace, where its face remains
for some weeks in contact with specially prepared carbon, the
temperature being gradually raised to that required for cementation and
as gradually lowered after that is effected. After cementation the plate
is heated to a certain temperature and is then plunged into an oil bath
in order to toughen it. After withdrawal from the oil bath, the plate is
cooled, reheated to a lower temperature, quenched again in water,
reheated and passed to the bending press, where it is bent to shape
while hot, proper allowance being made for the slight change of curve
which takes place on the final chilling. After bending it is again
heated and then allowed to get cold, when the final machining, drilling
and cutting are carried out. The plate is now placed in a furnace and
differentially heated so that the face is raised to a higher temperature
than the back. After being thus heated for a certain period the plate is
withdrawn, and both back and face are douched simultaneously with jets
of cold water under pressure, the result being that the face is left
glass-hard while the back is in the toughest condition possible for such
hard steel.
The cast-steel armour made by Hadfield has already been alluded to. That
made by Krupp (the only other maker at present of this class of armour)
is of face-hardened nickel steel. A 5.9-in. plate of this material tried
in 1902 had a figure of merit of more than 2.2 against uncapped 5.9-in.
armour-piercing projectiles of 112 lb. in weight. The main advantage of
cast armour is that it is well adapted to armoured structures of
complicated design and of varying thickness, which it would be difficult
or impossible to forge in one piece. It should also be cheaper than
forged armour, and, should time be a consideration, could probably be
turned out more quickly; on the other hand, it is improbable that heavy
castings such as would be required could be as regular in quality and as
free from flaws as is possible when forged material is used, and it is
unlikely that the average resistance to attack of cast-steel armour will
ever be equal to that of the best forged steel.
Defence against small-arms.
Of recent years there has been a considerable demand for thin steel
plating proof against small-arm bullets at close ranges. This class of
steel is used for field-gun shields and for sap shields, to afford cover
for men in field-works, for armoured trains, motor-cars and ambulances,
and also very largely for armouring shallow-draught river-gunboats.
Holtzer made chrome steel breastplates in 1890, 0.158 in. of which was
proof against the 0.43-in. hard lead bullet of the Gras rifle at 10
metres range, while 0.236 in. was proof against the 0.32 in. 231-grain
Lebel bullet at the same distance, the striking velocities being
approximately 1490 and 2070 ft. per second respectively. The
bullet-proof steel made by Messrs Cammell, Laird & Co. in Great Britain
may be taken as typical of that produced by the best modern
manufacturers. It is proof against the 215-grain Lee-Enfield bullet of
0.303 in. calibre striking directly, as under:
Range. Thickness of Plate. Striking Velocity.
10 yards 0.187 inch 2050 f.s.
100 " 0.167 " 1865 "
560 " 0.080 " 1080 "
The weight of the 0.08 in. plating is only 3.2 lb. per sq. ft. The
material is stated to be readily adaptable to the ordinary operation of
bending, machining, drilling, &c., and is thus very suitable for the
purposes indicated above. (W. E. E.)
ARMS AND ARMOUR (Lat. _arma_, from the Aryan root _ar_, to join or fit;
cf. Gr. [Greek: armos], joint; the form _armour_, from Lat. _armatura_,
should strictly be _armure_). Under this heading are included weapons of
offence (arms) and defensive equipment (armour). The history of the
development of arms and armour begins with that of the human race;
indeed, combined with domestic implements, the most primitive weapons
which have been found constitute the most important, if not the only,
tangible evidence on which the history of primitive man is based. It is
largely from the materials and characteristics of the weapons and
utensils found in caves, tombs and various strata of the earth's crust,
coupled with geological considerations, that the ethnological and
chronological classifications of prehistoric man have been deduced. For
a detailed account of this classification and the evidence see
ARCHAEOLOGY; BRONZE AGE; FLINT IMPLEMENTS, &c., and articles on special
weapons.
Classification.
Offensive weapons may be classified roughly, according to their shape
(i.e. the kind of blow or wound which they are intended to inflict), and
the way in which they are used, as follows:--(1) Arms which are wielded
by hand at close quarters. These are subdivided into (a) _cleaving_
weapons, e.g. axes; (b) _crushing_, e.g. clubs, maces and all
hammer-like arms; (c) _thrusting_, e.g. pointed swords and daggers; (d)
_cutting_, e.g. sabres (such weapons frequently combine both the cut and
the thrust, e.g. swords with both edge and point); (e) those weapons
represented by the spear, lance, pike, &c., which deal a thrusting blow
but are distinguished from (c) by their greater length. (2) Purely
missile weapons, e.g. darts, javelins and spears. Frequently these
weapons are used also at close quarters as thrusting weapons; the
typical example of these is the medium-length spear of not more than
about 6 ft. in length. (3) Arms which discharge missiles, e.g. bows,
catapults and fire-arms generally. (See ARCHERY and section _Fire-arms_
below.) The weapons in (2) and (3) are designed to avoid hand-to-hand
fighting.
Weapons are also classified in a variety of other ways. Thus we have
_small-arms_, i.e. all weapons in classes (1) and (2) with those in (3)
which do not require carriages. _Side-arms_ are those which, when not in
use, are worn at the side, e.g. daggers, swords, bayonets. _Armes
blanches_ is a term used for offensive weapons of iron and steel which
are used at close quarters.
Defensive armour consists of body armour, protections for the head and
the limbs, and various types of shield.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Leaf-shaped Flint Dagger.]
History.
1. _Stone Age._--One of the chief problems which have perplexed
archaeologists is that of finding a criterion which will enable them to
distinguish the most primitive products of human skill from similar
objects whose form is due to the forces of nature. It is often
impossible to say precisely whether a rough piece of flint is to be
regarded as a weapon (except so far as it could be used as a missile) or
merely as a fragment of rock. Passing over these doubtful cases, we come
first to indubitable examples of weapons deliberately fashioned in stone
for offensive purposes. The use of stone weapons appears to have been
universally characteristic of the earliest races of mankind, as it is
still distinctive of those savage races which are most nearly allied to
primitive man. These weapons were naturally simple in form and
structure. The earliest examples (Palaeolithic) found in river-drift
gravel in various parts of Europe are merely chipped flints, celts, &c.
Later on we find polished implements (Neolithic) progressively more
elaborate in design and workmanship, such as socketed stones with wooden
handles and knives or daggers of flaked flint with handles. Besides
flint the commonest materials are diorite, greenstone, serpentine and
indurated clay-slate; there are also weapons of horn and bone (daggers
and spear-heads). Spear-heads and arrow-points (leaf-shaped,
lozenge-shaped, tanged and triangular) were chipped in flint with such
skill as to be little inferior to their metal successors. They have
accurately flaked barbs and tangs, and in some cases their edges are
minutely chipped. The heads appear to have been fastened to the shafts
by vegetable fibre and bitumen. Knife-daggers of flint, though
practically of one single type, exhibit much variety of form. They vary
in size also, but seldom exceed 12 in. in length. They are sometimes
obtuse-edged like a scraping-tool, sometimes delicately chipped to a
straight edge, while the flakes are so regularly removed from the convex
part of the blade as to give a wavy surface, and the corners of the
handle are delicately crimped. The daggers attain their highest
perfection in the short, leaf-shaped form,--the precursor of the
leaf-shaped sword which is peculiarly characteristic of the Bronze
Age,--and the curved knives found especially in Great Britain and
Russia, and also in Egypt. The precise object of the sharpening of both
convex and concave edges in the curved variety is not clear. There have
also been found sling-stones, and, in Scotland and Ireland, balls of
stone with their "surfaces divided into a number of more or less
projecting circles with channels between them." These latter, Sir John
Evans suggests, were attached to a thong which passed through the
surface channels, and used like the _bolas_ of South America. The weapon
could thus deal a blow at close quarters, or could be thrown so as to
entangle the limbs of an enemy. Of defensive armour of stone there is
none. The only approximation is to be found in the small rectangular
plates of slate, &c., perforated with holes at the corners, which are
supposed to have been bound on to the arm to protect it from the recoil
of the bow-string. Similar wristlets or bracers are in use among the
Eskimos (of bone) and in India (of ivory). These plates measure
generally about 4 in. by 1-1/2 in.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Leaf-shaped Bronze Sword.]
2. _Bronze Age._--It is impossible to assign any date as the beginning
of the Bronze Age; indeed, archaeology has shown that the adoption of
metal for weapons was very gradual. The stone weapon perseveres
alongside the bronze, and there exist stone axes which, by their shape,
suggest that they have been copied from metal axes. In the earliest
interments in which the weapons deposited with the dead are of other
materials than stone, a peculiar form of bronze dagger occurs. It
consists of a well-finished, thin, knife-like blade, usually about 6 in.
in length, broad at the hilt and tapering to the point, and attached to
the handle by massive rivets of bronze. It has been found associated
with stone celts; both of the roughly chipped and the highly polished
kind, showing that these had not been entirely disused when bronze
became available. A later type of bronze dagger is a broad, heavy,
curved weapon, usually from 9 to 15 in. in length, with massive rivets
for attachment to an equally massive handle. The leaf-shaped sword,
however, is the characteristic weapon of the Bronze Age. It is found all
over Europe, from Lapland to the Mediterranean. No warlike weapon of any
period is more graceful in form or more beautifully finished. The finish
seems to have been given in the mould without the aid of hammer or file,
the edge being formed by suddenly reducing the thickness of the metal,
so as to produce a narrow border of extreme thinness along both sides
of the blade from hilt to point. The handle-plate and blade were cast in
one piece, and the handle itself was formed by side plates of bone, horn
or wood, riveted through the handle-plates. There was no guard, and the
weapon, though short, was well balanced, but more fitted for stabbing
and thrusting than for cutting with the edge. The Scandinavian variety
is not so decidedly leaf-shaped, and is longer and heavier than the
common British form; and instead of a handle-plate, it was furnished
with a tang on which a round, flat-topped handle was fastened, like that
of the modern Highland dirk, sometimes surmounted by a crescent-like
ornament of bronze. A narrow, rapier-shaped variety, tapering from hilt
to point, was made without a handle-plate, and attached to the hilt by
rivets like the bronze daggers already mentioned. This form is more
common in the British Isles than in Scandinavia, and is most abundant in
Ireland. The spear-heads of the Bronze Age present a considerable
variety of form, though the leaf-shaped predominates, and barbed
examples are extremely rare. Some British weapons of this form
occasionally reach a length of 27 in. The larger varieties are often
beautifully designed, having segmental openings on both sides of the
central ridge of the blade, and elaborately ornamented with chevron
patterns of chased or inlaid work both on the socket and blade.
Arrow-points are much rarer in bronze than in flint. In all probability
the flint arrow-point (which was equally effective and much more easily
replaced when lost) continued to be used throughout the Bronze Age.
Shields of bronze, circular, with hammered-up bosses, concentric ridges
and rows of studs, were held in the hand by a central handle underneath
the boss. The transition period between the Bronze and Iron Ages in
central Europe is well defined by the occurrence of iron swords, which
are simple copies of the leaf-shaped weapon, sometimes with flat
handle-plate of bronze. These have been found associated with articles
assigned to the 3rd or 4th century B.C.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Bronze Spear-Head, length 19 inches.]
Hallstatt Weapons.
An important distinction between the characteristic bronze swords
peculiar to southern peoples and the swords both of iron and of bronze
found together in the Hallstatt cemeteries (in the Salzkammergut,
Austria, ancient Noricum) is that whereas the former invariably have
short handles (2-1/4 to 2-1/2 in.), the latter are provided with handles
from 3 to 3-1/2 in. long, terminating in a round or oval pommel; the
grip of one of the bronze swords even reaches a length of 4 in. The
hilts are decorated with ivory, amber, wood, bronze, horn, and the
decoration of blade and scabbard is often elaborate. The length of these
swords is sometimes as much as 30 to 33 in. Again at La Tene on Lake
Neuchatel iron swords have been found to the number of one hundred, with
handles of 4 to 7-1/2 in. long and a total length varying from 30 to 38
in. Similar remains have been found in France at Bibracte and Alesia,
and even in Ireland (cf. Munro, _The Lake-dwellings of Europe_, pp. 282,
383).
The occurrence at Hallstatt of bronze swords together with iron, having
the characteristic long handle, has led to the hypothesis that the
graves are those of an immigrant (probably Celtic) people of northern
extraction which had conquered and overlaid a smaller-framed Bronze Age
people, and had introduced the use of iron while continuing to use the
bronze of their predecessors with the necessary modifications. This
theory derived from tangible remains is corroborated by literary
evidence. Thus Polybius (ii. 33, iii. 114) describes the Celtic peoples
as fighting with a long pointless iron sword, which easily bent and was
in any case too large to be used easily in a melee.
The graves at Hallstatt yielded in addition to these important swords a
much larger number of spears. Of these two only were of bronze, the head
of the larger being 7-1/2 in. long. The much more numerous iron heads
range up to as much as 2 ft. in length, and are all fastened to the
shaft by rivets. All the arrow-heads found are of bronze, while of the
axes the great majority are of iron; a few have iron edges fitted in a
bed of bronze.
These examples are sufficient to show that the transition from bronze to
iron was very slow. The fact that they were found in a district which is
known to have been directly in the line of march pursued by invaders
from the north tends to confirm the theory that the introduction of iron
was the work of such invaders.
See Sir John Evans, _Ancient Stone Implements_ (2nd. ed., 1897),
_Bronze Implements_; W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_; and works
quoted under ARCHAEOLOGY.
Mycenaean and Homeric.
3. _Early Greek Weapons._--The character of the weapons used by the
early peoples of the Aegean in the periods known as Minoan, Mycenaean
and Homeric is a problem which has given rise of recent years to much
discussion. The controversy is an important part of the Homeric question
as a whole, and the various theories of the weapons used in the Trojan
War hinge on wider theories as to the date and authorship of the Homeric
poems. One widely accepted hypothesis, based on the important monograph
by Dr Wolfgang Reichel, _Uber homerische Waffen. Archaologische
Untersuchungen_ (Vienna, 1894), is that the Homeric heroes, like those
who created the civilization known as Mycenaean, had no defensive armour
except the Mycenaean shield, and used weapons of bronze. This view is
derived to a great extent from the Homeric poems themselves, in which
the metal most frequently mentioned is [Greek: chalkos] (bronze), and
involves the assumption that all passages which describe the use of
corslets, breastplates, small shields and greaves are later
interpolations. It is maintained on the other hand (e.g. by Prof. W.
Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, i. chap. 3), that the Homeric Achaeans
(whom he regards as the descendants of the central European peoples, the
makers of the Hallstatt iron swords) were far advanced into the Iron
Age, and that the use of bronze weapons is merely another instance of
the fact that the introduction of a new element does not necessarily
banish the older. This theory would separate the Homeric from the
Mycenaean altogether, and is part of a much more comprehensive
ethnological hypothesis. According to another hypothesis, the Homeric
poems are true descriptions of a single age, or, in other words, the
weapons of the Homeric age were far more diverse and elaborate than is
supposed by Reichel.
Very few traces of iron have been found in the Mycenaean settlements,
nor have any examples of body armour been found except the ceremonial
gold breastplates at Mycenae. The Mycenaean soldiers carried apparently
a bronze spear, a bronze sword and a bow and arrows. The arrow-heads are
first of obsidian and later of bronze. It would appear that only the
chief warriors used spear and shield, while the majority fought with
bows. The swords found at Mycenae are two-edged, of rigid bronze, and as
long as 3 ft. or even more; from representations of battles it would
seem that they were perhaps used for thrusting mainly. They are highly
ornamented and some have hilts of wood, bone or ivory, or even gold
mounting. Later swords became shorter and of a type like that of early
iron swords found in Greece. Moreover in a few cases there have been
found in pre-Mycenaean (late Minoan III.) tombs a few examples of short
iron swords together with bronze remains. All Mycenaean spears are of
bronze and, apparently, their shafts, unlike the Homeric, had no
butt-piece. In the absence of any metal helmets in the tombs we may
perhaps assume that the Mycenaean helmet was a leather cap, possibly
strengthened with tusks, such as appears in Homer (_Iliad_, x.) also.
The Mycenaean shield (generally, perhaps, made of leather) has given
rise to much controversy, which hinges largely on the interpretation of
the evidence provided by the representation on the Warrior Vase and the
Painted Stele from Mycenae and pottery found at Tiryns. Professor
Ridgeway regards these as describing post-Mycenaean conditions, and
maintains that the true Mycenaean shield was always long (from neck to
feet), and that it was either in the form of a figure-of-eight targe, or
rectangular and sometimes incurved like the section of a cylinder;
whereas the Homeric shield was round (e.g. [Greek: kukloteros,
eukuklos], &c.). Dr Reichel's followers believe that the Homeric shield
was long ("like a tower") and incurved in the centre like the
Mycenaean, that Homer knew nothing of the small round shield, and that
the epithets implying roundness used in the poems are to be explained as
meaning "well-balanced" or as late interpolations. On the whole we must
conclude that the Mycenaean age is by no means a single homogeneous
whole (see AEGEAN CIVILIZATION), and that the weapons are not
exclusively of bronze, nor of any single type.
The Homeric warrior in full armour, according to the Homeric poems,
wore: (1) shield ([Greek: aspis, sakos]), (2) greaves ([Greek:
knaemides]), (3) band ([Greek: zoma]), (4) belt ([Greek: zostaer])and
_mitre_, (5) tunic ([Greek: chiton]), (6) helmet ([Greek: korus]), (7)
breastplate ([Greek: thorex]), (8) sword ([Greek: xiphos]). The [Greek:
laisaeion] was a protection worn by the archers in place of a shield.
According to the usual view, the Homeric shield was, as we have seen,
bent in about half way up each side (in the form of a figure-of-eight)
to give freedom to the arms, and large enough to protect the whole body.
The two curves were held rigid by two Wooden (probably) staves inside.
It was composed of layers of ox-hide overlaid with bronze, forming a
boss in the centre, and sometimes had studs upon it. Reichel's view is
that it was the weight of these huge shields which led to the use of the
chariot as a means of going rapidly from one part of the field to
another (though Professor Ridgeway and others contest this, and Helbig
mentions more than one case of long journeys on foot under shield), and
further that the round shield is entirely unknown to Homer. This large
shield was clearly the natural protection against showers of missiles,
rather than against enemies fighting with the sword.
The greaves were, no doubt, generally of hide, protected the leg all
round, and were fastened at the knee with cords. On the other hand
Mycenaean bronze greaves have been found at Enkomi (Cyprus) and at
Glassinatz (Glasinac), and therefore it is not necessary, following
Reichel, to cut out Homer's references to the "bronze-greaved" Achaeans
(_Iliad_, vii. 41), a phrase which has been taken as evidence for
regarding the passage as spurious. The tin greaves of Achilles are
obviously exceptional.
The _thorex_ again is the subject of controversy. Reichel, arguing that
the great shield rendered any breastplate unnecessary, regarded the word
as a general term for body clothing, but Ridgeway strongly maintains the
older theory that it was a bronze breastplate, and Andrew Lang points
out that, on Reichel's theory, a word which originally meant the
"breast" was transferred to mean "loin-cloth" (which, to judge from the
artistic representations, was all that the Mycenaean warrior wore), and
subsequently in historic times returned to its natural use for the
breastplate--a most unlikely evolution. The passages in Homer which
describe it as a breastplate are regarded by Reichel's school as later
interpolations. Gilbert Murray thinks that the Homeric poems must be
regarded as belonging to different periods of development, and therefore
attributes the more elaborate armour to the "surface" (late Ionian)
stratum. The _zoma_ was probably a loin-cloth, and the _mitre_ a metal
band about a foot wide in front and narrow behind to protect the lower
part of the body. As a matter of fact, however, the big shield does not
exclude the use of body armour, and it is quite likely that the Homeric
warrior wore a bronze corslet, i.e. a somewhat improved form of the
[Greek: linothorex], or stiffened shirt. On the other hand, it is
probable, as we gather from the poems, that this corslet was not strong
enough to do more than stop a spent spear. The _chiton_ was worn over
the _mitre_, and reached the knees; it was held to the body by the
_zoster_, a metal-plated belt. Helmets were both of metal on leather,
and of leather throughout; the crests were of horsehair (not of metal
like the later Greek helmets) and there were no cheek-pieces.
The sword has already been mentioned. Ridgeway, in spite of the almost
invariable mention of bronze as the material of the Homeric weapons,
believes that it was generally of iron, but, while the presence of iron
in the Homeric age is admitted in the case of implements, it is
generally held that weapons were all of bronze. Except for one
arrow-head (_Iliad_, iv. 123), and the mace of Areithous, mentioned as a
unique example by Nestor (_Iliad_, vii. 141), no reference to an iron
weapon proper occurs in the Homeric poems. But the sword was used only
when the favourite spear or javelin had failed to decide the contest.
It must be admitted that the problem of pre-Homeric armour and Homeric
armour must always be largely a matter of inference, based on a
comparative study of the evidence literary and archaeological. Unless we
are prepared to adopt the theory that the Homeric poems consist of a
mosaic of interpolation informed by an archaizing editor, we must assume
that they describe a single period of transition intermediate between
the Mycenaean prime and the dawn of history proper. In this case we
shall believe that the Homeric warrior has so far adapted to changing
conditions the simple appliances of the Mycenaean that he has evolved a
feeble corslet with minor pieces of body armour, while retaining the big
double-bellied shield as a protection against the arrows which are still
the chief weapon of the rank and file and are even used on occasion by
the chiefs. If we further believe that the iron at his disposal was
similar to that used by the Celts of Polybius, it is natural to believe
also that he preferred the harder bronze for his weapons, though iron
was common for domestic and other implements.
On early Greek arms in general see, besides Reichel and Ridgeway _op.
cit._: A. Lang, _Homer and his Age_ (London, 1906; and criticisms in
_Classical Review_, February 1907); G.G.A. Murray, _The Rise of the
Greek Epic_ (Oxford, 1907), chap. vi; R.M. Burrows, _Discoveries in
Crete_ (2nd ed., London, 1907); Leaf and Bayfield, _Iliad_, i.-xii.
Appendix A (follows Reichel); W. Helbig, _Homerische Epos_ (1884 and
1899), and _La Question mycenienne_ (1896); C. Robert, _Studien zur
Ilias_ (Berlin, 1901); Chr. Tsountas and J.I. Manatt, _The Mycenaean
Age_ (1897); V. Berard, _Les Pheniciens et l'Odyssee_ (Paris, 1902);
Cauer, _Grundfrager d. Homerkritik_ (Leipzig, 1895); much valuable
discussion will be found in articles in _Journ. Hell, Stud., Classical
Rev._ and _Journ. of Anthropol. Instit_.; see also editions of _Iliad_
and _Odyssey_ (espec. D.B. Monro), and works quoted under AEGEAN
CIVILIZATION; HOMER; MYCENAE.
4. _Greek, Historical._--The equipment does not differ generically from
that described in the Homeric poems, except when we come to the reforms
of the Macedonians. The hoplites, who formed the main army, wore helmet,
body armour, greaves and shield, and fought with pike and sword. The
helmets were (1) the Corinthian, which covered the face to the chin,
with slits for the eyes, and often had no plume or crest; (2) the
Athenian, which did not cover the face (though sometimes it had
cheek-plates which could be turned up if necessary), had crests,
sometimes triple, with plumes of feathers, horsehair or leather; (3) a
steel cap ([Greek: pilos]) without crest, plumes or cheek-plates. The
last seems to have been most common in the Spartan army. The body armour
consisted of breast and back plates fastened together by thongs or
straps and buckles; sometimes poverty compelled a man to be content with
a leather jerkin ([Greek: spolas]) partly strengthened by metal plates,
or even a quilted linen or stuffed shirt. Greaves were of pliant bronze
fastened at the back above the ankle and below the knee. Shields were of
the small round or oval type, adapted to the new conditions in which the
bow and arrow had given place to hand-to-hand fighting. They were held
by means of two handles ([Greek: ochana]), the left hand being thrust
through the first and grasping the second. In the 5th and 4th centuries
the shield bore a device or initial representing the state and also the
individual's own crest. The hoplite's pike, about 8 ft. long, unlike the
Homeric weapon, was hardly ever thrown. In the Macedonian phalanx a pike
([Greek: sarissa]), certainly 18 ft., and perhaps later in the 3rd and
and 2nd centuries even 24 ft. long, was introduced. The sword was
straight, sharp-pointed, short, sometimes less than 20 in., and rarely
more than 2 ft. long. It was double-edged and used for both cut and
thrust. A less common type was the [Greek: machaira] or curved sabre
used by the Spartans, with one sharp edge. The hoplite had no other
offensive weapons.
The cavalry were heavy-armed like the hoplites except that they carried
a smaller shield, or, more usually, none at all. They were armed with a
lance which they wielded freely (i.e. not "in rest") and occasionally
threw. The Macedonian cavalry had a [Greek: sarissa]. The light-armed
([Greek: gymnaetes, psiloi]) were (1) [Greek: akontistai], armed with a
javelin (3 to 5 ft. long) and a small shield; (2) [Greek: toxotai],
archers; and (3) [Greek: sphendonaetai], slingers, whose missiles were
balls of lead, stones and hardened clay pellets. Between the heavy and
the light armed were the peltasts. The _pelta_, from which they took the
name, was a light shield or target, made of skin or leather on a wooden
or wickerwork frame. The Athenian Iphicrates armed them with linen
corslet and a larger spear and sword than those of the hoplites; he also
invented a new footgear (called after him _iphicratides_) to replace the
older greaves.
5. _Roman._--The equipment of the Roman soldier, like the organization
of the army (see ROMAN ARMY), passed through a great number of changes,
and it is quite impossible to summarize it as a single subject. In the
period of the kings the legion was the old Greek phalanx with Greek
armour; the front ranks wore the Greek panoply and fought with long
spears and the circular Argolic shield. The early Roman sword, like that
of the Greeks, Egyptians and Etruscans, was of bronze. We have no direct
statement as to its form, but in all probability it was of the ordinary
leaf-shape. We gather from the monuments that, in the 1st century B.C.,
the Roman sword was short, worn on the right side (except by officers,
who carried no shield), suspended from a shoulder-belt (_balteus_) or a
waist-belt (_cingulum_), and reaching from the hollow of the back to the
middle of the thigh, thus representing a length of from 22 in. to 2 ft.
The blade was straight, double-edged, obtusely-pointed. On the Trajan
column (A.D. 114) it is considerably longer, and under the Flavian
emperors the long, single-edged _spatha_ appears frequently along with
the short sword.
The second period ending with the Punic wars witnessed a change. The
_hastati_ and the _principes_ are both heavily armed, but the round
shield has given way to the oblong (_scutum_), except for one-third of
the _hastati_ who bore only the spear and the light javelin (_gaesa_).
The third period--that described by Polybius--is characterized by
greater complexity of armour, due no doubt in part to the experience
gained in conflicts with a wider range of peoples, and in part to the
assimilation of the methods peculiar to the new Italian allies. Thus we
find the skirmishers (_velites_) armed with a light javelin 3 ft. long
and 3/4 in. thick, with an iron point 9 in. long; this point was so
fragile that it was rendered useless by the first cast. For defence they
wore a hide-covered headpiece and a round buckler 3 ft. in diameter. The
heavy-armed carried a _scutum_ formed of two boards glued together,
covered with canvas and skin, and incurved into the shape of a
half-cylinder; its upper and lower edges were strengthened with iron
rims and its centre with a boss (_umbo_). A greave was worn on the right
leg, and the helmet was of bronze with a crest of three feathers. The
wealthier soldiers wore the full cuirass of chain armour (_lorica_), the
poorer a brass plate 9 in. square. For offence they carried a sword and
two javelins. The former was the Spanish weapon, straight, double-edged
and pointed, for both thrust and cut, in place of the old Greek sword.
The characteristic weapon, however, was the _pilum_ (Gr. [Greek:
ussos]). The form of this weapon and the mode of using it have been
minutely described by Polybius (vi. 23), but his description has been
much misunderstood in consequence of the rarity of representations or
remains of the _pilum_. It is shown on a monument of St Remy in
Provence, assigned to the age of the first emperors, and in a bas-relief
at Mainz, on the grave-stone of Quintus Petilius Secundus, a soldier of
the 15th legion. A specimen of the actual weapon is in the museum at
Wiesbaden. It is a javelin with a stout iron head (7 in.), carried on an
iron rod, about 20 in. in length, which terminates in a tang for
insertion in the wooden shaft. As represented on the monuments, the iron
part of the weapon is about one-third of its entire length (6-3/4 ft.).
It was used primarily as a missile. When the point pierced the shield
the weight of the stave pulled the shield downwards and rendered it
useless. At close quarters it answered all the purposes, offensive and
defensive, of the modern bayonet when "fixed." Vegetius, in his _Rei
militaris instituta_, describes it in a modified form as used in the
armies of the lower empire, and in a still more modified form it
reappears as the "argon" of the Franks. This equipment was
characteristic of _hastati, principes_ and _triarii_ (save that the
latter used the _hasta_ instead of the _pilum_). We thus see how great
is the change from the time when the _hastati_ were the light-armed
(from _hasta_) of the Greek phalanx.
The cavalry, which had originally been protected only by a light ox-hide
shield and the most fragile spears, adopted, about Polybius's time, the
full Greek equipment of buckler, strong spear and breastplate.
In the last period of the republic the _pilum_ became the universal
weapon of the heavy-armed, while the auxiliaries (all foreigners, the
_velites_ having disappeared) used the _hasta_ and the long single-edged
sword (_spatha_). Under the empire the heavy-armed, according to
Josephus, had helmet, cuirass, a long sword worn on the left side, and a
dagger on the right, _pilum_ and _scutum_. The special detachment
detailed to attend the commander had a round shield (_clipeus_) and a
long spear. The cavalry wore armour like that of the infantry, with a
broadsword, a buckler slung from the horse's side, a long pole for
thrusting, and several javelins, almost as large as spears, in a sheath
or quiver. Arrian, writing of a period some fifty years later, gives
further particulars from which we gather that of the cavalry some were
bowmen, some polemen, while others wielded lances and axes.
For the arms and armour of other peoples of antiquity see e.g. PERSIA:
_History, Ancient_, section v. "The Persian Empire of the
Achaemenids"; BRITAIN, _Anglo-Saxon_, section v. "Warfare"; ETRURIA;
EGYPT, &c. (J. M. M.)
6. _English from the Norman Conquest._--It is unnecessary here to trace
in detail the history of European armour in the middle ages and after,
but its use and fashion in England may illustrate the broad lines of the
gradual perfection and the hurried abandonment of the ancient
war-harness. Each country gave its armour something of the national
character, the Spanish harness being touched with the Moorish taste, the
Italian with the classical note borrowed from the monuments of old time,
and the German with the Teutonic feeling for the grotesque.
[FIG. 4.--From the Bayeux Tapestry.]
11th-century Bayeux tapestry.
To understand the development of English arms and armour it is well for
us to consider carefully the fashion of these things at the time of that
landmark of history, the Norman Conquest. Poets, chroniclers and
law-makers give us material for their description, and in the great
embroidery of Bayeux, with its more than six hundred lively figures, we
have pictured all the circumstances of war. We find that weapons and war
gear have advanced little or nothing beyond the age which saw the Dacian
warrior armed from crown to foot. A knight is reckoned fully armed if he
have helmet, hawberk and shield; his weapons are sword and lance,
although he sometimes carries axe or mace and, more rarely, a bow. The
coat of fence, which the Norman called _hawberk_ and the English
_byrnie_, hangs from neck to knee, the sleeves loose and covering the
elbow only, the skirt slit before and behind for ease in the saddle. The
Bayeux artists (see fig. 4) commonly show these skirts as though they
were short breeches, the hawberk taking the fashion at first sight of a
man's swimming dress, but other authorities set us right, and towards
the end of the tapestry we see men stripping hawberks from the slain by
pulling them over the head. Back and front are so much alike that he who
armed Duke William for the fight slipped on the armour hind side before,
an omen that he should change his state of a duke for that of a king.
The hawberk might be mail of woven rings, of rings sewn upon leather or
cotton, of overlapping scales of leather, horn or iron, of that jazerant
work which was formed of little plates sewn to canvas or linen, or of
thick cotton and old linen padded and quilted in lozenges, squares or
lines. There are indications that the hawberk was sometimes reinforced
at the breast probably by a small oblong plate fastened underneath. Its
weight is shown in the scene where William's men carry arms to the
ships, each hawberk being borne between two men upon a pole thrust
through the sleeves.
The helmet is a brimless and pointed cap, either all of metal or of
leather or even wood framed and strengthened with metal. Its
characteristic piece is the guard which protects the nose and brow from
swinging cuts, so disguising the knight that William must needs take off
his helmet to show his men that he had not fallen. Such a nasal appears
in a 10th-century illumination; at the time of the Conquest it was all
but universal. It grows rare and all but disappears in the 13th century,
although examples are found to the end of the middle ages. The helmet is
laced under the chin, and under it the knight often wore a hood of mail
or quilting which covered the top of the head, the ears and neck, but
left the chin free--in two or three cases he has this hood without the
helmet. A close coif was probably worn beneath it when it was of ringed
mail, to spare the fretting of the metal on the head.
The knights' legs are shown in most cases as unprotected save by stout
hose or leg-bands: only in two or three instances does the tapestry
picture a warrior with armed legs, and it is perhaps significant of the
rarity of this defence that the duke is so armed. The feet are covered
only by the leather boot, the heels having prick spurs.
Broad-bladed swords with cross-hilts of straight or drooping quills are
fastened with a strap and buckle girdle to the left side. They have a
short grip, and the blade would seem to be from 2-1/2 to 3 ft. in
length. The chieftain unarmed in his house is often seen with unbuckled
and sheathed sword sceptre-wise in his hands, carrying it as an Indian
raja will nurse his sheathed tulwar. The ash spears brandished or
couched by the knights as they charge seem from 7 to 8 or 9 ft. in
length. In a few cases a three-forked pennon flutters at the end. The
axe, a weapon which the Normans, in spite of their Norse ancestry, do
not carry in the battle, is of the type called the Danish axe,
long-shafted, the large blade boldly curved out. Maces, such as that
with which the bishop of Bayeux rallies his young men, seem knotted
clubs of simple form. Short and strong bows are drawn to the breast by
the Norman archers.
Of the shields in the fight, four or five borne by the English are of
the old English form--large, round bucklers of linden-wood, bossed and
ribbed with iron. For the rest the horsemen bear the Norman shield,
kite-shaped, with tapering foot, and long enough to carry a dead warrior
from the field. On the inner side are straps for the hand to grip and a
long strap allowed the knight to hang the shield from his neck. Let us
note that although wyvern-like monsters, crosses, roundels and other
devices appear on these shields, none of them has any indication of true
armory, whose origins must be placed in the next century.
12th Century.
The 12th century, although an age of riding and warring, affects but
little the fashion of armour. The picture of a king on his seal may well
stand for the full-armed knight of his age, but Henry Beauclerc, Stephen
and Henry II. are shown in harness not much unlike that of the Bayeux
needlework. But the sleeve of the hawberk goes to the wrist, and the
kite shield grows less, Stephen's shield being 30 in. long at the most.
On Stephen's second seal the mail hood is drawn over the point of the
chin, and Henry II.'s seals show the chin covered to the lips. At least
one seal of this king has the legs and feet armed with hose of ringed
mail, probably secured by lacing at the back of the leg as a modern boot
is laced. The first seal of Richard Lionheart marks an important
movement. His hawberk, hood and hose clothe him, like his father, from
crown to toe, and to this equipment he adds gloves of mail. Under the
hawberk flows out to the heels the skirt of a long gown slit in front.
But helm and shield are the most remarkable points. The shield has
become flatter at the top, and at last the shield of an English king
bears those armorial devices whose beginnings are seen elsewhere a
generation before. The earlier seal has the shield with a rampant lion
ramping to the sinister side and closely resembling that on the shield
of Philip of Alsace, long believed to be the earliest example of true
armory. But the shield in the second seal bears the three leopards which
have been ever since the arms of the kings of England, and from this
time to the end of the middle ages armorial devices become the common
decorations of the knight's shield, coat, saddle and horse-trapper. The
helmet of the first seal is a high thimble-topped cap, without a nasal
guard, but the second has the king's head covered with the great helm,
barrel-shaped and reinforced in front with a flat ventaile pierced in
slits for the sight. This helm is crested with a semicircular ridge from
which spring two wings, or rows of feathers fan-wise. On its side the
ridge bears a single leopard, the forerunner of the coming crests.
13th Century.
For 13th-century arms, although but poor scraps remain of original
material, we have authority in plenty--pictures, seals and carving, and,
above all, the effigies in stone or brass which give us each visible
link, strap and ornament. All these have for a commentary chronicles,
poems and account books, so that the history of armour may be followed
in detail.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Knights' Armour, c. 1250.
From _The Ancestor_, by permission of A Constable & Co. Ltd.]
The long, sleeveless surcoat seen over King John's mail on his broad
seal goes through the century and is often embroidered with arms. The
shield becomes flat-topped the better to receive armorial charges. The
great helm is common, although many knights on the day of battle like
better the freedom of the mail hood with a steel cap worn over or under
its crown, keeping for the tourney-yard the great helm which towards the
century-end begins to carry its towering crest. Great variety is seen in
the forms of the flat or round-topped helm, some being in one piece,
pierced for sight and air, others having hinged or movable ventailes. At
the end of the century a sugar-loaf type is the established form. The
knight's hawberk is worn over a gambeson of linen, quilted linen or
cotton, which lesser men wear with a steel cap for all defence. Breast
and back plates also are sometimes borne under the hawberk, and the
first plates in sight at last appear in those knee-cops which protect
the joining of the upper and lower hose, and in a few examples of
bainbergs or greaves of metal or leather. At the end of Henry III.'s
reign we have the admirable illustrations of a manuscript of Matthew
Paris's _Lives of the Offas_, with many pictures of knights. (See fig
5.) Here we see knights with knee-cop and greave and a plenty of curious
headpieces, the plain mail hood and mail hoods with a plate ventaile to
cover the face, barrel-helms and round-topped helms and even
round-topped helmets with the Norman nose-guard.
In the last half of the 13th century appears the curious defence known
as _alettes_. This name is given to a pair of leather plates generally
oblong in form and tagged to the back of the shoulder. As a rule they
are borne to display the wearer's arms, but being sometimes plain they
may have had some slight defensive value, covering a weak spot at the
armpit and turning a sweeping sword-cut at the neck. They disappear in
the earlier years of Edward III.
Surcoat, shield and trapper have the arms of their owner. The rowel-spur
makes a rare appearance. Weapons change little. although the sword is
often longer and heavier. Richard I. had favoured the cross-bow, in
spite of papal denunciations of that weapon hateful to God, and its use
is common through all the 13th century, after which it makes way for the
national weapon of the long-bow.
14th century.
In the 14th century, the high-day of chivalry, the age of Crecy and
Poitiers, of the Black Prince and Chandos, the age which saw enrolled
the noble company of the Garter, the art of the armourer and
weapon-smith strides forward. At its beginning we see many knights still
clad in chain mail with no visible plate. At its end the knight is often
locked in plates from head to foot, no chainwork showing save the camail
edge under the helm and the fringe of the mail skirt or hawberk.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Brass of Sir John de Creke.
From Waller's _Monumental Brasses._]
Before the first quarter of the 14th century is past many of these
plates are in common use. Sir John de Creke's brass, about 1325-1330, is
a fair example (fig. 6). His helmet is a basinet, pointed at the top,
probably worn over a complete hood of mail flowing to the mid-breast.
This hood was soon to lose its crown, the later basinets having the
camail, a defence of mail covering neck, cheeks and chin and secured to
the basinet with eyelet holes and loops through which a lace was passed.
A rerebrace of plate defends the outer side of the upper arm, plain
elbow-cops the elbow, and round bosses in the form of leopard heads
guard the shoulder and the crook of the elbow. The fore-arm is covered
with the plates of a vambrace which appears from under the hawberk
sleeve. Large and decorated knee-cops cover the knees, ridged greaves
the shins, and the upper part of the foot from pointed toe to ankle is
fenced with those articulated and overlapping plates the perfection of
which in the next century enabled the full-harnessed knight to move his
body as freely as might an unarmed man. Under the plates the mail hose
show themselves and the heels have rowelled spurs. He has a hawberk of
mail whose front skirt ends in a point between the knees, the loose
sleeves between wrist and elbow. Under this is a haketon of some soft
material whose folds fall to a line above the height of the knee. Over
the hawberk is a garment, perhaps of leather with a dagged skirt-edge,
and over this again is a sleeveless gambeson or pourpoint of leather or
quilted work, studded and enriched. Over all is the sleeveless surcoat,
the skirt before cut squarely off at the height of the fork of the leg,
the skirt behind falling to below the knee. The loose folds of this
surcoat are gathered at the waist by a narrow belt, the sword hanging
from a broader belt carried across the hip. Before 1350 the long surcoat
of the 13th century was still further shortened, the tails being cut off
squarely with the front. The fate of Sir John Chandos, who in 1369
stumbled on a slippery road, his long coat "armed with his arms"
becoming tangled with his legs, points to the fact that an old soldier
might cling to an old fashion.
The desire for a better defence than a steel cap and camail and a less
cumbrous one than the great helm, in which the knight rode half stifled
and half blind, brought in as a fighting headpiece the basinet with a
movable viser. This is found throughout this century, disappearing in
the next when the salet and its varieties displaced it. But there were
many knights who still fought with the great helm covering basinet and
camail, a fact which speaks eloquently of the mighty blows given in this
warlike age. The many monumental brasses of the last half of the 14th
century show us for the most part knights in basinet and camail with the
face exposed, but their heads are commonly pillowed on the great helm
and in any case the viser would hinder the artist's desire to show the
knight's features.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Brass of Sir John de Foxley.
From Waller's _Monumental Brasses_.]
The fully-armed man of the latter half of the 14th century seems to have
worn a rounded breastplate and a back-plate over his chain hawberk.
Chaucer's Sir Thopas must always be cited for the defences of this age,
the hero wearing the quilted haketon next his shirt, and over that the
habergeon, a lesser hawberk of chain mail. His last defence is a fine
hawberk "full strong of plate" showing that "hawberk" sometimes served
as a word for the body plates. Over all this is the "cote-armure" or
surcoat. Many passages from the chroniclers show that the three coats of
fence one over the other were in common use in the field, and Froissart
tells a tale of a knight struck by a dart in such wise that the head
pierced through his plates, his coat of mail and his haketon stuffed
with twisted silk. The surcoat in the age of Edward III. became a scanty
garment sitting tightly to the body, laced up the back or sides, the
close skirts ending at the fork of the leg with a dagged or slittered
edge. The waistbelt is rarely in sight, but the broad belt across the
hips, on which the dagger comes to hang as a balance to the sword, grows
richer and heavier, the best work of the goldsmith or silversmith being
spent upon it. Arms and legs and feet become cased in plate of steel or
studded leather, and before the mid-century the shoulder-plates, like
the steel shoes, are of overlapping pieces and the elbow also moves
easily under the same defence. (See fig. 7.)
15th century.
Such harness, ever growing more beautiful in its rich details, serves
our champions until the beginning of the 15th century, when the fashion
begins to turn. The scanty surcoat tends to disappear. It may be that
during the bitter feuds and fierce slaughters of the Wars of the Roses
men were unwilling to display on their breasts the bearings by which
their mortal foe might know them afar. The horseman's shield went with
the surcoat, its disuse hastened by the perfection of armour, and the
banners of leaders remained as the only armorial signs commonly seen in
war. But at jousts and tourneys, where personal distinction was eagerly
sought, the loose tabard, which, after the middle of the century, bore
the arms of the wearer on back, front and both sleeves, was still to be
seen, with the crest of parchment or leather towering above a helm whose
mantle, from the ribbon-like strip of the early 13th century, had grown
into a fluttering cloak with wildly slittered edge streaming out behind
the charging knight.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Brass of Sir John Lisle at Thruxton.]
When a score of years of this 15th century had run we find the knight
closed in with plates, no edge of chain mail remaining in sight. The
surcoat being gone we see him armed in breast and back plate, his loins
covered by a skirt of "tonlets," as the defence of overlapping
horizontal bands comes to be named (fig. 8). The chain camail has gone
out of fashion, the basinet continuing itself with a chin and cheek
plate which joins a gorget of plate covering the collar-bone, a movable
viser shutting in the whole head with steel. The gussets of chain mail
sewn into the leathern or fustian doublet worn below the body armour are
unseen even at the gap at the hollow of the arm where the plates must be
allowed to move freely, for a little plate, round, oval or oblong, is
tagged to each side to fence the weak point. These plates often differ
in size and shape one from the other, the sword-arm side carrying the
smaller one.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Gothic Style of Armour. Monument of Count Otto
IV. of Henneberg.]
Soon after this the six or eight "tonlets" grow fewer, being continued
on the lower edge by the so-called tuilles, small plates strapped to the
tonlets and swinging with the movement of the legs. A fine suit of
armour is shown in the monument of Count Otto IV. of Henneberg (fig. 9).
Knightly armour takes perhaps its last expression of perfection in such
a noble harness as that worn by Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick,
whose armed effigy was wrought between 1451 and 1454 (fig. 10). In this
we see the characteristic feature of the great elbow-cops, whose
channelled and fluted edges overlapping vambrace and rerebrace become
monstrous fan-like shapes in the brass of Richard Quartremayns, graven
about 1460. At this time the harness of the left shoulder is often
notably reinforced, as compared with that of the sword-arm shoulder.
Towards the latter part of the century chain mail reappears as a skirt
or breech of mail, showing itself under the diminished tonlets, and,
when helm and gorget are removed, as a high-standing collar. The
articulation by overlapping plates extends even to the breastplate,
whose front is thus in two or more pieces. Very long-necked rowel-spurs
are often found, and the toes of the sabbatons or steel shoes are
sharply pointed. The characteristic helmet of the latter half of the
century is the salet or salade, a large steel cap, whose edge is carried
out from the brows and still more boldly at the back of the neck.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Brass of Richard Beachamp, earl of Warwick.
From Stothard's _Monumental Effigies_.]
Knights abandon the great helm in war, but it is perfected for use in
the tilt-yard, taking for that purpose an enormous size, to enable two
good inches of stuffing to come between head or face and the steel
plate. Such a helm sits well down on the shoulders, to which it is
locked before and behind by strong buckles or rivets. The note of the
15th century in armour is that of fantastically elaborate forms boldly
outlined and a splendour of colour which gained much from the custom of
wearing over the full harness short cloaks or rich coats turned up with
furs, or from another fashion of covering the body plates or brigandines
with rich velvets studded with gold. The details of the harness take a
thousand curious shapes, and even amongst the simpler jacks and steel
caps of the archers the same glorious variety is seen.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Meeting of Henry VIII. and Maximilian.
From Hewitt's _Arms and Armour_.]
16th century.
If the note of the 15th century be variety of form, that of the 16th
century, the last important chapter in the history of armour, is surface
decoration, the harness of great folk atoning in some measure for loss
of the beautiful medieval sense of line by elaborate enrichment. Plain
engraving, niello, russet work, golden inlay and beaten ornament are
common methods of enrichment. The great plume of ostrich feathers flows
from the helmet crown of leaders in war. As in the reign of Edward III.,
costume's fashion affects the forms of armour, the broad toe of the
Henry VIII. shoe being imitated in steel, as the wide fluted skirts of
the so-called Maximilian armour imitate the German fashion in civil
dress which the Imperial host popularized through northern Europe (fig.
11). These skirts have been called "lamboys" by modern writers on
military antiquities, but the word seems an antiquarianism of no value,
apparently a misreading of the word "jambeis" in some early document. So
many notable examples of the armour of this 16th century are accessible
in European collections, other illustrations occurring in great plenty,
that its details call for little discussion; a fine and characteristic
suit is that by the famous English armourer, Jacob Topf (fig. 12), which
belonged to Sir Christopher Hatton. Into this century the arquebusier
marches, demanding a chief place in the line of battle, although it is a
common error that the improvement in fire-arms drove out the fully armed
warrior, whose plates gave him no protection. Until the rifle came to
the soldier's hands, plate armour could easily be made shot-proof. It
was driven from the field by the new strategy which asked for long
marches and rapid movements of armies. This century's armour for the
tilt-yard gives such protection to the champion, with its many
reinforcing pieces, that unless the caged helm were used--the same which
cost Henry II. of France his life--the risks of the tilt-yard must have
fallen much below those of the polo-field. The horse with crinet,
chafron and bards of steel was as well covered from harm.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Suit by Jacob Topf, nearly complete, the gorget
does not belong to it. Below is the placcate.]
Before the end of the 16th century the full suit of war harness is an
antique survival. Long boots take the place of greaves and steel shoes,
and early in the 16th century the military pedants are heard to bewail
the common laying aside of other pieces. The mounted cavalier--cuirassier
or pistolier--might take the field, even as late as the Great Rebellion,
armed at all points save the backs of the thighs and the legs below the
knee; but a combed and brimmed cap, breast and back plate and tassets
equipped the pikeman, and the musketeer would march without any metal on
him save his headpiece, for it was soon found that heavily armed
musketeers, after a long trudge through summer dust or winter mud, were
readier to rest than to shoot. Everywhere there was revolt against the
burden of plates, and as early as 1593 Sir Richard Hawkins found that his
adventurers would not use even the light corslets provided by him,
"esteeming a pot of wine a better defence." Gervase Markham, in his
_Souldier's Accidence_ of 1645, asks that at least the captain of
cuirassiers should be armed "at all peeces, cap a pee," but he would have
found few such captains, and Markham is a great praiser of noble old
custom. The famous figure of a pikeman of 1668 (fig. 13) in Elton's _Art
Military_ has steel cap, corslet and tassets, but he stands for a fashion
dead or dying. The last noteworthy helmet was what is now termed the
lobster-tail helmet, a headpiece with round top, flat brim before, a
broad articulated brim behind, cheek-pieces hanging by straps and a grate
of upright bars to cover the face, some having in place of the grate a
movable nose-guard to be raised or lowered at will. The close resemblance
of this helmet to that worn by the Japanese, with whom the Dutch were
then trading, is worth remark, although each of the two pieces seems to
have had its separate origin. Thus, save for a steel cap here and a
corslet there, especially to be found amongst the guards of sovereigns
who must cling to something of antique tradition, armour departs out of
the civilized world.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Pikeman.
From _The Compleat Body of the Art Military_, by Lieut. Col. Elton
(1668).]
Survival of armour.
When in the reign of Queen Victoria her mounted guardsmen were given
back their breast and back plates, the last piece of body armour had
been the tiny gilt crescent worn at the throat by officers of foot,
which crescent was the shrunken symbol of that great gorget of plate
that came in with the 13th century. The shining plates of the Guards are
parade pieces only, but a curious revival of an old defence was carried
by English cavalry in the field at the end of the 19th century, when
small gussets of chain mail were attached to the shoulders of certain
cavalrymen as a defence against sword cuts. Through all the age of
modern warfare inventors have pressed the claims of various bullet-proof
breastplates, but where they have been effective against rifle fire
their weight has made them too heavy an addition to the soldier's
burden. (See, however, ARMOUR PLATES, _ad fin_.) Last of all we may
reckon those secret coats of mail which are said to be worn on occasion
by modern rulers in dread of the assassin. The London detective
department has such coats of fence in its armoury; and on the other side
it may be remembered that the Kelly gang of bushrangers, driven to bay,
were found to have forged suits of plate for themselves out of sheets of
boiler-iron.
Collections.
Ancient arms and armour are now eagerly sought by European and American
collectors, and high prices are paid down for every noteworthy piece.
The supply is assisted by the efforts of many forgers of false pieces,
the most cunning of whom bring all archaeological skill to their aid,
and few great national or private collections are free from some example
of this industry. For the genuine pieces competition runs high. Suits of
plate of the earliest period may be sought in vain, and the greatest
collectors may hardly hope for such a panoply of the late Gothic period
as that which is the ornament of the Wallace collection. Even this
famous harness is not wholly free from suspicion of restoration. Armour
of the latter half of the 16th century, however, often appears in the
sale-rooms and is found in many private collections, although the
"ancestral armour" which decorates so many ancient halls in England is
generally the plates and pots which served the pikemen of the
17th-century militia.
It is not hard to understand this scarcity of ancient pieces. In the
first place it must be remembered that the fully armed man was always a
rare figure in war, and only the rich could engage in the costly follies
of the later tournaments. The novelists have done much to encourage the
belief that most men of gentle rank rode to the wars lance in hand,
locked up in full harness of plate; but the country gentleman, serving
as light horseman or mounted archer, would hold himself well armed had
he a quilted jack or brigandine and a basinet or salet. Men armed _cap a
pee_ crowd the illuminations of chronicle books, the artists having the
same tastes as the boy who decorates his Latin grammar with battles
which are hand-to-hand conflicts of epauletted generals. Monuments and
brasses also show these fully armed men, but here again we must
recognize the tendency which made the last of the cheap miniaturists
endow their clients lavishly with heavy watch-chains and rings. As late
as the 18th century the portrait painters drew their military or naval
sitters in the breastplates and pauldrons, vambraces and rerebraces of
an earlier age. Ancient wills and inventories, save those of great folk
or military adventurers, have scanty reference to complete harnesses.
Ringed hawberks, in a damp northern climate, will not survive long
neglect, and many of them must have been cut in pieces for burnishers or
for the mail skirts and gussets attached to the later arming doublets.
As the fashion of plate armour changed, the smith might adapt an old
harness to the new taste, but more often it would be cast aside. Men to
whom the sight of a steel coat called up the business of their daily
life wasted no sentimentality over an obsolete piece. The early
antiquaries might have saved us many priceless things, but it was not
until a few _virtuosi_ of the 18th century were taken with the Gothic
fancy that popular archaeology dealt with aught but Greek statuary and
Roman inscriptions. The 19th century was well advanced before an
interest in medieval antiquities became common amongst educated men, and
for most contemporaries of Dr Johnson a medieval helm was a barbarous
curiosity exciting the same measure of mild interest as does the Zulu
knobkerry seen by us as we pass a pawnbroker's window. (O. Ba.)
7. _Fire-arms._ (For the development of cannon, see ARTILLERY and
ORDNANCE.)--Hand-cannons appear almost simultaneously with the larger
_bombards_. They were made by the Flemings in the 14th century. An early
instance of the use of hand fire-arms in England is the siege of
Huntercombe Manor in 1375. These were simply small cannon, provided with
a stock of wood, and fired by the application of a match to the
touch-hole. During the 15th century the hand-gun was steadily improved,
and its use became more general. Edward IV., landing in England in 1471
to reconquer his throne, brought with him a force of Burgundian hand-gun
men (mercenaries), and in 1476 the Swiss at Morat had no less than 6000
of their men thus armed. The prototype of the modern military weapon is
the _arquebus_ (q.v.), a form of which was afterwards called in England
the _caliver_. Various dates are given for the introduction of the
arquebus, which owed many of its details to the perfected crossbow which
it superseded. The Spanish army in the Italian wars at the beginning of
the 16th century was the first to make full and effective use of the new
weapon, and thus to make the fire action of infantry a serious factor in
the decision of battles. The Spaniards also took the next step in
advance. The _musket_ (q.v.) was heavier and more powerful than the
arquebus, and, in the hands of the duke of Alva's army in the
Netherlands, so conclusively proved its superiority that it at once
replaced its rival in the armies of Europe. Both the arquebus and the
musket had a touch-hole on the right side of the barrel, with a pan for
the priming, with which a lighted quick match was brought in contact by
pressing a trigger. The musket, on account of its weight, was provided
with a long rest, forked in the upper part and furnished with a spike to
stick in the ground. The _matchlock_ (long-barrelled matchlocks are
still used by various uncivilized peoples, notably in India) was the
typical weapon of the soldier for two centuries. The class of hand
fire-arms provided with an arrangement for striking a spark to ignite
the powder charge begins with the _wheel-lock_. This lock was invented
at Nuremberg in 1515, but was seldom applied to the arquebus and musket
on account of the costliness of its mechanism and the uncertainty of its
action. The early forms of flint-lock (_snaphance_) were open to the
same objections, and the _fire-lock_ (as the flint-lock was usually
called) remained for many years after its introduction the armament of
special troops only, till about the beginning of the 18th century it
finally superseded the old matchlock. Thenceforward the fire-lock
(called familiarly in England "Brown Bess") formed with the bayonet
(q.v.) the armament of all infantry, and the fire-arms carried by other
troops were constructed on the same principle. Flint-lock muskets were
supplanted about 1830-1840 by the percussion musket, in which a
fulminate cap was used. A Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth,
invented this method of ignition in 1807, but it was not till 1820 that
it began to come into general use. (See GUN.) The system of firing the
charge by a fulminate was followed by the invention of the needle-gun
(q.v.). The muzzle-loading rifle, employed by special troops since about
1800, came into general use in the armies of Europe about 1854-1860. It
was superseded, as a result of the success of the needle-gun in the war
of 1866, by the breech-loading rifle, this in its turn giving way to the
magazine rifle about 1886-1890. (See RIFLE.) Neither breech-loaders nor
revolvers, however, are inventions of modern date. Both were known in
Germany as early as the close of the 15th century. There are in the
Musee d'Artillerie at Paris wheel-lock arquebuses of the 16th century
which are breech-loaders; and there is, in the Tower armoury, a revolver
with the old matchlock, the date of which is about 1550. A German
arquebus of the 16th century, in the museum of Sigmaringen, is a
revolver of seven barrels. Nor is rifling a new thing in fire-arms, for
there was a rifled arquebus of the 15th century, in which the balls were
driven home by a mallet, and a patent was taken out in England for
rifling in 1635. All these systems were thus known at an early period in
the history of fire-arms, but for want of the minutely accurate
workmanship required and, above all, of a satisfactory firing
arrangement, they were left in an undeveloped state until modern times.
The earliest pistols were merely shorter handguns, modified for mounted
men, and provided with a straight stock which was held against the
breastplate (poitrinal or petronel). The long-barrelled pistol was the
typical weapon of the cavalry of the 16th century. (See CAVALRY.) With
the revival of shock tactics initiated by Gustavus Adolphus the length
of the pistol barrel became less and less, and its stock was then shaped
for the hand alone. (See PISTOL.) (C. F. A.)
ARMSTEAD, HENRY HUGH (1828-1905), English sculptor, was first trained as
a silversmith, and achieved the highest excellence with the "St George's
Vase" and the "Outram Shield." He rose to the front rank among
contemporary sculptors, his chief works being the external sculptural
decorations of the colonial office in Whitehall, the sculptures on the
southern and eastern sides of the podium of the Albert Memorial, the
large fountain at King's College, Cambridge, and numerous effigies, such
as "Bishop Wilberforce" at Winchester, and "Lord John Thynne" at
Westminster, with smaller portraiture and much ideal work. His sense of
style and nobility was remarkable; and he was besides gifted with a fine
power of design and draughtsmanship, which he put to good use in his
early years for book illustration. He was elected associate of the Royal
Academy in 1875 and a full member in 1880.
ARMSTRONG, ARCHIBALD (d. 1672), court jester, called "Archy," was a
native of Scotland or of Cumberland, and according to tradition first
distinguished himself as a sheep-stealer; afterwards he entered the
service of James VI., with whom he became a favourite. When the king
succeeded to the English throne, Archy was appointed court jester. In
1611 he was granted a pension of two shillings a day, and in 1617 he
accompanied James on his visit to Scotland. His influence was
considerable and he was greatly courted and flattered, but his success
appears to have turned his head. He became presumptuous, insolent and
mischievous, excited foolish jealousies between the king and Henry,
prince of Wales, and was much disliked by the members of the court. In
1623 he accompanied Prince Charles and Buckingham in their adventure
into Spain, where he was much caressed and favoured by the Spanish court
and, according to his own account, was granted a pension. His conduct
here became more intolerable than ever. He rallied the infanta on the
defeat of the Armada and censured the conduct of the expedition to
Buckingham's face. Buckingham declared he would have him hanged, to
which the jester replied that "dukes had often been hanged for insolence
but never fools for talking." On his return he gained some complimentary
allusions from Ben Jonson by his attacks upon the Spanish marriage. He
retained his post on the accession of Charles I., and accumulated a
considerable fortune, including the grant by the king of 1000 acres in
Ireland. After the death of Buckingham in 1628, whom he declared "the
greatest enemy of three kings," the principal object of his dislike and
rude jests was Laud, whom he openly vilified and ridiculed. He
pronounced the following grace at Whitehall in Laud's presence: "Great
praise be given to God and little _laud_ to the devil," and after the
news of the rebellion in Scotland in 1637 he greeted Laud on his way to
the council chamber at Whitehall with: "Who's fool now? Does not your
Grace hear the news from Stirling about the liturgy?" On Laud's
complaint to the council, Archy was sentenced the same day "to have his
coat pulled over his head and be discharged the king's service and
banished the king's court." He settled in London as a money-lender, and
many complaints were made to the privy council and House of Lords of his
sharp practices. In 1641 on the occasion of Laud's arrest, he enjoyed a
mean revenge by publishing _Archy's Dream; sometimes Jester to his
Majestie, but exiled the Court by Canterburie's malice_. Subsequently he
resided at Arthuret in Cumberland, according to some accounts his
birthplace, where he possessed an estate, and where he died in 1672, his
burial taking place on the 1st of April. He was twice married, his
second wife being Sybilla Bell. There is no record of any legal
offspring, but the baptism of a "base son" of Archibald Armstrong is
entered in the parish register of the 17th of December 1643. _A Banquet
of Jests: A change of Cheare_, published about 1630, a collection
chiefly of dull, stale jokes, is attributed to him, and with still less
reason probably _A choice Banquet of Witty Jests ... Being an addition
to Archee's Jests, taken out of his Closet but never published in his
Lifetime_ (1660).
ARMSTRONG, JOHN (1709-1779), British physician and writer, was born
about 1709 at Castletown, Roxburghshire, where his father was parish
minister. He graduated M.D. (1732) at Edinburgh University, and soon
afterwards settled in London, where he paid more attention to literature
than to medicine. He was, in 1746, appointed one of the physicians to
the military hospital behind Buckingham House; and, in 1760, physician
to the army in Germany, an appointment which he held till the peace of
1763, when he retired on half-pay. For many years he was closely
associated with John Wilkes, but quarrelled with him in 1763. He died on
the 7th of September 1779. Armstrong's first publication, an anonymous
one, entitled _An Essay for Abridging the Study of Physic_ (1735), was a
satire on the ignorance of the apothecaries and medical men of his day.
This was followed two years after by the _Economy of Love_, a poem the
indecency of which damaged his professional practice. In 1744 appeared
his _Art of Preserving Health_, a very successful didactic poem, and the
one production on which his literary reputation rests. His
_Miscellanies_ (1770) contains some shorter poems displaying
considerable humour.
ARMSTRONG, JOHN (1738-1843), American soldier, diplomatist and political
leader, born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of November 1758.
His father, also named John Armstrong (1725-1795), a native of the north
of Ireland, who had emigrated to the Pennsylvania frontier between 1745
and 1748, served successively as a brigadier-general in the Continental
army (1776-77), as brigadier-general and then major-general of the
Pennsylvania militia (1777-83), during the War of Independence, and was
a member of the Continental Congress in 1779-1780 and again in
1787-1788. The son studied for a time at the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University), and served as a major in the War of Independence.
In March 1783, while the Continental army was stationed at Newburgh
(q.v.), New York, he wrote and issued, anonymously, the famous "Newburgh
Addresses." In 1784 he led a force of Pennsylvania militia against the
Connecticut settlers in Wyoming Valley, and treated them in such a
high-handed manner as to incur the disapproval even of the Pennsylvania
legislature. In 1789 he married the sister of Chancellor Robert R.
Livingston of New York, and removed to New York city, where his own
ability and his family connexion gave him great political influence. In
1801-2 and again in 1803-4 he was a member of the United States Senate.
From 1804 to 1810 he was the United States minister to France, and in
March 1806 he was joined with James Bowdoin as a special minister to
treat through France with Spain concerning the acquisition of Florida,
Spanish spoliations of American commerce, and the "Louisiana" boundary.
During the War of 1812, he was a brigadier-general in the United States
army from July 1812 until January 1813, and from then until August 1814
secretary of war in the cabinet of President Madison, when his
unpopularity forced him to resign. "In spite of Armstrong's services,
abilities and experience," says Henry Adams, "something in his character
always created distrust. He had every advantage of education, social and
political connexion, ability and self-confidence; ... but he suffered
from the reputation of indolence and intrigue." Nevertheless, he
"introduced into the army an energy wholly new," an energy the results
of which were apparent "for half a century." After his resignation he
lived in retirement at Red Hook, New York, where he died on the 1st of
April 1843. He published _Notices of the War of 1812_ (2 vols., 1836;
new ed., 1840), the value of which is greatly impaired by its obvious
partiality.
The best account of Armstrong's career as minister to France and as
secretary of war may be found in Henry Adams's _History of the United
States, 1801-1817_ (9 vols., New York, 1889-1890).
ARMSTRONG, SAMUEL CHAPMAN (1839-1893), American soldier, philanthropist
and educator, was born on Maui, one of the Hawaiian Islands, on the 30th
of January 1839, his parents Richard and Clarissa Armstrong, being
American missionaries. He was educated at the Punahou school in
Honolulu, at Oahu College, into which the Punahou school developed in
1852, and at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he
graduated in 1862. He served in the Civil War, on the Union side, from
1862 to 1865, rising in the volunteer service to the regular rank of
colonel and the brevet rank of brigadier-general, and, after December
1863, acted as one of the officers of the coloured troops commanded by
General William Birney. In November 1865 he was honourably mustered out
of the volunteer service. His experience as commander of negro troops
had added to his interest, always strong, in the negroes of the south,
and in March 1866 he became superintendent of the Ninth District of
Virginia, under the Freedman's Bureau, with headquarters near Fort
Monroe. While in this position he became convinced that the only
permanent solution of the manifold difficulties which the freedmen
encountered lay in their moral and industrial education. He remained in
the educational department of the Bureau until this work came to an end
in 1872; though five years earlier, at Hampton, Virginia, near Fort
Monroe, he had founded, with the aid principally of the American
Missionary Association, an industrial school for negroes, Hampton
Institute, which was formally opened in 1868, and at the head of which
he remained until his death, there, on the 11th of May 1893. After 1878
Indians were also admitted to the Institute, and during the last fifteen
years of his life Armstrong took a deep interest in the "Indian
question." Much of his time after 1868 was spent in the Northern and
Eastern states, whither he went to raise funds for the Institute. See
_Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a Biographical Study_ (New York, 1904), by
his daughter, Edith Armstrong Talbot.
His brother, WILLIAM N. ARMSTRONG, was attorney-general in the cabinet
of the Hawaiian king Kalakaua I. He accompanied that monarch on a
prolonged foreign tour in 1881, visiting Japan, China, Siam, India,
Europe and the United States, and in 1904 published an amusing account
of the journey, called _Round the World with a King_.
ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM GEORGE ARMSTRONG, BARON (1810-1900), British
inventor, founder of the Elswick manufacturing works, was born on the
26th of November 1810, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was educated at a
school in Bishop Auckland. The profession which he adopted was that of a
solicitor, and from 1833 to 1847 he was engaged in active practice in
Newcastle as a member of the firm of Donkin, Stable & Armstrong. His
sympathies, however, were always with mechanical and scientific
pursuits, and several of his inventions date from a time anterior to his
final abandonment of the law. In 1841-1843 he published several papers
on the electricity of effluent steam. This subject he was led to study
by the experience of a colliery engineman, who noticed that he received
a sharp shock on exposing one hand to a jet of steam issuing from a
boiler with which his other hand was in contact, and the inquiry was
followed by the invention of the "hydro-electric" machine, a powerful
generator of electricity, which was thought worthy of careful
investigation by Faraday. The question of the utilization of water-power
had engaged his attention even earlier, and in 1839 he invented an
improved rotary water motor. Soon afterwards he designed a hydraulic
crane, which contained the germ of all the hydraulic machinery for which
he and Elswick were subsequently to become famous. This machine depended
simply on the pressure of water acting directly in a cylinder on a
piston, which was connected with suitable multiplying gear. In the first
example, which was erected on the quay at Newcastle in 1846, the
necessary pressure was obtained from the ordinary water mains of the
town; but the merits and advantages of the device soon became widely
appreciated, and a demand arose for the erection of cranes in positions
where the pressure afforded by the mains was insufficient. Of course
pressure could always be obtained by the aid of special reservoirs, but
to build these was not always desirable, or even practicable. Hence,
when in 1850 a hydraulic installation was required for a new ferry
station at New Holland, on the Humber estuary, the absence of water
mains of any kind, coupled with the prohibitive cost of a special
reservoir owing to the character of the soil, impelled him to invent a
fresh piece of apparatus, the "accumulator," which consists of a large
cylinder containing a piston that can be loaded to give any desired
pressure, the water being pumped in below it by a steam-engine or other
prime mover. This simple device may be looked upon as the crown of the
hydraulic system, since by its various modifications the installation of
hydraulic power became possible in almost any situation. In particular,
it was rendered practicable on board ship, and its application to the
manipulation of heavy naval guns and other purposes on warships was not
the least important of Armstrong's achievements.
The Elswick works were originally founded for the manufacture of this
hydraulic machinery, but it was not long before they became the
birthplace of a revolution in gunmaking; indeed, could nothing more be
placed to Armstrong's credit than their establishment, his name would
still be worthy of remembrance. Modern artillery dates from about 1855,
when Armstrong's first gun made its appearance. This weapon embodied all
the essential features which distinguish the ordnance of to-day from the
cannon of the middle ages--it was built up of rings of metal shrunk upon
an inner steel barrel; it was loaded at the breech; it was rifled; and
it threw, not a round ball, but an elongated projectile with ogival
head. The guns constructed on this principle yielded such excellent
results, both in range and accuracy, that they were adopted by the
British government in 1859, Armstrong himself being appointed engineer
of rifled ordnance and receiving the honour of knighthood. At the same
time the Elswick Ordnance Company was formed to manufacture the guns
under the supervision of Armstrong, who, however, had no financial
interest in the concern; it was merged in the Elswick Engineering Works
four years later. Great Britain thus originated a principle of gun
construction which has since been universally followed, and obtained an
armament superior to that possessed by any other country at that time.
But while there was no doubt as to the shooting capacities of these
guns, defects in the breech mechanism soon became equally patent, and in
a few years caused a reversion to muzzle-loading. Armstrong resigned his
position in 1863, and for seventeen years the government adhered to the
older method of loading, in spite of the improvements which experiment
and research at Elswick and elsewhere had during that period produced in
the mechanism and performance of heavy guns. But at last Armstrong's
results could no longer be ignored; and wire-wound breech-loading guns
were received back into the service in 1880. The use of steel wire for
the construction of guns was one of Armstrong's early ideas. He
perceived that to coil many turns of thin wire round an inner barrel was
a logical extension of the large hooped method already mentioned, and in
conjunction with I.K. Brunel, was preparing to put the plan to practical
test when the discovery that it had already been patented caused him to
abandon his intention, until about 1877. This incident well illustrates
the ground of his objection to the British system of patent law, which
he looked upon as calculated to stifle invention and impede progress;
the patentees in this case did not manage to make a practical success of
their invention themselves, but the existence of prior patents was
sufficient to turn him aside from a path which conducted him to valuable
results when afterwards, owing to the expiry of those patents, he was
free to pursue it as he pleased.
Lord Armstrong, who was raised to the peerage in 1887, was the author of
_A Visit to Egypt_ (1873), and _Electric Movement in Air and Water_
(1897), besides many professional papers. He died on the 27th of
December 1900, at Rothbury, Northumberland. His title became extinct,
but his grand-nephew and heir, W.H.A.F. Watson-Armstrong (b. 1863), was
in 1903 created Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside.
ARMY (from Fr. _armee_, Lat. _armata_), a considerable body of men armed
and organized for the purpose of warfare on land (Ger. _Armee_), or the
whole armed force at the disposal of a state or person for the same
purpose (Ger. _Heer_ = host). The application of the term is sometimes
restricted to the permanent, active or regular forces of a state. The
history of the development of the army systems of the world is dealt
with in this article in sections 1 to 38, being followed by sections 39
to 59 on the characteristics of present-day armies. The remainder of the
article is devoted to sections on the history of the principal armies of
Europe, and that of the United States. For the Japanese Army see JAPAN,
and for the existing condition of the army in each country see under the
country heading.
GENERAL HISTORY
1. _Early Armies._--It is only with the evolution of the specially
military function in a tribe or nation, expressed by the separation of a
warrior-class, that the history of armies (as now understood) commences.
Numerous savage tribes of the present day possess military organizations
based on this system, but it first appears in the history of
civilization amongst the Egyptians. By the earliest laws of Egypt,
provision was made for the support of the warriors. The exploits of her
armies under the legendary Sesostris cannot be regarded as historical,
but it appears certain that the country possessed an army, capable of
waging war in a regular fashion, and divided thus early into separate
arms, these being chariots, infantry and archers. The systems of the
Assyrians and Babylonians present no particular features of interest,
save that horsemen, as distinct from charioteers, appear on the scene.
The first historical instance of a military organization resembling
those of modern times is that of the Persian empire.
2. _Persia._--Drawn from a hardy and nomadic race, the armies of Persia
at first consisted mainly of cavalry, and owed much of their success to
the consequent ease and rapidity of their movements. The warlike
Persians constantly extended their power by fresh conquests, and for
some time remained a distinctly conquering and military race, attaining
their highest power under Cyrus and Cambyses. Cyrus seems to have been
the founder of a comprehensive military organization, of which we gather
details from Xenophon and other writers. To each province was allotted a
certain number of soldiers as standing army. These troops, formed
originally of native Persians only, were called the king's troops. They
comprised two classes, the one devoted exclusively to garrisoning towns
and castles, the other distributed throughout the country. To each
province was appointed a military commander, responsible for the number
and efficiency of the troops in his district, while the civil governor
was answerable for their subsistence and pay. Annual musters were held,
either by the king in person or by generals deputed for the purpose and
invested with full powers. This organization seems to have fully
answered its original purpose, that of holding a vast empire acquired by
conquest and promptly repelling inroads or putting down insurrections.
But when a great foreign war was contemplated, the standing army was
augmented by a levy throughout the empire. The extent of the empire made
such a levy a matter of time, and the heterogeneous and unorganized mass
of men of all nations so brought together was a source of weakness
rather than strength. Indeed, the vast hosts over which the Greeks
gained their victories comprised but a small proportion of the true
Persians. The cavalry alone seems to have retained its national
character, and with it something of its high reputation, even to the
days of Alexander.
3. _Greece._--The Homeric armies were tribal levies of foot, armed with
spear, sword, bow, &c., and commanded by the chiefs in their
war-chariots. In historic times all this is changed. Greece becomes a
congeries of city-states, each with its own citizen-militia. Federal
armies and permanent troops are rare, the former owing to the
centrifugal tendency of Greek politics, the latter because the
"tyrannies," which must have relied very largely on standing armies to
maintain themselves, had ultimately given way to democratic
institutions. But the citizen-militia of Athens or Sparta resembled
rather a modern "nation in arms" than an auxiliary force. Service was
compulsory in almost all states, and as the young men began their career
as soldiers with a continuous training of two or three years, Hellenic
armies, like those of modern Europe, consisted of men who had undergone
a thorough initial training and were subsequently called up as required.
Cavalry, as always in the broken country of the Peloponnesus, was not of
great importance, and it is only when the theatre of Greek history is
extended to the plains of Thessaly that the mounted men become numerous.
In the 4th century the mainstay of Greek armies was the _hoplite_
([Greek: hoplitaes]), the heavy-armed infantryman who fought in the
_corps de bataille_; the light troops were men who could not provide the
full equipment of the hoplite, rather than soldiers trained for certain
special duties such as skirmishing. The fighting formation was that of
the _phalanx_, a solid corps of hoplites armed with long spears. The
armies were recruited for each war by calling up one or more classes of
men in reserve according to age. It was the duty and privilege of the
free citizen to bear arms; the slaves were rarely trusted with weapons.
4. _Sparta._--So much is common to the various states. In Sparta the
idea of the nation in arms was more thoroughly carried out than in any
other state in the history of civilization. In other states the
individual citizen often lived the life of a soldier, here the nation
lived the life of a regiment. Private homes resembled the "married
quarters" of a modern army; the unmarried men lived entirely in
barracks. Military exercises were only interrupted by actual service in
the field, and the whole life of a man of military age was devoted to
them. Under these circumstances, the Spartans maintained a practically
unchallenged supremacy over the armies of other Greek states; sometimes
their superiority was so great that, like the Spanish regulars in the
early part of the Dutch War of Independence, they destroyed their
enemies with insignificant loss to themselves. The surrender of a
Spartan detachment, hopelessly cut off from all assistance, and the
victory of a body of well-trained and handy light infantry over a closed
battalion of Spartiates were events so unusual as seriously to affect
the course of Greek history.
5. _Greek Mercenaries._--The military system of the 4th century was not
called upon to provide armies for continuous service on distant
expeditions. When, after the earlier campaigns of the Peloponnesian War,
the necessity for such expeditions arose, the system was often strained
almost to breaking point, (e.g. in the case of the Athenian expedition
to Syracuse), and ultimately the states of Greece were driven to choose
between unprofitable expenditure of the lives of citizens and recruiting
from other sources. Mercenaries serving as light troops, and
particularly as _peltasts_ (a new form of disciplined "light infantry")
soon appeared. The _corps de bataille_ remained for long the old phalanx
of citizen hoplites. But the heavy losses of many years told severely on
the resources of every state, and ultimately non-national
recruits--adventurers and soldiers of fortune, broken men who had lost
their possessions in the wars, political refugees, runaway slaves,
&c.--found their way even into the ranks of the hoplites, and Athens at
one great crisis (407) enlisted slaves, with the promise of citizenship
as their reward. The Arcadians, like the Scots and the Swiss in modern
history, furnished the most numerous contingent to the new professional
armies. A truly national army was indeed to appear once more in the
history of the Peloponnesus, but in the meantime the professional
soldier held the field. The old bond of strict citizenship once broken,
the career of the soldier of fortune was open to the adventurous Greek.
Taenarum and Corinth became regular _entrepots_ for mercenaries. The
younger Cyrus raised his army for the invasion of Persia precisely as
the emperors Maximilian and Charles V. raised regiments of
_Landsknechte_--by the issue of recruiting commissions to captains of
reputation. This army became the famous Ten Thousand. It was a marching
city-state, its members not desperate adventurers, but men with the calm
self-respect of Greek civilization. On the fall of its generals, it
chose the best officers of the army to command, and obeyed implicitly.
Cheirisophus the Spartan and Xenophon the Athenian, whom they chose,
were not plausible demagogues; they were line officers, who, suddenly
promoted to the chief command under circumstances of almost overwhelming
difficulty, proved capable of achieving the impossible. The merit of
choosing such leaders is not the least title to fame of the Ten Thousand
mercenary Greek hoplites. About the same time Iphicrates with a body of
mercenary _peltasts_ destroyed a _mora_ or corps of Spartan hoplites
(391 B.C.).
6. _Epaminondas._--Not many years after this, Spartan oppression roused
the Theban revolt, and the Theban revolt became the Theban hegemony. The
army which achieved this under the leadership of Epaminondas, one of the
great captains of history, had already given proofs of its valour
against Xenophon and the Cyreian veterans. Still earlier it had won the
great victory of Delium (424 B.C.).
It was organized, as were the professional armies, on the accepted model
of the old armies, viz. the phalangite order, but the addition of
peltasts now made a Theban army, unlike the Spartans, capable of
operating in broken country as well as in the plain. The new tactics of
the phalanx, introduced by Epaminondas, embodied, for the first time in
the history of war, the modern principle of local superiority of force,
and suggested to Frederick the Great the famous "oblique order of
battle." Further, the cavalry was more numerous and better led than that
of Peloponnesian states. The professional armies had well understood the
management of cavalry; Xenophon's handbook of the subject is not without
value in the 20th century. In Greek armies the dearth of horses and the
consequent numerical weakness of the cavalry prevented the bold use of
the arm on the battlefield (see CAVALRY). But Thebes had always to deal
with nations which possessed numerous horsemen. Jason of Pherae, for
instance, put into the field against Thebes many thousands of Thessalian
horse; and thus at the battle of Tegyra in 375 the Theban cavalry under
Pelopidas, aided by the _corps d'elite_ of infantry called the Sacred
Band, carried all before them. At Leuctra Epaminondas won a glorious
victory by the use of his "oblique order" tactics; the same methods
achieved the second great victory of Mantineia (362 B.c.) at which
Epaminondas fell. Pelopidas had already been slain in a battle against
the Thessalians, and there was no leader to carry on their work. But the
new Greek system was yet to gain its greatest triumphs under Alexander
the Great.
7. _Alexander._--The reforms of Alexander's father, Philip of Macedon,
may most justly be compared to those of Frederick William I. in Prussia.
Philip had lived at Thebes as a hostage, and had known Iphicrates,
Epaminondas and Pelopidas. He grafted the Theban system of tactics on to
the Macedonian system of organization. That the latter--a complete
territorial system--was efficient was shown by the fact that Philip's
blow was always struck before his enemies were ready to meet it. That
the new Greek tactics, properly used, were superior to the old was once
more demonstrated at Chaeronea (338 B.C.), where the Macedonian infantry
militia fought in phalanx, and the cavalry, led by the young Alexander,
delivered the last crushing blow. On his accession, like Frederick the
Great, Alexander inherited a well-trained and numerous army, and was not
slow to use it. The invasion of Asia was carried out by an army of the
Greek pattern, formed both of Hellenes and of non-Hellenes on an
exceedingly strong Macedonian nucleus. Alexander's own guard was
composed of picked horse and foot. The infantry of the line comprised
Macedonian and Greek hoplites, the Macedonians being subdivided into
heavy and medium troops. These fought in a grand phalanx, which was
subdivided into units corresponding to the modern divisions, brigades
and regiments, the fighting formation being normally a line of battalion
masses. The arm of the infantry was the 18-foot pike (_sarissa_). The
peltasts, Macedonian and Greek, were numerous and well trained, and
there was the usual mass of irregular light troops, bowmen, slingers,
&c. The cavalry included the Guard ([Greek: agaema]), a body of heavy
cavalry composed of chosen Macedonians, the line cavalry of Macedonia
([Greek: hetairoi]) and Thessaly, the numerous small contingents of the
Greek states, mercenary corps and light lancers for outpost work. The
final blow and the gathering of the fruits of victory were now for the
first time the work of the mounted arm. The solid phalanx was almost
unbreakable in the earlier stages of the battle, but after a long
infantry fight the horsemen had their chance. In former wars they were
too few and too poorly mounted to avail themselves of it, and decisive
victories were in consequence rarely achieved in battles of Greek versus
Greek. Under Epaminondas, and still more under Philip and Alexander, the
cavalry was strong enough for its new work. Battles are now ended by the
shock action of mounted men, and in Alexander's time it is noted as a
novelty that the cavalry carried out the pursuit of a beaten army. There
were further, in Alexander's army, artillerymen with a battering train,
engineers and departmental troops, and also a medical service, an
improvement attributed to Jason of Pherae. The victories of this army,
in close order and in open, over every kind of enemy and on every sort
of terrain, produced the Hellenistic world, and in that achievement the
history of Greek armies closes, for after the return of the greater part
of the Europeans to their homes the armies of Alexander and his
successors, while preserving much of the old form, become more and more
orientalized.
The decisive step was taken in 323, when a picked contingent of
Persians, armed mainly with missile weapons, was drafted into the
phalanx, in which henceforward they formed the middle ranks of each file
of sixteen men. But, like the third rank of Prussian infantry up to
1888, they normally fought as skirmishers in advance, falling into their
place behind the pikes of the Macedonian file-leaders only if required
for the decisive assault. The new method, of course, depended for
success on the steadiness of the thin three-deep line of Macedonians
thus left as the line of battle. Alexander's veterans were indeed to be
trusted, but as time went on, and little by little the war-trained
Greeks left the service, it became less and less safe to array the
Hellenistic army in this shallow and articulated order of battle. The
purely formal organization of the phalanx sixteen deep became thus the
actual tactical formation, and around this solid mass of 16,384 men
gathered the heterogeneous levies of a typical oriental army. Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, retained far more of the tradition of Alexander's system
than his contemporaries farther east, yet his phalanx, comparatively
light and mobile as it was, achieved victories over the Roman legion
only at the cost of self-destruction. Even elephants quickly became a
necessary adjunct to Hellenistic armies.
8. _Carthage._--The military systems of the Jews present few features of
unusual interest. The expedient of calling out successive contingents
from the different tribes, in order to ensure continuity in military
operations, should, however, be noticed. David and Solomon possessed
numerous permanent troops which served as guards and garrisons; in
principle this organization was identical with that of the Persians, and
that of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Particular interest
attaches to the Carthaginian military forces of the 3rd century B.C.
Rarely has any army achieved such renown in the short space of sixty
years (264-202 B.C.). Carthage produced a series of great generals,
culminating in Hannibal, who is marked out, even by the little that is
known of him, as the equal of Napoleon. But Napoleon was supported by a
national army, Hannibal and his predecessors were condemned to work with
armies of mercenaries. For the first time in the world's history war is
a matter with which the civil population has no concern. The merchants
of Carthage fought only in the last extremity; the wars in which their
markets were extended were conducted by non-national forces and directed
by the few Carthaginian citizens who possessed military aptitudes. The
civil authorities displayed towards their instruments a spirit of hatred
for which it is difficult to find a parallel. Unsuccessful leaders were
crucified, the mercenary soldiers were cheated of their pay, and broke
out into a mutiny which shook the empire of Carthage to its foundations.
But the magnetism of a leader's personality infused a corporate military
spirit into these heterogeneous Punic armies, and history has never
witnessed so complete an illustration of the power of pure and unaided
_esprit de corps_ as in the case of Hannibal's army in Italy, which,
composed as it was of Spaniards, Africans, Gauls, Numidians, Italians
and soldiers of fortune of every country, was yet welded by him into
thorough efficiency. The army of Italy was as great in its last fight at
Zama as the army of Spain at Rocroi; its victories of the Trebia,
Trasimene and Cannae were so appalling that, two hundred years later,
the leader to whom these soldiers devoted their lives was still, to a
Roman, the "dire" Hannibal.
In their formal organization the Carthaginian armies resembled the new
Greek model, and indeed they were created in the first instance by
Xanthippus, a Spartan soldier in the service of Carthage, who was called
upon to raise and train an army when the Romans were actually at the
gates of Carthage, and justified his methods in the brilliant victory of
Tunis (255 B.C.). For the solid Macedonian phalanx of 16,000 spears
Xanthippus substituted a line of heavy battalions equal in its aggregate
power of resistance to the older form, and far more flexible. The
triumphs of the cavalry arm in Hannibal's battles far excelled those of
Alexander's horsemen. Hannibal chose his fighting ground whenever
possible with a view to using their full power, first to defeat the
hostile cavalry, then to ride down the shaken infantry masses, and
finally to pursue _au fond_. At Cannae, the greatest disaster ever
suffered by the Romans, the decisive blow and the slaughter were the
work of Hannibal's line cavalry, the relentless pursuit that of his
light horse. But a professional long-service army has always the
greatest difficulty in making good its losses, and in the present case
it was wholly unable to do so. Even Hannibal failed at last before the
sustained efforts of the citizen army of Rome.
9. _Roman Army under the Republic._--The earliest organization of the
Roman army is attributed to Romulus, who formed it on the tribal
principle, each of the three tribes contributing its contingent of horse
and foot. But it was to Servius Tullius that Rome owed, traditionally,
the complete classification of her citizen-soldiers. For the details of
the Roman military system, see ROMAN ARMY. During the earlier period of
Roman history the army was drawn entirely from the first classes of the
population, who served without pay and provided their own arms and
armour. The wealthiest men (_equites_) furnished the cavalry, the
remainder the infantry, while the poorer classes either fought as light
troops or escaped altogether the privilege and burden of military
service. Each "legion" of 3000 heavy foot was at first formed in a solid
phalanx. The introduction of the elastic and handy three-line formation
with intervals (similar in many respects to Alexander's) was brought
about by the Gallic wars, and is attributed to M. Furius Camillus, who
also, during the siege of Veii, introduced the practice of paying the
soldiers, and thus removed the chief obstacle to the employment of the
poorer classes. The new order of battle was fully developed in the
Pyrrhic Wars, and the typical army of the Republic may be taken as
dating from the latter part of the 3rd century B.C. The legionary was
still possessed of a property qualification, but it had become
relatively small. An annual levy was made at Rome to provide for the
campaign of the year. Discipline was severe, and the rewards appealed as
much to the soldier's honour as to his desire of gain. A legion now
consisted of three lines (_Hastati, Principes, Triarii_), each line
composed of men of similar age and experience, and was further
subdivided into thirty "maniples," each of two "centuries." The normal
establishment of 300 cavalry, 3000 heavy and 1200 light infantry was
still maintained, though in practice these figures were often exceeded.
In place of the old light-armed and somewhat inferior _rorarii_, the new
_velites_ performed light infantry duties (211 B.C.), at the same time
retaining their place in the maniples, of which they formed the last
ranks (compare the Macedonian phalanx as reorganized in 323, S 7 above).
The 300 cavalry of the legion were trained for shock action. But the
strength of the Roman army lay in the heavy legionary infantry of
citizens. The thirty maniples of each legion stood in three lines of
battle, but the most notable point of their formation was that each
maniple stood by itself on its own small manoeuvre-area, free to take
ground to front or flank. To the Roman legion was added a legion of
allies, somewhat differently organized and possessing more cavalry, and
the whole force was called a "double legion" or briefly a "legion." A
consul's army consisted nominally of two double legions, but in the
Punic wars military exigencies rather than custom dictated the numbers
of the army, and the two consuls at Cannae (216 B.C.) commanded two
double consular armies, or eight double legions.
10. _Characteristics of the Roman Army._--Such in outline was the Roman
military organization at the time when it was put to the severe test of
the Second Punic War. Its elements were good, its military skill
superior to that of any other army of ancient history, while its
organization was on the whole far better than any that had gone before.
The handy formation of maniples at open order was unique in the ancient
world, and it did not reappear in history up to the advent of Gustavus
Adolphus. In this formation, in which everything was entrusted to the
skill of subordinates and the individual courage of the rank and file,
the Romans met and withstood with success every type of impact, from the
ponderous shock of the Macedonian phalanx and the dangerous rush of
Celtic savages to the charge of elephants. Yet it was no particular
virtue in the actual form employed that carried the Roman arms to so
many victories. There would have been positive danger in thus
articulating the legion had it been composed of any but the most
trustworthy soldiers. To swiftness and precision of manoeuvre they added
a dogged obstinacy over which nothing but overwhelming disaster
prevailed. It is, therefore, not unnatural to ask wherein the system
which produced these soldiers failed, as it did within a century after
the battle of Zama. The greatest defect was the want of a single
military command. The civil magistrates of Rome were _ex officio_
leaders of her armies, and though no Roman officer lacked military
training, the views of a consul or praetor were almost invariably
influenced by the programme of his political party. When, as sometimes
happened, the men under their command sided in the political differences
of their leaders, all real control came to an end. The soldiers of the
Republic hardly ever forgot that they were citizens with voting powers;
they served as a rule only during a campaign; and, while there could be
little question as to their patriotism and stubbornness, they lacked
almost entirely that _esprit de corps_ which is found only amongst the
members of a body having a permanent corporate existence. Thus they had
the vices as well as the virtues of a nation in arms, and they fell
still further short of the ideal because of the dubious and precarious
tenure of their generals' commands. The great officers were usually sent
home at the end of a campaign, to be replaced by their elected
successors, and they showed all the hesitation and fear of
responsibility usually found in a temporary commander. Above all, when
two armies, each under its own consul or praetor, acted together, the
command was either divided or exercised on alternate days.
11. _Roman Empire._--The essential weaknesses of militia forces and the
accidental circumstances of that under consideration led, even in
earlier times, to the adoption of various expedients which for a time
obviated the evils to which allusion has been made. But a change of far
greater importance followed the final exploits of the armies of the old
system. The increasing dominions of the Republic, the spread of wealth
and luxury, the gradual decadence of the old Roman ideas, all tended to
produce an army more suited to the needs of the newer time than the
citizen militia of the 3rd century. Permanent troops were a necessity;
the rich, in their newly acquired dislike of personal effort, ceased to
bear their share in the routine life of the army, and thus the
proletariat began to join the legions with the express intention of
taking to a military career. The actual change from the old _regime_ to
the new was in the main the work of Gaius Marius. The urgent demand for
men at the time of the Teutonic invasions caused the service to be
thrown open to all Roman citizens irrespective of _census_. The new
territories furnished cavalry, better and more numerous than the old
_equites_, and light troops of various kinds to replace the _velites_.
Only the heavy foot remained a purely Italian force, and the spread of
the Roman citizenship gradually abolished the distinction between a
Roman and an allied legion. The higher classes had repeatedly shown
themselves unwilling to serve under plebeians (e.g. Varro and
Flaminius); Marius preferred to have as soldiers men who did not despise
him as an inferior. Under all these influences for good or for evil, the
standing army was developed in the first half of the 1st century B.C.
The tactical changes in the legion indicate its altered character. The
small maniples gave way to heavy "cohorts," ten cohorts forming the
legion; as in the Napoleonic wars, light and handy formations became
denser and more rigid with the progressive decadence in _moral_ of the
rank and file. It is more significant still that in the days of Marius
the annual oath of allegiance taken by the soldier came to be replaced
by a personal vow, taken once and for all, of loyalty to the general.
_Ubi bene, ibi patria_ was an expression of the new spirit of the army,
and Caesar had but to address his men as _quirites_ (civilians) to quell
a mutiny. _Hastati, principes_ and _triarii_ were now merely expressions
in drill and tactics. But perhaps the most important of all these
changes was the growth of regimental spirit and tradition. The legions
were now numbered throughout the army, and the Tenth Legion has remained
a classic instance of a "crack" corps. The _moral_ of the Roman army was
founded no longer on patriotism, but on professional pride and _esprit
de corps_.
With this military system Rome passed through the era of the Civil Wars,
at the end of which Augustus found himself with forty-five legions on
his hands. As soon as possible he carried through a great
reorganization, by which, after ruthlessly rejecting inferior elements,
he obtained a smaller picked force of twenty-five legions, with numerous
auxiliary forces. These were permanently stationed in the frontier
provinces of the Empire, while Italy was garrisoned by the Praetorian
cohorts, and thus was formed a regular long-service army, the strength
of which has been estimated at 300,000 men. But these measures,
temporarily successful, produced in the end an army which not only was
perpetually at variance with the civil populations it was supposed to
protect, but frequently murdered the emperors to whom it had sworn
allegiance when it raised them to the throne. The evil fame of the
Italian cohorts has survived in the phrase "praetorianism" used to imply
a venal military despotism. The citizens gradually ceased to bear arms,
and the practice of self-mutilation became common. The inevitable
_denouement_ was delayed from time to time by the work of an energetic
prince. But the ever-increasing inefficiency and factiousness of the
legions, and the evanescence of all military spirit in the civil
population, made it easy for the barbarians, when once the frontier was
broken through, to overrun the decadent Empire. The end came when the
Gothic heavy horse annihilated the legions of Valens at Adrianople (A.D.
378).
There was now no resource but to take the barbarians into Roman pay.
Under the name of _foederati_, the Gothic mercenary cavalry played the
most conspicuous part in the succeeding wars of the Empire, and began
the reign of the heavy cavalry arm, which lasted for almost a thousand
years. Even so soon as within six years of the death of Valens twenty
thousand Gothic horse decided a great battle in the emperor's favour.
These men, however, became turbulent and factious, and it was not until
the emperor Leo I. had regenerated the native Roman soldier that the
balance was maintained between the national and the hired warrior. The
work of this emperor and of his successors found eventual expression in
the victories of Belisarius and Narses, in which the Romans, in the new
role of horse-archers, so well combined their efforts with those of the
_foederati_ that neither the heavy cavalry of the Goths nor the phalanx
of Frankish infantry proved to be capable of resisting the imperial
forces. At the battle of Casilinum (553) Roman foot-archers and infantry
bore no small part of the work. It was thus in the Eastern Empire that
the Roman military spirit revived, and the Byzantine army, as evolved
from the system of Justinian, became eventually the sole example of a
fully organized service to be found in medieval history.
12. _The "Dark Ages."_--In western Europe all traces of Roman military
institutions quickly died out, and the conquerors of the new kingdoms
developed fresh systems from the simple tribal levy. The men of the
plains were horsemen, those of marsh and moor were foot, and the four
greater peoples retained these original characteristics long after the
conquest had been completed. In organization the Lombards and Franks,
Visigoths and English scarcely differed. The whole military population
formed the mass of the army, the chiefs and their personal retainers the
_elite_. The Lombards and the Visigoths were naturally cavalry; the
Franks and the English were, equally naturally, infantry, and the armies
of the Merovingian kings differed but little from the English _fyrd_
with which Offa and Penda fought their battles. But in these nations the
use of horses and armour, at first confined to kings and great chiefs,
gradually spread downwards to the ever-growing classes of _thegns,
comites_, &c. Finally, under Charlemagne were developed the general
lines of the military organization which eventually became feudalism.
For his distant wars he required an efficient and mobile army. Hence
successive "capitularies" were issued dealing with matters of
recruiting, organization, discipline and field service work. Very
noticeable are his system of forts (_burgi_) with garrisons, his
military train of artillery and supplies, and the reappearance of the
ancient principle that three or four men should equip and maintain one
of themselves as a warrior. These and other measures taken by him tended
to produce a strong veteran army, very different in efficiency from the
tumultuary levy, to which recourse was had only in the last resort.
While war (as a whole) was not yet an art, fighting (from the
individual's point of view) had certainly become a special function;
after Charlemagne's time the typical feudal army, composed of
well-equipped cavalry and ill-armed peasantry serving on foot, rapidly
developed. Enemies such as Danes and Magyars could only be dealt with by
mounted men who could ride round them, compel them to fight, and
annihilate them by the shock of the charge; consequently the practice of
leaving the infantry in rear, and even at home, grew up almost as a part
of the feudal system of warfare. England, however, sought a different
remedy, and thus diverged from the continental methods. This remedy was
the creation of a fleet, and, the later Danish wars being there carried
out, not by bands of mounted raiders, but by large armies of military
settlers, infantry retained its premier position in England up to the
day of Hastings. Even the _thegns_, who there, as abroad, were the
mainstay of the army, were heavy-armed infantry. The only contribution
made by Canute to the military organization of England was the retention
of a picked force of _hus carles_ (household troops) when the rest of
the army with which he had conquered his realm was sent back to
Scandinavia. At Hastings, the forces of Harold consisted wholly of
infantry. The English array was composed of the king and his personal
friends, the _hus carles_, and the contingents of the _fyrd_ under the
local _thegns_; though better armed, they were organized after the
manner of their forefathers. On that field there perished the best
infantry in Europe, and henceforward for three centuries there was no
serious rival to challenge the predominance of the heavy cavalry.
13. _The Byzantines_ (cf. article ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER).--While the west
of Europe was evolving feudalism, the Byzantine empire was acquiring an
army and military system scarcely surpassed by any of those of antiquity
and not often equalled up to the most modern times. The _foederati_
disappeared after the time of Justinian, and by A.D. 600 the army had
become at once professional and national. For generations, regiments had
had a corporate existence. Now brigades and divisions also appeared in
war, and, somewhat later, in peace likewise. With the disappearance of
the barbarians, the army became one homogeneous service, minutely
systematized, and generally resembling an army in the modern sense of
the word. The militia of the frontier districts performed efficiently
the service of surveillance, and the field forces of disciplined
regulars were moved and employed in accordance with well-reasoned
principles of war; their maintenance was provided for by a scutage,
levied, in lieu of service, on the central provinces of the empire.
Later, a complete territorial system of recruiting and command was
introduced. Each "theme" (military district) had its own regular
garrison, and furnished a field division of some 5000 picked troopers
for a campaign in any theatre of war. Provision having been made in
peace for a depot system, all weakly men and horses could be left
behind, and local duties handed over to second line troops; thus the
field forces were practically always on a war footing. Beside the
"themes" under their generals, there were certain districts on the
frontiers, called "clissuras," placed under chosen officers, and
specially organized for emergency service. The corps of officers in the
Byzantine army was recruited from the highest classes, and there were
many families (e.g. that from which came the celebrated Nicephorus
Phocas) in which soldiering was the traditional career. The rank and
file were either military settlers or men of the yeoman class, and in
either case had a personal interest in the safety of the theme which
prevented friction between soldiers and civilians. The principal arm
was, of course, cavalry, and infantry was employed only in special
duties. Engineer, train and medical services were maintained in each
theme. Of the ensemble of the Byzantine army it has been said that "the
art of war as it was understood at Constantinople ... was the only
system of real merit existing. No western nation could have afforded
such a training to its officers till the 16th or ... 17th century." The
vitality of such an army remained intact long after the rest of the
empire had begun to decay, and though the old army practically ceased to
exist after the great disaster of Manzikert (1071), the barbarians and
other mercenaries who formed the new service were organized, drilled and
trained to the same pitch of military efficiency. Indeed the greatest
tactical triumph of the Byzantine system (Calavryta, 1079) was won by an
army already largely composed of foreigners. But mercenaries in the end
developed praetorianism, as usual, and at last they actually mutinied,
in the presence of the enemy, for higher pay (Constantinople, 1204).
14. _Feudalism._--From the military point of view the change under
feudalism was very remarkable. For the first time in the history of
western Europe there appears, in however rough a form, a systematized
obligation to serve in arms, regulated on a territorial basis. That army
organization in the modern sense--organization for tactics and
command--did not develop in any degree commensurate with the development
of military administration, was due to the peculiar characteristics of
the feudal system, and the virtues and weaknesses of medieval armies
were its natural outcome. Personal bravery, the primary virtue of the
soldier, could not be wanting in the members of a military class, the
_metier_ of which was war and manly exercises. Pride of caste, ambition
and knightly emulation, all helped to raise to a high standard the
individual efficiency of the feudal cavalier. But the gravest faults of
the system, considered as an army organization, were directly due to
this personal element. Indiscipline, impatience of superior control, and
dangerous knight-errantry, together with the absence of any chain of
command, prevented the feudal cavalry from achieving results at all
proportionate to the effort expended and the potentialities of a force
with so many soldierly qualities. If such defects were habitually found
in the best elements of the army--the feudal tenants and subtenants who
formed the heavy cavalry arm--little could be expected of the despised
and ill-armed foot-soldiery of the levy. The swift raids of the Danes
and others (see above) had created a precedent which in French and
German wars was almost invariably followed. The feudal levy rarely
appeared at all on the battlefield, and when it was thus employed it was
ridden down by the hostile knights, and even by those of its own party,
without offering more than the feeblest resistance. Above all, one
disadvantage, common to all classes of feudal soldiers, made an army so
composed quite untrustworthy. The service which a king was able to exact
from his feudatories was so slight (varying from one month to three in
the year) that no military operation which was at all likely to be
prolonged could be undertaken with any hope of success.
15. _Medieval Mercenaries._--It was natural, therefore, that a sovereign
who contemplated a great war should employ mercenaries. These were
usually foreigners, as practically all national forces served on feudal
terms. While the greater lords rode with him on all his expeditions, the
bulk of his army consisted of professional soldiers, paid by the levy of
_scutage_ imposed upon the feudal tenantry. There had always been
soldiers of fortune. William's host at Hastings contained many such men;
later, the Flemings who invaded England in the days of Henry I. sang to
each other--
"Hop, hop, Willeken, hop! England is mine and thine,"--
and from all the evidence it is clear that in earlier days the hired
soldiers were adventurers seeking lands and homes. But these men usually
proved to be most undesirable subjects, and sovereigns soon began to pay
a money wage for the services of mercenaries properly so called. Such
were the troops which figured in English history under Stephen. Such
troops, moreover, formed the main part of the armies of the early
Plantagenets. They were, as a matter of course, armed and armoured like
the knights, with whom they formed the men-at-arms (_gendarmes_) of the
army. Indeed, in the 11th and 12th centuries, the typical army of France
or the Empire contains a relatively small percentage of "knights,"
evidence of which fact may be found even in so fanciful a romance as
_Aucassin and Nicolete_. It must be noted, however, that not all the
mercenaries were heavy cavalry; the Brabancon pikeman and the Italian
crossbowman (the value of whose weapon was universally recognized) often
formed part of a feudal army.
16. _Infantry in Feudal Times._--These mercenary foot soldiers came as a
rule from districts in which the infantry arm had maintained its ancient
predominance in unbroken continuity. The cities of Flanders and Brabant,
and those of the Lombard plain, had escaped feudal interference with
their methods of fighting, and their burgher militia had developed into
solid bodies of heavy-armed pikemen. These were very different from
those of the feudal levy, and individual knightly bravery usually failed
to make the slightest impression on a band of infantry held together by
the stringent corporate feeling of a trade-gild. The more adventurous of
the young men, like those of the Greek cities, took service abroad and
fought with credit in their customary manner. The reign of the
"Brabancon" as a mercenary was indeed short, but he continued, in his
own country, to fight in the old way, and his successor in the
profession of arms, the Genoese crossbowman, was always highly valued.
In England, moreover, the infantry of the old _fyrd_ was not suffered to
decay into a rabble of half-armed countrymen, and in France a burgher
infantry was established by Louis VI. under the name of the _milice des
communes_, with the idea of creating a counterpoise to the power of the
feudatories. Feudalism, therefore, as a military system, was
short-lived. Its limitations had always necessitated the employment of
mercenaries, and in several places a solid infantry was coming into
existence, which was drawn from the sturdy and self-respecting middle
classes, and in a few generations was to prove itself a worthy opponent
not only to the knight, but to the professional man-at-arms.
17. _The Crusades._--It is an undoubted fact that the long wars of the
Crusades produced, directly, but slight improvement in the feudal armies
of Europe. In the East large bodies of men were successfully kept under
arms for a considerable period, but the application of crusading methods
to European war was altogether impracticable. In the first place, much
of the permanent force of these armies was contributed by the military
orders, which had no place in European political activities. Secondly,
enthusiasm mitigated much of the evil of individualism. In the third
place, there was no custom to limit the period of service, since the
Crusaders had undertaken a definite task and would merely have
stultified their own purpose in leaving the work only half done. There
were, therefore, sharp contrasts between crusading and European armies.
In the latter, systematization was confined to details of recruiting; in
the armies of the Cross, men were from time to time obtained by the
accident of religious fervour, while at the same time continuous service
produced a relatively high system of tactical organization. Different
conditions, therefore, produced different methods, and crusading unity
and discipline could not have been imposed on an ordinary army, which
indeed with its paid auxiliaries was fairly adequate for the somewhat
desultory European wars of that time. The statement that the Crusaders
had a direct influence on the revival of infantry is hardly susceptible
of convincing demonstration, but it is at any rate beyond question that
the social and economic results of the Crusades materially contributed
to the downfall of the feudal knight, and in consequence to a rise in
the relative importance of the middle classes. Further, not only were
the Crusading knights compelled by their own want of numbers to rely on
the good qualities of the foot, but the foot themselves were the
"survivors of the fittest," for the weakly men died before they reached
the Holy Land, and with them there were always knights who had lost
their horses and could not obtain remounts. Moreover, when "simple" and
"gentle" both took the Cross there could be no question of treating
Crusaders as if they were the mere feudal levy. But the little direct
influence of the whole of these wars upon military progress in Europe is
shown clearly enough by the fact that at the very close of the Crusades
a great battle was lost through knight-errantry of the true feudal type
(Mansurah).
18. _The Period of Transition_ (1290-1490).--Besides the infantry
already mentioned, that of Scotland and that of the German cities fought
with credit on many fields. Their arm was the pike, and they were always
formed in solid masses (called in Scotland, _schiltrons_). The basis of
the medieval commune being the suppression of the individual in the
social unit, it was natural that the burgher infantry should fight "in
serried ranks and in better order" than a line of individual knights,
who, moreover, were almost powerless before walled cities. But these
forces lacked offensive power, and it was left for the English archers,
whose importance dates from the latter years of the 13th century, to
show afresh, at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, the value of missile
action. When properly supported by other arms, they proved themselves
capable of meeting both the man-at-arms and the pikeman. The greatest
importance attaches to the evolution of this idea of mutual support and
combination. Once it was realized, war became an art, and armies became
specially organized bodies of troops of different arms. It cannot be
admitted, indeed, as has been claimed, that the 14th century had a
scientific system of tactics, or that the campaign of Poitiers was
arranged by the French "general staff." Nevertheless, during this
century armies were steadily coming to consist of expert soldiers, to
the exclusion of national levies and casual mercenaries. It is true
that, by his system of "indents," Edward III. of England raised national
armies of a professional type, but the English soldier thus enrolled,
when discharged by his own sovereign, naturally sought similar
employment elsewhere. This system produced, moreover, a class of
unemployed soldiers, and these, with others who became adventurers from
choice or necessity, and even with foreign troops, formed the armies
which fought in the Wars of the Roses--armies which differed but
slightly from others of the time. The natural result of these wars was
to implant a hatred of soldiery in the heart of a nation which had
formerly produced the best fighting men in Europe, a hatred which left a
deep imprint on the constitutional and social life of the people. In
France, where Joan of Arc passed like a meteor across the military
firmament, the idea of a national regular army took a practical form in
the middle of the 15th century. Still, the forces thus brought into
existence were not numerous, and the soldier of fortune, in spite of
such experiences of his methods as those of the Wars of the Roses, was
yet to attain the zenith of his career.
19. _The Condottieri._--The immediate result of this confused period of
destruction and reconstruction was the _condottiere_, who becomes
important about 1300. In Italy, where the _condottieri_ chiefly
flourished, they were in demand owing to the want of feudal cavalry, and
the inability of burgher infantry to undertake wars of aggression. The
"free companies" (who served in great numbers in France and Spain as
well as in Italy) were "military societies very much like trade-gilds,"
which (so to speak) were hawked from place to place by their managing
directors, and hired temporarily by princes who needed their services.
Unlike the older hirelings, they were permanently organized, and thus,
with their experience and discipline, became the best troops in
existence. But the carrying on of war "in the spirit of a handicraft"
led to bloodless battles, indecisive campaigns, and other unsatisfactory
results, and the reign of the _condottieri_ proper was over by 1400,
subsequent free companies being raised on a more strictly national
basis. With all their defects, however, they were the pioneers of modern
organization. In the inextricable tangle of old and new methods which
constitutes the military system of the 15th century, it is possible to
discern three marked tendencies. One is the result of a purely military
conception of the now special art of war, and its exposition as an art
by men who devote their whole career to it. The second is the idea of a
national army, resulting from many social, economical and political
causes. The third is the tendency towards minuter organization and
subdivision within the army. Whereas the individual feudatories had
disliked the close supervision of a minor commander, and their army had
in consequence remained always a loosely-knit unit, the men who made war
into an art belonged to small bands or corps, and naturally began their
organization from the lower units. Herein, therefore, was the germ of
the regimental system of the present day.
20. _The Swiss._--The best description of a typical European army at the
opening of the new period of development is that of the French army in
Italy in 1494, written by Paolo Giovio. He notes with surprise that the
various corps of infantry and cavalry are distinct, the usual practice
of the time being to combine one lancer, one archer, one groom, &c.,
into a small unit furnished and commanded by the lancer. There were
Swiss and German infantry, armed with pike and halbert, with a few
"shot," who marched in good order to music. There were the heavy
men-at-arms (_gendarmes_), accompanied as of old by mounted archers,
who, however, now fought independently. There were, further, Gascon
slingers and crossbowmen, who had probably acquired, from contact with
Spain, some of the lightness and dash of their neighbours. The artillery
train was composed of 140 heavy pieces and a great number of lighter
guns; these were then and for many generations thereafter a special arm
outside the military establishments (see ARTILLERY). In all this the
only relic of the days of Crecy is the administrative combination of the
men-at-arms and the horse archers, and even this is no longer practised
in action. The most important element in the army is the heavy infantry
of Swiss and Germans. The Swiss had for a century past gradually
developed into the most formidable troops of the day. The wars of Zizka
(q.v.) in Bohemia (1420) materially assisted in the downfall of the
heavy cavalry; and the victories of the Swiss, beginning with Sempach
(1382), had by 1480 proved that their solid battalions, armed with the
long pike and the halberd, were practically invulnerable to all but
missile and shock action combined. By fortune of war, they never met the
English, who had shown the way to deal with the _schiltron_ as early as
Falkirk. So great was their confidence against ordinary troops, that on
one occasion (1444) they detached 1600 men to engage 50,000. It was
natural that a series of victories such as Granson, Morat and Nancy
should place them in the forefront of the military nations of Europe.
The whole people devoted itself thereupon to professional soldiering,
particularly in the French service, and though their monopoly of
mercenary employment lasted a short time only, they continued to furnish
regiments to the armies of France, Spain and the Pope up to the most
modern times. But their efficiency was thoroughly sapped by the growth
of a mutinous and insubordinate spirit, the memory of which has survived
in the proverb _Point d'argent, point de Suisse_, and inspired
Machiavelli with the hatred of mercenaries which marks every page of his
work on the art of war. One of their devices for extorting money was to
appear at the muster with many more soldiers than had been contracted
for by their employers, who were forced to submit to this form of
blackmail. At last the French, tired of these caprices, inflicted on the
Swiss the crushing defeat of Marignan (q.v.), and their tactical system
received its death-blow from the Spaniards at Pavia (1525).
21. _The Landsknechts._--The modern army owes far more of its
organization and administrative methods to the Landsknechts ("men of the
country," as distinct from foreigners) than to the Swiss. As the latter
were traditionally the friends of France, so these Swabians were the
mainstay of the Imperial armies, though both were mercenaries. The
emperor Maximilian exerted himself to improve the new force, which soon
became the model for military Europe. A corps of Landsknechts was
usually raised by a system resembling that of "indents," commissions
being issued by the sovereign to leaders of repute to enlist men. A
"colour" (_Fahnlein_) numbered usually about 400 men, a corps consisted
of a varying number of colours, some corps having 12,000 men. From these
troops, with their intense pride, _esprit de corps_ and comradeship,
there has come down to modern times much of present-day etiquette,
interior economy and "regimental customs"--in other words, nearly all
that is comprised in the "regimental" system. Amongst the most notable
features of their system were the functions of the provost, who combined
the modern offices of provost-marshal, transport and supply officer, and
canteen manager; the disciplinary code, which admitted the right of the
rank and file to judge offences touching the honour of the regiment; and
the women who, lawfully or unlawfully attached to the soldiers, marched
with the regiment and had a definite place in its corporate life. The
conception of the regiment as the home of the soldier was thus realized
in fact.
22. _The Spanish Army._--The tendencies towards professional soldiering
and towards subdivision had now pronounced themselves. At the same time,
while national armies, as dreamed of by Machiavelli; were not yet in
existence, two at least of the powers were beginning to work towards an
ideal. This ideal was an army which was entirely at the disposal of its
own sovereign, trained to the due professional standard, and organized
in the best way found by experience to be applicable to military needs.
On these bases was formed the old Spanish army which, from Pavia (1525)
to Rocroi (1643), was held by common consent to be the finest service in
existence. Almost immediately after emerging from the period of internal
development, Spain found herself obliged to maintain an army for the
Italian wars. In the first instance this was raised from amongst
veterans of the war of Granada, who enlisted for an indefinite time.
Probably the oldest line regiments in Europe are those descended from
the famous _tercios_, whose formation marks the beginning of military
establishments, just as the Landsknechts were the founders of military
manners and customs. The great captains who led the new army soon
assimilated the best points of the Swiss system, and it was the Spanish
army which evolved the typical combination of pike and musket which
flourished up to 1700. Outside the domain the tactics, it must be
credited with an important contribution to the science of army
organization, in the depot system, whereby the _tercios_ in the field
were continually "fed" and kept up to strength. The social position of
the soldier was that of a gentleman, and the young nobles (who soon came
to prefer the _tercios_ to the cavalry service) thought it no shame,
when their commands were reduced, to "take a pike" in another regiment.
The provost and his gallows were as much in evidence in a Spanish camp
as in one of Landsknechts, but the comradeship and _esprit de corps_ of
a _tercio_ were the admiration of all contemporary soldiers. With all
its good qualities, however, this army was not truly national; men soon
came from all the various nations ruled by the Habsburgs, and the
soldier of fortune found employment in a _tercio_ as readily as
elsewhere. But it was a great gain that corps, as such, were fully
recognized as belonging to the government, however shifting the
_personnel_ might be. Permanence of regimental existence had now been
attained, though the universal acceptance and thorough application of
the principle were still far distant. During the 16th century, the
French regular army (originating in the _compagnies d'ordonnance_ of
1445), which was always in existence, even when the Swiss and
_gendarmes_ were the best part of the field forces, underwent a
considerable development, producing amongst other things the military
terminology of the present day. But the wars of religion effectually
checked all progress in the latter part of the century, and the European
reputation of the French army dates only from the latter part of the
Thirty Years' War.
23. _The Sixteenth Century._--The battle of St Quentin (1557) is usually
taken as the date from which the last type of a purely mercenary _arm_
(as distinct from _corps_) comes into prominence. "Brabancon" or "Swiss"
implied pikemen without further qualification, the new term "Reiter"
similarly implied mercenary cavalry fighting with the pistol. Heavy
cavalry could disperse arquebusiers and musketeers, but it was helpless
against solid masses of pikemen; the Reiters solved the difficulty by
the use of the pistol. They were well armoured and had little to fear
from musket-balls. Arrayed in deep squadrons, therefore, they rode up to
the pikes with impunity, and fired methodically _dans le tas_, each rank
when it had discharged its pistols filing to the rear to reload. These
Reiters were organized in squadrons of variable strength, and recruited
in the same manner as were the Landsknechts. They were much inferior,
however, to the latter in their discipline and general conduct, for
cavalry had many more individual opportunities of plunder than the foot,
and the rapacity and selfishness of the Reiters were consequently in
marked contrast to the good order and mutual helpfulness in the field
and in quarters which characterized the regimental system of the
Landsknechts.
24. _Dutch System._--The most interesting feature of the Dutch system,
which was gradually evolved by the patriots in the long War of
Independence, was its minute attention to detail. In the first years of
the war, William the Silent had to depend, for field operations, on
mutinous and inefficient mercenaries and on raw countrymen who had
nothing but devotion to oppose to the discipline and skill of the best
regular army in the world. Such troops were, from the point of view of
soldiers like Alva, mere _canaille_, and the ludicrous ease with which
their armies were destroyed (as at Jemmingen and Mookerheyde), at the
cost of the lives of perhaps a dozen Spanish veterans, went far to
justify this view. But, fortunately for the Dutch, their fortified towns
were exceedingly numerous, and the individual bravery of
citizen-militia, who were fighting for the lives of every soul within
their walls, baffled time after time all the efforts of Alva's men. In
the open, Spanish officers took incredible liberties with the enemy;
once, at any rate, they marched for hours together along submerged
embankments with hostile vessels firing into them from either side.
Behind walls the Dutch were practically a match for the most furious
valour of the assailants.
The insurgents' first important victory in the open field, that of
Rymenant near Malines (1577), was won by the skill of "Bras de Fer," de
la Noue, a veteran French general, and the stubbornness of the English
contingent of the Dutch army--for England, from 1572 onwards, sent out
an ever-increasing number of volunteers. This battle was soon followed
by the great defeat of Gembloux (1578), and William the Silent was not
destined to see the rise of the Dutch army. Maurice of Nassau was the
real organizer of victory. In the wreck of all feudal and burgher
military institutions, he turned to the old models of Xenophon,
Polybius, Aelian and the rest. Drill, as rigid and as complicated as
that of the Macedonian phalanx, came into vogue, the infantry was
organized more strictly into companies and regiments, the cavalry into
troops or cornets. The _Reiter_ tactics of the pistol were followed by
the latter, the former consisted of pikes, halberts and "shot." This
form was generally followed in central Europe, as usual, without the
spirit, but in Holland it was the greater trustworthiness of the rank
and file that allowed of more flexible formations, and here we no longer
see the foot of an army drawn up, as at Jemmingen, in one solid and
immovable "square." In their own country and with the system best suited
thereto, the Dutch, who moreover acquired greater skill and steadiness
day by day, maintained their ground against all the efforts of a Parma
and a Spinola. Indeed, it is the best tribute to the vitality of the
Spanish system that the inevitable _debacle_ was so long delayed. The
campaigns of Spinola in Germany demonstrated that the "Dutch" system, as
a system for general use, was at any rate no better than the system over
which it had locally asserted its superiority, and the spirit, and not
the form, of Maurice's practice achieved the ultimate victory of the
Netherlanders. In the Thirty Years' War, the unsuccessful armies of
Mansfeld and many others were modelled on the Dutch system,--the forces
of Spinola, of Tilly and of Wallenstein, on the Spanish. In other words,
these systems as such meant little; the discipline and spirit behind
them, everything. Yet the contribution made by the Dutch system to the
armies of to-day was not small; to Maurice and his comrades we owe,
first the introduction of careful and accurate drill, and secondly the
beginnings of an acknowledged science of war, the groundwork of both
being the theory and practice of antiquity. The present method of
"forming fours" in the British infantry is ultimately derived from
Aelian, just as the first beats of the drums in a march represent the
regimental calls of the Landsknechts, and the depots and the drafts for
the service battalions date from the Italian wars of Spain.
25. _The Thirty Years' War._--Hitherto all armies had been raised or
reduced according to the military and political situation of the moment.
Spain had indeed maintained a relatively high effective in peace, but
elsewhere a few personal guards, small garrisons, and sometimes a small
regular army to serve as a nucleus, constituted the only permanent
forces kept under arms by sovereigns, though, in this era of perpetual
wars, armies were almost always on a war footing. The expense of
maintenance at that time practically forbade any other system than this,
called in German _Werbe-system_, a term for which in English there is no
nearer equivalent than "enlistment" or "levy" system. It is worth
noticing that this very system is identical in principle with that of
the United States at the present day, viz., a small permanent force,
inflated to any required size at the moment of need. The exceptional
conditions of the Dutch army, indeed, secured for its regiments a long
life; yet when danger was finally over, a large portion of the army was
at once reduced. The history of the British army from about 1740 to 1820
is a most striking, if belated, example of the _Werbe-system_ in
practice. But the Thirty Years' War naturally produced an unusual
continuity of service in corps raised about 1620-1630, and fifty years
later the principle of the standing army was universally accepted. It is
thus that the senior regiments of the Prussian and Austrian armies date
from about 1630. At this time an event took place which was destined to
have a profound influence on the military art. Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden landed in Germany with an army better organized, trained and
equipped than any which had preceded it. This army, by its great victory
of Breitenfeld (1631), inaugurated the era of "modern" warfare, and it
is to the system of Gustavus that the student must turn for the initial
point of the progressive development which has produced the armies of
to-day. Spanish and Dutch methods at once became as obsolete as those of
the Landsknechts.
26. _The Swedish Army._--The Swedish army was raised by a carefully
regulated system of conscription, which was "preached in every pulpit in
Sweden." There were indeed enlisted regiments of the usual type, and it
would seem that Gustavus obtained the best even of the soldiers of
fortune. But the national regiments were raised on the _Indelta_ system.
Each officer and man, under this scheme, received a land grant within
the territorial district of his corps, and each of these districts
supplied recruits in numbers proportionate to its population. This
curious mixture of feudal and modern methods produced the best elements
of an army, which, aided by the tactical and technical improvements
introduced by Gustavus, proved itself incomparably superior to its
rivals. Of course the long and bloody campaigns of 1630-34 led to the
admission of great numbers of mercenaries even into the Swedish corps;
and German, Scottish and other regiments figured largely, not only in
the armies of Duke Bernhard and his successors, but in the army of
Gustavus' own lifetime. As early as 1632 one brigade of the army was
distinguished by the title "Swedish," as alone containing no foreigners.
Yet the framework was much the same as it had been in 1630. The
battle-organization of two lines and two wings, which was typical of the
later "linear" tactics, began to supplant the system of the _tercios_.
How cumbrous the latter had become by 1630 may be judged from any
battle-plan of the period, and notably from that of Lutzen. Gustavus'
cavalry fought four or three deep only, and depended as little as
possible on the pistol. The work of riding down the pikes was indeed
rendered easier by the improved tactical handiness of the musketeers,
but it was fiery leading which alone compelled victory, for there were
relatively few Swedish horse and many squadrons of Germans and others,
who in themselves were far less likely to charge boldly than the
"Pappenheimers" and other crack corps of the enemy. The infantry was of
the highest class, and only on that condition could loose and supple
lines be trusted to oppose the solid _tercios_ of Tilly and Wallenstein.
Cumbrous indeed these were, but by long practice they had acquired no
small manoeuvring power, of which Breitenfeld affords a striking
example. The Swedes, however, completely surpassed them. The progress
thus made may be gauged from the fact that under Gustavus the largest
closed body of infantry was less than 300 strong. Briefly, the genius of
a great commander, the ardour of a born cavalry leader, better arms and
better organization, carried the Swedes to the end of their career of
victory, but how personal was the _vis viva_ which inspired the army was
quickly noticeable after the death of Gustavus. Even a Bernhard could,
in the end, evoke no more heroism from a Swedish army than from any
other, and the real Swedish troops fought their last battle at
Nordlingen (1634). After this, little distinguished the "Swedish" forces
from the general mass of the armies of the time, save their system, to
which, and to its influence on the training of such leaders as Baner,
Torstensson and Wrangel, all their later victories were due. So much of
Gustavus' work survived even the carnage of Nordlingen, and his system
always obtained better results, even with the heterogeneous troops of
this later period, than any other of the time.
27. _The English Civil War_ (see GREAT REBELLION).--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 regime. 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
1660-1740 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 1758-1762, 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 exceptions 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 marvellous 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 a copy 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 1799 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 80, 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 regime. 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 skilful direction that the _levee en
masse_ of 1793 had lacked. Only the now fully developed genius and
magnificent tenacity of Napoleon staved off for a time the _debacle_
which was as inevitable as had been that of the old regime.
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 manoeuvring 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 Senarmont 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 1806. This was formed of the following
troops:--
Cavalry brigade--General Vialannes--three regiments, 1538 men. Corps
artillery, 12 guns.
1st Division--General Morand--five infantry regiments in three
brigades, 12 guns, 10,820 men.
2nd Division--General Friant--five regiments in three brigades, 8
guns, 8758 men.
3rd Division--General Gudin--four 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 19th 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 _Krumper_ 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
_denouement_ 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 Wehrpflicht_) 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 regime
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 1815-1870._--The events of the period 1815-1859
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 1848-1850. But the principle was not permitted to
die out. The Bronnzell-Olmutz 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 1861-1865 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 Armee_ 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
result--indeed, 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, 300 m. 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 the 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 the
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 1873-1890) 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 1894-95 and 1904-5 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 1899-1902 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 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 in different 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
Wehrpflicht_) 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
(_Landwehr, Landsturm_, &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 regime 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
practised. The obvious unfairness of selection by lot has always had the
result of admitting substitutes procured by those on 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 1870-71 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 regime, 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 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 practised 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 16 cavalry
soldiers to 100 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 3-1/2 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 of 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, officers of each grade
control a group of the next lower units. A lieutenant-colonel, for
instance, 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 organized in 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 infantry brigades and a force of artillery and
mounted 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. A _brigade_ is the command of a brigadier or major-general, or of a
colonel. It consists almost invariably of one arm only. In armies 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 from the
16th century. The infantry brigade consists, in the British service, of
the brigadier and his staff, four battalions of infantry, and
administrative and medical units, the combatant strength being about
4000 men. In Germany and France the brigade is composed of the staff,
and two regiments (6 battalions) with a total of over 6000 combatants at
war strength. The cavalry brigade is sometimes formed of three,
sometimes of two regiments; the number of squadrons to a regiment on
service is usually four, exceptionally three, and rarely five and six.
The "brigade" of artillery in Great Britain is a lieutenant-colonel's
command, and the term here corresponds to the _Abtheilung_ of the
German, and the _groupe_ of the 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. 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
sometimes as high as 72 guns (Germany); in Great Britain the augmented
division of 1906 has 54 field guns, 12 field howitzers, and 4 heavy
guns, a total of 70. The term "infantry" division is, in strictness, no
longer applicable, 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 staff, two or more infantry brigades, a number of
batteries 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
the 1906 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 the 18th 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 auxiliary and medical services, and permanently
placed under the command of one general. The corps organization (though
a _corps d'armee_ was often spoken of as an _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 invariably
constituted each _corps d'armee_ of a different strength, so that the
enemy would not be able to estimate his force by the simple process of
counting the corps flags which marked the marshals' headquarters. 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, representing a
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 troops of the III. army corps
being Brandenburgers, all those of the VI. Silesians, and so on, though
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 theatre
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. Even 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 assigned 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)
consisted 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
countries 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 other arms; at
the present time 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 supervision 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 organization 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 1904-5, 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.
50. _Army._--The term "army" is applied, in war time, to any command of
several army corps, or even of several divisions, operating under the
orders of one commander-in-chief. The army in this sense (distinguished
by a number or by a special title) varies, therefore, with
circumstances. In the American Civil War, the Army of the Ohio consisted
in 1864 only of the army staff and the XXIII. corps. At the other
extreme we find that the German II. Army in 1870 consisted of seven army
corps and two cavalry divisions, and the III. Army of six army corps and
two cavalry divisions. The term "army" in this sense is therefore very
elastic in its application, but it is generally held that large groups
of corps operating in one theatre of war should be subdivided into
armies, and that the strength of an army should not exceed about 150,000
men, if indeed this figure is reached at all. This again depends upon
circumstances. It might be advisable to divide a force of five corps
into two armies, or on the other hand it might be impossible to find
suitable leaders for more than two armies when half a million men were
present for duty. In France, organization has been carried a step
further. The bulk of the national forces is, in case of war, organized
into a "group of armies" under a commander, usually, though incorrectly,
called the _generalissimo_. This office, of course, does not exist in
peace, but the insignia, the distinctive marks of the headquarters flag,
&c., are stated in official publications, and the names of the
generalissimo and of his chief of staff are known. Under the
generalissimo would be four or five army commanders, each with three or
four army corps under him. Independent of this "group of armies" there
would be other and minor "armies" where required.
51. _Chief Command._--The leading of the "group of armies" referred to
above does not, in France, imply the supreme command, which would be
exercised by the minister of war in Paris. The German system, on the
other hand, is based upon the leadership of the national forces by the
sovereign in person, and even though the headquarters of the "supreme
war lord" (_Oberste Kriegsherr_) are actually in the field in one
theatre of operations, he directs the movements of the German armies in
all quarters. Similarly, in 1864, General Grant accompanied and
controlled as a "group" the Armies of the Potomac and the James,
supervising at the same time the operations of other groups and armies.
In the same campaign a subordinate general, Sherman, commanded a "group"
consisting of the Armies of the Tennessee, the Cumberland and the Ohio.
The question as to whether the supreme command and the command of the
principal group of armies should be in the same hands is very difficult
of solution. In practice, the method adopted in each case usually grows
out of the military and political conditions. The advantage of the
German method is that the supreme commander is in actual contact with
the troops, and can therefore form an accurate judgment of their powers.
Under these conditions the risk of having cabinet strategy forced upon
the generals is at its minimum, and more especially so if the supreme
commander is the head of the state. On the other hand, his judgment is
very liable to be influenced unduly by facts, coming under his own
notice, which may in reality have no more than a local significance.
Further, the supreme commander is at the mercy of distant subordinates
to a far greater degree than he would be if free to go from one army to
another. Thus, in 1870 the king of Prussia's headquarters before Paris
were subjected to such pressure from subordinate army commanders that on
several occasions selected staff-officers had to be sent to examine, for
the king's private information, the real state of things at the front.
The conduct of operations by one group commander in the campaign of 1864
seemed, at a distance, so eccentric and dangerous that General Grant
actually left his own group of armies and went in person to take over
command at the threatened point. Balanced judgment is thus often
impossible unless the supreme command is independent of, and in a
position to exercise general supervision over, each and every group or
army. At the other end of the scale is the system of command employed by
the Turks in 1877, in which four armies, three of them being actually on
the same theatre of war, were directed from Constantinople. This system
may be condemned unreservedly. It is recognized that, once the armies on
either side have become seriously engaged, a commander-in-chief on the
spot must direct them. Thus in 1904, while the Japanese and Russian
armies were under the supreme command of their respective sovereigns,
General Kuropatkin and Marshal Oyama personally commanded the chief
groups of armies in the field. This is substantially the same as the
system of the French army. It is therefore permissible to regard the
system pursued by the Germans in 1870, and by the Union government in
1864, more as suited to special circumstances than as a general rule. As
has been said above, the special feature of the German system of command
is the personal leadership of the German emperor, and this brings the
student at once to the consideration of another important part of the
"superior leading."
52. The _Chief of the General Staff_ is, as his title implies, the chief
staff officer of the service, and as such, he has duties of the highest
possible importance, both in peace and war. For the general subject of
staff duties see STAFF. Here we are concerned only with the peculiar
position of the chief of staff under a system in which the sovereign is
the actual commander-in-chief. It is obvious in the first place that the
sovereign may not be a great soldier, fitted by mental gifts, training
and character to be placed at the head of an army of, perhaps, a million
men. Allowing that it is imperative that, whatever he may be in himself,
the sovereign should _ex officio_ command the armies, it is easy to see
that the ablest general in these armies must be selected to act as his
adviser, irrespective of rank and seniority. This officer must therefore
be assigned to a station beyond that of his army rank, and his orders
are in fact those of the sovereign himself. Nor is it sufficient that he
should occupy an unofficial position as adviser, or _ad latus_. If he
were no more than this, the sovereign could act without his adviser
being even aware of the action taken. As the staff is the machinery for
the transmission of orders and despatches, all orders of the
commander-in-chief are signed by the chief of staff as a matter of
course, and this position is therefore that in which the adviser has the
necessary influence. The relations between the sovereign and his chief
military adviser are thus of the first importance to the smooth working
of the great military machine, and never have the possibilities of this
apparently strange system been more fully exploited than by King William
and his chief of staff von Moltke in 1866 and in 1870-71. It is not true
to say that the king was the mere figurehead of the German armies, or
that Moltke was the real commander-in-chief. Those who have said this
forget that the sole responsibility for the consequences of every order
lay with the king, and that it is precisely the fear of this
responsibilty that has made so many brilliant subordinates fail when in
chief command. The characters of the two men supplemented each other, as
also in the case of Blucher and Gneisenau and that of Radetzky and Hess.
Under these circumstances, the German system of command works, on the
whole, smoothly. Matters would, however, be different if either of the
two officers failed to realize their mutual interdependence, and the
system is in any case only required when the self-sufficing great
soldier is not available for the chief executive command.
53. _First and Second Lines._--The organization into arms and units is
of course maintained in peace as well as for war. Military forces are
further organized, in peace, into active and reserve troops, first and
second lines, &c., according to the power possessed by the executive
over the men. Broadly speaking, the latter fall into three classes,
regulars, auxiliary forces and irregular troops. The regulars or active
troops are usually liable to serve at all times and in any country to
which they may be sent. Auxiliary forces may be defined as all troops
which undergo actual military training without being constantly under
arms, and in Great Britain these were until 1908 represented by the
Militia, the Yeomanry and the Volunteers, and now by the Territorial
Force and the Special Reserve. In a country in which recruiting is by
voluntary enlistment the classification is, of course, very different
from that prevailing in a conscript army. The various "lines" are
usually composed of separate organizations; the men are recruited upon
different engagements, and receive a varying amount of training. Of the
men not permanently embodied, only the reserve of the active army has
actually served a continuous term with the colours. Other troops, called
by various appellations, of which "militia" may be taken as generic, go
through their military training at intervals. The general lines of army
organization in the case of a country recruiting by universal service
are as follows:--The male population is divided into classes, by ages,
and the total period of liability to service is usually about 25 years.
Thus at any given time, assuming two years' colour-service, the men of
20 and 21 years of age would constitute the active army serving with the
colours, those of, say, 22 and 23, the reserve. The _Landwehr_ or second
line army would consist of all men who had been through the active army
and were now aged 24 to 36. The third line would similarly consist of
men whose ages were between 36 and 44. Assuming the same annual levy,
the active army would consist of 200,000 men, its reserve 200,000, the
second line of 1,300,000, and the third of 800,000. Thus of 2,500,000
men liable to, and trained for, military service, 200,000 only would be
under arms at any given time. The simple system here outlined is of
course modified and complicated in practice owing to re-engagements by
non-commissioned officers, the speedy dismissal to the reserve of
intelligent and educated men, &c.
54. _War Reserves._--In war, the reserves increase the field armies to
400,000 men, the whole or part of the second line is called up and
formed into auxiliary regiments, brigades and divisions, and in case of
necessity the third line is also called upon, though usually this is
only in the last resort and for home defence only. The proportion of
reservists to men with the colours varies of course with the length of
service. Thus in France or Germany, with two years' service in force,
half of the rank and file of a unit in war would be men recalled from
civil life. The true military value of reservists is often questioned,
and under certain circumstances it is probable that units would take the
field at peace strength without waiting for their reservists. The
frontier guards of the continental military powers, which are expected
to move at the earliest possible moment after hostilities have begun,
are maintained at a higher effective than other units, and do not depend
to any great extent on receiving reservists. The peace footing of
cavalry and artillery units is similarly maintained at an artificial
level. An operation of the nature of a _coup de main_ would in any case
be carried out by the troops available at the moment, however large
might be the force required--twenty weak battalions would, in fact, be
employed instead of ten strong ones. There is another class of troops,
which may be called depot troops. These consist of officers and men left
behind when the active corps completed with reserves takes the field,
and they have (a) to furnish drafts for the front--and (b) to form a
nucleus upon which all later formations are built up. The troops of the
second line undertake minor work, such as guarding railways, and also
furnish drafts for the field army. Later, when they have been for some
time under arms, the second line troops are often employed by themselves
in first line. A year's training under war conditions should bring such
troops to the highest efficiency. As for irregulars, they have real
military value only when the various permanent establishments do not
take up the whole fighting strength of the nation, and thus states
having universal service armies do not, as a rule, contemplate the
employment of combatants other than those shown on the peace rolls. The
status of irregulars is ill defined, but it is practically agreed that
combatants, over whose conduct the military authorities have no
disciplinary power, should be denied the privileges of recognized
soldiers, and put to death if captured. So drastic a procedure is
naturally open to abuse and is not always expedient. Still, it is
perfectly right that the same man shall not be allowed, for example, to
shoot a sentry at one moment, and to claim the privileges of a harmless
civilian at the next. The division into first, second and third lines
follows generally from the above. The first line troops, in a conscript
army, are the "active army" or regulars, permanently under arms in peace
time, and its reserves, which are used on the outbreak of war to
complete the existing units to full strength. The German terms
_Landwehr_ and _Landsturm_ are often applied to armies of the second and
the third lines.
55. The military characteristics of the various types of regular troops
have been dealt with in considering the advantages and disadvantages of
the several forms of recruiting. It only remains to give some indication
of the advantages which such forces (irrespective of their time of
service) possess over troops which only come up for training at
intervals. Physically, the men with the colours are always superior to
the rest, owing to their constant exercise and the regularity and order
under which they live; as soldiers, they are more under the control of
their officers, who are their leaders in daily life, in closer touch
with army methods and discipline, and, as regards their formal training,
they possess infinitely greater power of strategic and tactical
manoeuvre. Their steadiness under fire is of course more to be relied
upon than that of other troops. Wellington, speaking of the contrast
between old and young soldiers (regulars), was of opinion that the chief
difference lay in the greater hardiness, power of endurance, and general
campaigning qualities given by experience. This is of course more than
ever true in respect of regular and auxiliary troops, as was strikingly
demonstrated in the Spanish-American War. On the whole, it is true to
say that only a regular army can endure defeat without dissolution, and
that volunteers, reservists or militiamen fresh from civil life may win
a victory but cannot make the fullest use of it when won. At the same
time, when they have been through one or two arduous campaigns, raw
troops become to all intents and purposes equal to any regulars. On the
other hand, the greatest military virtue of auxiliary forces is their
enthusiasm. With this quality were won the great victories of 1792-94 in
France, those of 1813 in Germany, and the beginnings of Italian unity at
Calatafimi and Palermo. The earlier days of the American Civil War
witnessed desperate fighting, of which Shiloh is the best example,
between armies which had had but the slightest military training. In the
same war the first battle of Bull Run illustrated what has been said
above as to the weaknesses of unprofessional armies. Both sides, raw and
untrained, fought for a long time with the greatest determination, after
which the defeated army was completely dissolved in rout and the victors
quite unable to pursue. So far it is the relative military value of the
professional soldier and the citizen-soldier that has been reviewed. A
continental army of the French or German stamp is differently
constituted. It is, first of all, clear that the drilled citizen-soldier
combines the qualities of training and enthusiasm. From this it follows
that a hostile "feeling" as well as a hostile "view" must animate such
an army if it is to do good service. If a modern "nation in arms" is
engaged in a purely dynastic quarrel against a professional army of
inferior strength, the result will probably be victory for the latter.
But the active army of France or Germany constitutes but a small part of
the "nation in arms," and the army for war is composed in addition of
men who have at some period in the past gone through a regular training.
Herein lies the difference between continental and British auxiliary
forces. In the French army, an ex-soldier during his ten years of
reserve service was by the law of 1905 only liable for two months'
training, and for the rest of his military career for two weeks' service
only. The further reduction of this liability was proposed in 1907 and
led to much controversy. The question of the value of auxiliary forces,
then, as between the continuous work of, say, English territorials, and
the permanent though dwindling influence of an original period of active
soldiering, is one of considerable importance. It is largely decided in
any given case by the average age of the men in the ranks.
56. The transfer of troops from the state of peace to that of war is
called _mobilization_. This is, of course, a matter which primarily
depends on good administration, and its minutest details are in all
states laid down beforehand. Reservists have to be summoned, and, on
arrival, to be clothed and equipped out of stores maintained in peace.
Officers and men of the regular army on leave have to be recalled, the
whole medically examined for physical fitness to serve, and a thousand
details have to be worked out before the unit is ready to move to its
concentration station. The concentration and the strategic deployment
are, of course, dependent upon the circumstances of each war, and the
peace organization ceases to be applicable. But throughout a war the
depots at home, the recruiting districts of second-line troops, and
above all the various arsenals, manufactories and offices controlled by
the war department are continually at work in maintaining the troops in
the field at proper strength and effectiveness.
57. _Territorial System._--The feudal system was of course a territorial
system in principle. Indeed, as has been shown above, a feudal army was
chiefly at fault owing to the dislocation of the various levies.
Concentration was equally the characteristic of the professional armies
which succeeded those of feudalism, and only such militia forces as
remained in existence preserved a local character. The origin of
territorial recruiting for first-line troops is to be found in the
"cantonal" system, said to have been introduced by Louis XIV., but
brought to the greatest perfection in Prussia under Frederick William I.
But long service and the absence of a reserve vitiated the system in
practice, since losses had to be made good by general recruiting, and
even the French Revolution may hardly be said to have produced the
territorial system as we understand it to-day. It was only in the
deliberate preparation of the Prussian army on short-service lines that
we find the beginning of the "territorial system of dislocation and
command." This is so intimately connected with the general system of
organization that it cannot be considered merely as a method of
recruiting by districts. It may be defined as a system whereby, for
purposes of command in peace, recruiting, and of organization generally,
the country is divided into districts, which are again divided and
subdivided as may be required. In a country in which universal service
prevails, an army corps district is divided into divisional districts,
these being made up of brigade and of regimental districts. Each of
these units recruits, and is in peace usually stationed, in its own
area; the artillery, cavalry and special arms are recruited for the
corps throughout the whole allotted area, and stationed at various
points within the same. Thus in the German army the III. army corps is
composed entirely of Brandenburgers. The infantry of the corps is
stationed in ten towns, the cavalry in four and the artillery in five.
In countries which adhere to voluntary recruiting, the system, depending
as it does on the calculable certainty of recruiting, is not so fully
developed, but in Great Britain the auxiliary forces have been
reorganized in divisions of all arms on a strictly territorial basis.
The advantage of the system as carried into effect in Germany is
obvious. Training is carried out with a minimum of friction and expense,
as each unit has an ample area for training. Whilst the brigadiers can
exercise general control over the colonels, and the divisional generals
over the brigadiers, there is little undue interference of superior
authority in the work of each grade, and the men, if soldiers by
compulsion, at any rate are serving close to their own homes. Most of
the reservists required on mobilization reside within a few miles of
their barracks. Living in the midst of the civil population, the troops
do not tend to become a class apart. Small garrisons are not, as
formerly, allowed to stagnate, since modern communications make
supervision easy. Further, it must be borne in mind that the essence of
the system is the organization and training for war of the whole
military population. Now so great a mass of men could not be
administered except through this decentralization of authority, and the
corollary of short service universally applied is the full territorial
system, in which the whole enrolled strength of the district is
subjected to the authority of the district commander. Practice, however,
falls short of theory, and the dangers of drawing whole units from
disaffected or unmilitary districts are often foreseen and discounted by
distributing the recruits, non-regionally, amongst more or less distant
regiments.
58. _Army Administration._--The existing systems of command and
organization, being usually based upon purely military considerations,
have thus much, indeed almost all, in common. _Administration_ differs
from them in one important respect. While the methods of command and
organization are the result of the accumulated experience of many armies
through many hundred years, the central administration in each case is
the product of the historical evolution of the particular country, and
is dependent upon forms of government, constitutions and political
parties. Thus France, after 1870, remodelled the organization of her
forces in accordance with the methods which were presumed to have given
Germany the victory, but the headquarters staff at Paris is very
different in all branches from that of Berlin. Great Britain adopted
German tactics, and to some extent even uniform, but the Army Council
has no counterpart in the administration of the German emperor's forces.
The first point for consideration, therefore, is, what is the ultimate,
and what is the proximate, authority supervising the administration? The
former is, in most countries, the people or its representatives in
parliament, for it is in their power to stop supplies, and without money
the whole military fabric must crumble. The constitutional chief of the
army is the sovereign, or, in republics, the president, but in most
countries the direct control of army matters by the representatives of
the people extends over all affairs into which the well-being of the
civil population, the expenditure of money, alleged miscarriages of
military justice, &c., enter, and it is not unusual to find grand
strategy, and even the technical deficiencies of a field-gun or rifle,
the subject of interpellation and debate. The peculiar influence of the
sovereign is in what may be termed patronage (that is, the selection of
officers to fill important positions and the general supervision of the
officer-corps), and in the fact that loyalty is the foundation of the
discipline and soldierly honour which it is the task of the officers to
inculcate into their men. In all cases the head of the state is _ipso
facto_ the head of the army. The difference between various systems may
then be held to depend on the degree of power allowed to or held by him.
This reacts upon the central administration of the army, and is the
cause of the differences of system alluded to. For the civil chief of
the executive is not necessarily a soldier, much less an expert and
capable soldier; he must, therefore, be provided with technical
advisers. The chief of the general staff is often the principal of
these, though in some cases a special commander-in-chief, or the
minister for war, or, as in France and England, a committee or council,
has the duty of advising the executive on technical matters.
59. _Branches of Administration._--In these circumstances the only
general principle of army administration common to all systems is the
division of the labour between two great branches. Military
administration, in respect of the troops and material which it has to
control, is divided between the departments of the _War Office_ and the
_General Staff_. In the staff work of subordinate units, e.g. army corps
and divisions, the same classification of duties is adopted, "general
staff" duties being performed by one set of officers, "routine staff"
duties by another.
The work of a _General Staff_ may be taken as consisting in preparation
for war, and this again, both in Great Britain and abroad, consists of
military policy in all its branches, staff duties in war, the collection
of intelligence, mobilization, plans of operations and concentration,
training, military history and geography, and the preparation of war
regulations. These subjects are usually subdivided into four or five
groups, each of which is dealt with by a separate section of the general
staff, the actual division of the work, of course, varying in different
countries. Thus, the second section of the French staff deals with "the
organization and tactics of foreign armies, study of foreign theatres of
war, and military missions abroad." A _War Office_ is concerned with
peace administration and with the provision of men and material in war.
Under the former category fall such matters as "routine" administration,
finance, justice, recruiting, promotion of officers (though not always),
barracks and buildings generally, armament, equipment and clothing, &c.,
in fact all matters not directly relevant to the training of the troops
for and the employment of the troops in war. In war, some of the
functions of a war office are suspended, but on the other hand the work
necessary for the provision of men and material to augment the army and
to make good its losses is vastly increased. In 1870 the minister of war,
von Roon, accompanied the headquarters in the field, but this arrangement
did not work well, and will not be employed again. The chief duties other
than those of the general staff fall into two classes, the "routine
staff," administration or adjutant-general's branch, which deals with all
matters affecting _personnel_, and the quartermaster-general's branch,
which supervises the provision and issue of supplies, stores and
_materiel_ of all kinds. Over and above these, provision has to be made
for control of all the technical parts of administration, such as
artillery and engineer services (in Great Britain, this, with a portion
of the quartermaster-general's department, is under the master-general of
the ordnance), and for military legislation, preparation of estimates,
&c. These are, of course, special subjects, not directly belonging to the
general administrative system. It is only requisite that the latter
should be sufficiently elastic to admit of these departments being formed
as required. However these subordinate offices may be multiplied, the
main work of the war office is in the two departments of the
adjutant-general (_personnel_) and the quartermaster-general
(_materiel_). Beyond and wholly distinct from these is the general staff,
the creation of which is perhaps the most important contribution of the
past century to the pure science of military organization.
COMPARATIVE STRENGTH OF VARIOUS ARMIES
(a) _Compulsory Service_ (1906).
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | | | | Austria- | |
| | France. | Germany. | Russia. | Hungary. | Italy. |
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Annual Contingent for the | | | | | |
| Colours | 230,000 | 222,000 | 254,000 | 128,000 | 83,000 |
| Medically unfit and exempt | 90,000 | 127,000 | 120,000 | 57,000 | 110,000 |
| Excused from Service in | | | | | |
| Peace, able-bodied | . . | 291,000 | 606,000 | 285,000 | 122,000 |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Total of Men becoming liable | | | | | |
| for service in 1907 | 320,000 | 540,000 | 980,000 | 470,000 | 315,000 |
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Total Permanent Armed Force | 610,000 | 610,000 | 1,226,000 | 356,000 | 269,000 |
| in Peace |(not includ-| | | | |
| |ing colonial| | | | |
| | troops | | | | |
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| First-Line Troops, war- | | | | | |
| strength (estimated) | 1,350,000 | 1,675,000 | 2,187,000 | 950,000 | 800,000 |
| Second-Line Troops, war- | | | | | |
| strength (estimated) | 3,000,000 | 2,275,000 | 1,429,000 | 1,450,000 | 1,150,000 |
| Numbers available in excess | | | | | |
| of these (estimated) | 450,000 | 3,950,000 | 9,384,000 | 5,000,000 | 1,200,000 |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Total War Resources of all | | | | | |
| kinds | 4,800,000 | 7,900,000 | 13,000,000 | 7,400,000 | 3,150,000 |
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Annual Military Expenditure-- | | | | | |
| total |L27,720,000 |L32,228,000 |L36,080,000 |L15,840,000 |L11,280,000 |
| Annual Military Expenditure-- | | | | | |
| per head of population | | | | | |
| (approximate) | 13s. 9d. | 10s. 9d. | 5s. 3d. | 6s. 8d. | 6s. 5d. |
+-------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
(b) _Authorized Establishments and Approximate Military Resources of
the British Empire_ (1906-1907).
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
| | | | | Native | | |
| | British |Reserves |Auxiliary| Troops | Colonial | |
| | Regular | for | Forces. |(Regular,| Forces | Total. |
| | Army. | Regular | | Reserve,|(various).| |
| | | Army. | | &c.). | | |
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
| Great Britain | 117,000 | 120,000 | 500,000 | . . | . . | 737,000 |
| Channel Islands, Malta, | | | | | | |
| Bermuda, Colonies and | | | | | | |
| Dependencies | 65,000 | . . | 6,000 | . . | 30,000 | 101,000 |
| India | 75,000 | . . | 30,000 | 202,000 | . . | 307,000 |
| Canadian Forces | . . | . . | 46,000 | . . | 59,000 | 105,000 |
| | | | | |(reserves)| |
| Australian Forces (including | . . | . . | 70,000 | . . | . . | 70,000 |
| New Zealand) | | | (appr.) | | | |
| South African Forces | . . | . . | 20,000 | . . | . . | 20,000 |
| | | | (appr.) | | | |
| +---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
| Totals | 257,000 | 120,000 | 672,000 | 202,000 | 89,000 | 1,340,000 |
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
_Note._--Ex-soldiers of regular and auxiliary forces, still fit for
service, and estimated _levees en masse_, are not counted. Enlistment
chiefly voluntary.
(c) The Regular Army of the United States has a maximum authorized
establishment (1906) of 60,000 enlisted men; the Organized Militia was
at the same date 110,000 strong. Voluntary enlistment throughout. (See
UNITED STATES.) In 1906-1907 the total numbers available for a _levee
en masse_ were estimated at 13,000,000.
BRITISH ARMY
60. Prior to the Norman Conquest the armed force of England was
essentially a national militia. Every freeman was bound to bear arms for
the defence of the country, or for the maintenance of order. To give
some organization and training to the levy, the several sheriffs had
authority to call out the contingents of their shires for exercise. The
"fyrd," as the levy was named, was available for home service only, and
could not be moved even from its county except in the case of emergency;
and it was principally to repel oversea invasions that its services
were required. Yet even in those days the necessity of some more
permanent force was felt, and bodies of paid troops were maintained by
the kings at their own cost. Thus Canute and his successors, and even
some of the great earls kept up a household force (_huscarles_). The
English army at Hastings consisted of the _fyrd_ and the corps of
_huscarles_.
The English had fought on foot; but the mailed horseman had now become
the chief factor in war, and the Conqueror introduced into England the
system of tenure by knight-service familiar in Normandy. This was based
on the unit of the feudal host, the _constabularia_ of ten knights, the
Conqueror granting lands in return for finding one or more of these
units (in the case of great barons) or some fraction of them (in the
case of lesser tenants). The obligation was to provide knights to serve,
with horse and arms, for forty days in each year at their own charges.
This obligation could be handed on by sub-enfeoffment through a whole
series of under-tenants. The system being based, not on the duty of
personal service, but on the obligation to supply one or more knights
(or it might be only the fraction of a knight), it was early found
convenient to commute this for a money payment known as "scutage" (see
KNIGHT SERVICE and SCUTAGE). This money enabled the king to hire
mercenaries, or pay such of the feudal troops as were willing to serve
beyond the usual time. From time to time proclamations and statutes were
issued reminding the holders of knights' fees of their duties; but the
immediate object was generally to raise money rather than to enforce
personal service, which became more and more rare. The feudal system had
not, however, abrogated the old Saxon levies, and from these arose two
national institutions--the _posse comitatus_, liable to be called out by
the sheriff to maintain the king's peace, and later the _militia_
(q.v.). The _posse comitatus_, or power of the county, included all
males able to bear arms, peers and spiritual men excepted; and though
primarily a police force it was also bound to assist in the defence of
the country. This levy was organized by the Assize of Arms under Henry
II. (1181), and subsequently under Edward I. (1285) by the so-called
"Statute of Winchester," which determined the numbers and description of
weapons to be kept by each man according to his property, and also
provided for their periodical inspection. The early Plantagenets made
free use of mercenaries. But the weakness of the feudal system in
England was preparing, through the 12th and 13th centuries, a nation in
arms absolutely unique in the middle ages. The Scottish and Welsh wars
were, of course, fought by the feudal levy, but this levy was far from
being the mob of unwilling peasants usual abroad, and from the _fyrd_
came the English archers, whose fame was established by Edward I.'s
wars, and carried to the continent by Edward III. Edward III. realized
that there was better material to be had in his own country than abroad,
and the army with which he invaded France was an army of national
mercenaries, or, more simply, of English soldiers. The army at Crecy was
composed exclusively of English, Welsh and Irish. From the pay list of
the army at the siege of Calais (1346) it appears that all ranks, from
the prince of Wales downward, were paid, no attempt being made to force
even the feudal nobles to serve abroad at their own expense. These
armies were raised mainly by contracts entered into "with some knight or
gentleman expert in war, and of great revenue and livelihood in the
country, to serve the king in war with a number of men." Copies of the
indentures executed when Henry V. raised his army for the invasion of
France in 1415 are in existence. Under these the contracting party
agreed to serve the king abroad for one year, with a given number of men
equipped according to agreement, and at a stipulated rate of pay. A
certain sum was usually paid in advance, and in many cases the crown
jewels and plate were given in pledge for the rest. The profession of
arms seems to have been profitable. The pay of the soldier was high as
compared with that of the ordinary labourer, and he had the prospect of
a share of plunder in addition, so that it was not difficult to raise
men where the commander had a good military reputation. Edward III. is
said to have declined the services of numbers of foreign mercenaries who
wished to enrol under him in his wars against France.
The funds for the payment of these armies were provided partly from the
royal revenues, partly from the fines paid in lieu of military service,
and other fines arbitrarily imposed, and partly by grants from
parliament. As the soldier's contract usually ended with the war, and
the king had seldom funds to renew it even if he so wished, the armies
disbanded of themselves at the close of each war. To secure the services
of the soldier during his contract, acts were passed (18 Henry VI. c.
19; and 7 Henry VII. c. 1) inflicting penalties for desertion; and in
Edward VI.'s reign an act "touching the true service of captains and
soldiers" was passed, somewhat of the nature of a Mutiny Act.
61. It is difficult to summarize the history of the army between the
Hundred Years' War and 1642. The final failure of the English arms in
France was soon followed by the Wars of the Roses, and in the long
period of civil strife the only national force remaining to England was
the Calais garrison. Henry VIII. was a soldier-king, but he shared the
public feeling for the old bow and bill, and English armies which served
abroad did not, it seems, win the respect of the advanced professional
soldiers of the continent. In 1519 the Venetian ambassador described the
English forces as consisting of 150,000 men whose peculiar, though not
exclusive, weapon was the long bow (Fortescue i. 117). The national levy
made in 1588 to resist the Armada and the threat of invasion produced
about 750 lancers (heavy-armed cavalry), 2000 light horse and 56,000
foot, beside 20,000 men employed in watching the coasts. The small
proportion of mounted men is very remarkable in a country in which
Cromwell was before long to illustrate the full power of cavalry on the
battlefield. It is indeed not unfair to regard this army as a
miscellaneous levy of inferior quality.
It was in cavalry that England was weakest, and by three different acts
it was sought to improve the breed of horses, though the light horse of
the northern counties had a good reputation, and even won the admiration
of the emperor Charles V. Perhaps the best organized force in England at
this time was the London volunteer association which ultimately became
the Honourable Artillery Company. At Floddon the spirit of the old
English yeomanry triumphed over the outward form of continental
battalions which the Scots had adopted, and doubtless the great victory
did much to retard military progress in England. The chief service of
Henry VIII. to the British army was the formation of an artillery train,
in which he took a special interest. Before he died the forces came to
consist of a few permanent troops (the bodyguard and the fortress
artillery service), the militia or general levy, which was for home, and
indeed for county, service only, and the paid armies which were
collected for a foreign war and disbanded at the conclusion of peace,
and were recruited on the same principle of indents which had served in
the Hundred Years' War. In the reign of Mary, the old Statute of
Winchester was revised (1553), and the new act provided for a
readjustment of the county contingents and in some degree for the
rearmament of the militia. But, from the fall of Calais and the
expedition to Havre up to the battle of the Dunes a century later, the
intervention of British forces in foreign wars was always futile and
generally disastrous. During this time, however, the numerous British
regiments in the service of Holland learned, in the long war of Dutch
independence, the art of war as it had developed on the continent since
1450, and assimilated the regimental system and the drill and armament
of the best models. Thus it was that in 1642 there were many hundreds of
trained and war-experienced officers and sergeants available for the
armies of the king and the parliament. By this time bows and bills had
long disappeared even from the militia, and the Thirty Years' War,
which, even more than the Low Countries, offered a career for the
adventurous man, contributed yet more trained officers and soldiers to
the English and Scottish forces. So closely indeed was war now studied
by Englishmen that the respective adherents of the Dutch and the Swedish
systems quarrelled on the eve of the battle of Edgehill. Francis and
Horace Vere, Sir John Norris, and other Englishmen had become generals
of European reputation. Skippon, Astley, Goring, Rupert, and many others
soon to be famous were distinguished as company and regimental officers
in the battles and sieges of Germany and the Low Countries.
The home forces of England had, as has been said, little or nothing to
revive their ancient renown. Instead, they had come to be regarded as a
menace to the constitution. In Queen Elizabeth's time the demands of the
Irish wars had led to frequent forced levies, and the occasional
billeting of the troops in England also gave rise to murmurs, but the
brilliancy and energy of her reign covered a great deal, and the
peaceful policy of her successor removed all immediate cause of
complaint. But after the accession of Charles I. we find the army a
constant and principal source of dispute between the king and
parliament, until under William III. it is finally established on a
constitutional footing. Charles, wishing to support the Elector Palatine
in the Thirty Years' War, raised an army of 10,000 men. He was already
encumbered with debts, and the parliament refused all grants, on which
he had recourse to forced loans. The army was sent to Spain, but
returned without effecting anything, and was not disbanded, as usual,
but billeted on the inhabitants. The billeting was the more deeply
resented as it appeared that the troops were purposely billeted on those
who had resisted the loan. Forced loans, billeting and martial law--all
directly connected with the maintenance of the army--formed the main
substance of the grievances set forth in the Petition of Right. In
accepting this petition, Charles gave up the right to maintain an army
without consent of parliament; and when in 1639 he wished to raise one
to act against the rebellious Scots, parliament was called together, and
its sanction obtained, on the plea that the army was necessary for the
defence of England. This army again became the source of dispute between
the king and parliament, and finally both sides appealed to arms.
62. The first years of the Great Rebellion (q.v.) showed primarily the
abundance of good officers produced by the wars on the continent, and in
the second place the absolute inadequacy of the military system of the
country; the commissions of array, militia ordinances, &c., had at last
to give way to regular methods of enlistment and a central army
administration. It was clear, at the same time, that when the struggle
was one of principles and not of dynastic politics, excellent recruits,
far different from the wretched levies who had been gathered together
for the Spanish war, were to be had in any reasonable number. These
causes combined to produce the "New Model" which, originating in
Cromwell's own cavalry and the London trained bands of foot, formed of
picked men and officers, severely disciplined, and organized and
administered in the right way, quickly proved its superiority over all
other armies in the field, and in a few years raised its general to
supreme civil power. The 15th of February 1645 was the birthday of the
British standing army, and from its first concentration at Windsor Park
dates the scarlet uniform. The men were for the most part voluntarily
enlisted from existing corps, though deficiencies had immediately to be
made good by impressment.
Four months later the New Model decided the quarrel of king and
parliament at Naseby. When Cromwell, the first lieutenant-general and
the second captain-general of the army, sent his veterans to take part
in the wars of the continent they proved themselves a match for the best
soldiers in Europe. On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the army,
now some 80,000 strong, was disbanded. It had enforced the execution of
Charles I., it had dissolved parliament, and England had been for years
governed under a military regime. Thus the most popular measure of the
Restoration was the dissolution of the army. Only Monk's regiment of
foot (now the Coldstream Guards) survived to represent the New Model in
the army of to-day. At the same time the troops (now regiments) of
household cavalry, and the regiment of foot which afterwards became the
Grenadier Guards, were formed, chiefly from Royalists, though the
disbanded New Model contributed many experienced recruits. The permanent
forces of the crown came to consist once more of the "garrisons and
guards," maintained by the king from the revenue allotted to him for
carrying on the government of the country. The "garrisons" were
commissioned to special fortresses--the Tower of London, Portsmouth, &c.
The "guards" comprised the sovereign's bodyguards ("the yeomen of the
guard" and "gentlemen-at-arms," who had existed since the times of Henry
VII. and VIII.), and the regiments mentioned above. Even this small
force, at first not exceeding 3000 men, was looked on with jealousy by
parliament, and every attempt to increase it was opposed. The
acquisition of Tangier and Bombay, as part of the dower of the infanta
of Portugal, led to the formation of a troop of horse (now the 1st Royal
Dragoons) and a regiment of infantry (the 2nd, now Queen's R.W. Surrey,
regiment) for the protection of the former; and a regiment of infantry
(afterwards transferred to the East India Company) to hold the latter
(1661). These troops, not being stationed in the kingdom, created no
distrust; but whenever, as on several occasions during Charles's reign,
considerable armies were raised, they were mostly disbanded when the
occasion ceased. Several regiments, however, were added to the permanent
force, including Dumbarton's regiment (the 1st or Royal Scots, nicknamed
Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard)--which had a long record of service in the
armies of the continent, and represented the Scots brigade of Gustavus
Adolphus's army--and the 3rd Buffs, representing the English regiments
of the Dutch army and through them the volunteers of 1572, and on
Charles's death in 1685 the total force of "guards and garrisons" had
risen to 16,500, of whom about one-half formed what we should now call
the standing army.
63. James II., an experienced soldier and sailor, was more obstinate
than his predecessor in his efforts to increase the army, and Monmouth's
rebellion afforded him the opportunity. A force of about 20,000 men was
maintained in England, and a large camp formed at Hounslow. Eight
cavalry and twelve infantry regiments (the senior of which was the 7th
"Royal" Fusiliers, formed on a new French model) were raised, and given
the numbers which, with few exceptions, they still bear. James even
proposed to disband the militia, which had not distinguished itself in
the late rebellion, and further augment the standing army; and although
the proposal was instantly rejected, he continued to add to the army
till the Revolution deprived him of his throne. The army which he had
raised was to a great extent disbanded, the Irish soldiers especially,
whom he had introduced in large numbers on account of their religion,
being all sent home.
The condition of the army immediately engaged the attention of
parliament. The Bill of Rights had definitely established that "the
raising or keeping of a standing army within the kingdom, unless it be
by the consent of parliament, is against the law," and past experience
made them very jealous of such a force. But civil war was imminent,
foreign war certain; and William had only a few Dutch troops, and the
remains of James's army, with which to meet the storm. Parliament
therefore sanctioned a standing army, trusting to the checks established
by the Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement, and by placing the pay of
the army under the control of the Commons. An event soon showed the
altered position of the army. A regiment mutinied and declared for
James. It was surrounded and compelled to lay down its arms; but William
found himself without legal power to deal with the mutineers. He
therefore applied to parliament, and in 1689 was passed the first Mutiny
Act, which, after repeating the provisions regarding the army inserted
in the Bill of Rights, and declaring the illegality of martial law, gave
power to the crown to deal with the offences of mutiny and desertion by
courts-martial. From this event is often dated the history of the
standing army as a constitutional force (but see Fortescue, _British
Army_, i. 335).
64. Under William the army was considerably augmented. The old regiments
of James's army were reorganized, retaining, however, their original
numbers, and three of cavalry and eleven of infantry (numbered to the
28th) were added. In 1690 parliament sanctioned a force of 62,000 men,
further increased to 65,000 in 1691; but on peace being made in 1697
the Commons immediately passed resolutions to the effect that the land
forces be reduced to 7000 men in England and 12,000 in Ireland. The War
of the Spanish Succession quickly obliged Great Britain again to raise a
large army, at one time exceeding 200,000 men; but of these the greater
number were foreign troops engaged for the continental war. Fortescue
(_op. cit._ i. 555) estimates the British forces at home and abroad as
70,000 men at the highest figure. After the peace of Utrecht the force
was again reduced to 8000 men in Great Britain and 11,000 in the
plantations (i.e. colonies) and abroad. From that time to the present
the strength of the army has been determined by the annual votes of
parliament, and though frequently the subject of warm debates in both
houses, it has ceased to be a matter of dispute between the crown and
parliament. The following table shows the fluctuations from that time
onward--the peace years showing the average peace strength, the war
years the maximum to which the forces were raised:--
PEACE. | WAR.
Year. Number. | Year. Number.
1750 18,857 | 1745 74,187
1793 17,013 | 1761 67,776
1822 71,790 | 1777 90,734
1845 100,011 | 1812 245,996
1857 156,995 | 1856 275,079
1866 203,404 | 1858 222,784
_Note._--Prior to 1856 the British forces serving in India are not
included.
During William's reign the small English army bore an honourable part in
the wars against Louis XIV., and especially distinguished itself under
the king at Steinkirk, Neerwinden and Namur. Twenty English regiments
took part in the campaign of 1694. In the great wars of Queen Anne's
reign the British army under Marlborough acquired a European reputation.
The cavalry, which had called forth the admiration of Prince Eugene when
passed in review before him after its long march across Germany (1704),
especially distinguished itself in the battle of Blenheim, and
Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet were added to the list of English
victories. But the army as usual was reduced at once, and even the
cadres of old regiments were disbanded, though the alarm of Jacobite
insurrections soon brought about the re-creation of many of these.
During the reign of the first and second Georges an artillery corps was
organized, and the army further increased by five regiments of cavalry
and thirty-five of infantry. Fresh laurels were won at Dettingen (1743),
in which battle twenty English regiments took part; and though Fontenoy
(q.v.) was a day of disaster for the English arms, it did not lower
their reputation, but rather added to it. Six regiments of infantry won
the chief glory of Prince Ferdinand's victory of Minden (q.v.) in 1759,
and throughout the latter part of the Seven Years' War the British
contingent of Ferdinand's army served with almost unvarying distinction
in numerous actions. About this time the first English regiments were
sent to India, and the 39th shared in Clive's victory at Plassey. During
the first half of George III.'s reign the army was principally occupied
in America; and though the conquest of Canada may be counted with pride
among its exploits, this page in its history is certainly the darkest.
English armies capitulated at Saratoga and at Yorktown, and the war
ended by the evacuation of the revolted states of America and the
acknowledgment of their independence.
65. Before passing to the great French Revolutionary wars, from which a
fresh period in the history of the army may be dated, it will be well to
review the general condition of the army in the preceding century,
injured as it was by the distrust of parliament and departmental
weakness and corruption which went far to neutralize the good work of
the duke of Cumberland as commander-in-chief and of Pitt as war
administrator. Regiments were raised almost as in the days of the
Edwards. The crown contracted with a distinguished soldier, or gentleman
of high position, who undertook to raise the men, receiving a certain
sum as bounty-money for each recruit. In some cases, in lieu of money,
the contractor received the nomination of all or some of the officers,
and recouped himself by selling the commissions. This system--termed
"raising men for rank"--was retained for many years, and originally
helped to create the "purchase system" of promotion. For the maintenance
of the regiment the colonel received an annual sum sufficient to cover
the pay of the men, and the expenses of clothing and of recruiting. The
colonel was given a "beating order," without which no enlistment was
legal, and was responsible for maintaining his regiment at full
strength. "Muster masters" were appointed to muster the regiments, and
to see that the men for whom pay was drawn were really effective.
Sometimes, when casualties were numerous, the allowance was insufficient
to meet the cost of recruiting, and special grants were made. In war
time the ranks were also filled by released debtors, pardoned criminals,
and impressed paupers and vagrants. Where the men were raised by
voluntary enlistment, the period of service was a matter of contract
between the colonel and the soldier, and the engagement was usually for
life; but exceptional levies were enlisted for the duration of war, or
for periods of three or five years. As for the officers, the low rate of
pay and the purchase system combined to exclude all but men of
independent incomes. Appointments (except when in the gift of the
colonel) were made by the king at home, and by the commander-in-chief
abroad; even in Ireland the power of appointment rested with the local
commander of the forces until the Union. The soldier was clothed by his
colonel, the charge being defrayed from the "stock fund." The army lived
in barracks, camps or billets. The barrack accommodation in Great
Britain at the beginning of the 18th century only sufficed for five
thousand men; and though it had gradually risen to twenty thousand in
1792, a large part of the army was constantly in camps and billets--the
latter causing endless complaints and difficulties.
66. The first efforts of the army in the long war with France did not
tend to raise its reputation amongst the armies of Europe. The campaigns
of allied armies under the duke of York in the Netherlands, in which
British contingents figured largely, were uniformly unsuccessful
(1793-94 and 1799), though in this respect they resembled those of
almost all soldiers who commanded against the "New French" army. The
policy of the younger Pitt sent thousands of the best soldiers to
unprofitable employment, and indeed to death, in the West Indies. At
home the administration was corrupt and ineffective, and the people
generally shared the contemptuous feeling towards the regular army which
was then prevalent in Europe. But a better era began with the
appointment of Frederick Augustus, duke of York, as commander-in-chief
of the army. He did much to improve its organization, discipline and
training, and was ably seconded by commanders of distinguished ability.
Under Abercromby in Egypt, under Stuart at Maida, and under Lake,
Wellesley and others in India, the British armies again attached victory
to their standards, and made themselves feared and respected. Later,
Napoleon's threat of invading England excited her martial spirit to the
highest pitch to which it had ever attained. Finally, her military glory
was raised by the series of successful campaigns in the Peninsula, until
it culminated in the great victory of Waterloo; and the army emerged
from the war with the most solidly founded reputation of any in Europe.
The events of this period belong to the history of Europe, and fall
outside the province of an article dealing only with the army. The great
augmentations required during the war were effected partly by raising
additional regiments, but principally by increasing the number of
battalions, some regiments being given as many as four. On the
conclusion of peace these battalions were reduced, but the regiments
were retained, and the army was permanently increased from about twenty
thousand, the usual peace establishment before the war, to an average of
eighty thousand. The duke of York, on first appointment to the command,
had introduced a uniform drill throughout the army, which was further
modified according to Sir David Dundas's system in 1800; and, under the
direction of Sir John Moore and others, a high perfection of drill was
attained. At the beginning of the war, the infantry, like that of the
continental powers, was formed in three ranks; but a two-rank formation
had been introduced in America and in India and gradually became
general, and in 1809 was finally approved. In the Peninsula the army was
permanently organized in divisions, usually consisting of two brigades
of three or four battalions each, and one or two batteries of artillery.
The duke of Wellington had also brought the commissariat and the army
transport to a high pitch of perfection, but in the long peace which
followed these establishments were reduced or broken up.
67. The period which elapsed between Waterloo and the Crimean War is
marked by a number of Indian and colonial wars, but by no organic
changes in the army, with perhaps the single exception of the Limited
Service Act of 1847, by which enlistment for ten or twelve years, with
power to re-engage to complete twenty-one, was substituted for the life
enlistments hitherto in force. The army went to sleep on the laurels and
recollections of the Peninsula. The duke of Wellington, for many years
commander-in-chief, was too anxious to hide it away in the colonies in
order to save it from further reductions or utter extinction, to attempt
any great administrative reforms. The force which was sent to the Crimea
in 1854 was an agglomeration of battalions, individually of the finest
quality, but unused to work together, without trained staff,
administrative departments or army organization of any kind. The lesson
of the winter before Sevastopol was dearly bought, but was not thrown
away. From that time successive war ministers and commanders-in-chief
have laboured perseveringly at the difficult task of army organization
and administration. Foremost in the work was Sidney Herbert (Lord
Herbert of Lea), the soldier's friend, who fell a sacrifice to his
labours (1861), but not before he had done much for the army. The whole
system of administration was revised. In 1854 it was inconceivably
complicated and cumbersome. The "secretary of state for war and
colonies," sitting at the Colonial Office, had a general but vague
control, practically limited to times of war. The "secretary at war" was
the parliamentary representative of the army, and exercised a certain
financial control, not extending, however, to the ordnance corps. The
commander-in-chief was responsible to the sovereign alone in all matters
connected with the discipline, command or patronage of the army, but to
the secretary at war in financial matters. The master-general and board
of ordnance were responsible for the supply of material on requisition,
but were otherwise independent, and had the artillery and engineers
under them. The commissariat department had its headquarters at the
treasury, and until 1852 the militia were under the home secretary. A
number of minor subdepartments, more or less independent, also existed,
causing endless confusion, correspondence and frequent collision. In
1854 the business of the colonies was separated from that of war, and
the then secretary of state, the duke of Newcastle, assumed control over
all the other administrative officers. In the following year the
secretary of state was appointed secretary at war also, and the duties
of the two offices amalgamated. The same year the commissariat office
was transferred to the war department, and the Board of Ordnance
abolished, its functions being divided between the commander-in-chief
and the secretary of state. The minor departments were gradually
absorbed, and the whole administration divided under two great chiefs,
sitting at the war office and Horse Guards respectively. In 1870 these
two were welded into one, and the war office now existing was
constituted.
Corresponding improvements were effected in every branch. The system of
clothing the soldiers was altered, the contracts being taken from the
colonels of regiments, who received a money allowance instead, and the
clothing supplied from government manufactories. The pay, food and
general condition of the soldier were improved; reading and recreation
rooms, libraries, gymnasia and facilities for games of all kinds being
provided. Barracks (q.v.) were built on improved principles, and a large
permanent camp was formed at Aldershot, where considerable forces were
collected and manoeuvred together. Various educational establishments
were opened, a staff college was established for the instruction of
officers wishing to qualify for the staff, and regimental schools were
improved.
68. The Indian Mutiny of 1857, followed by the transference of the
government of India, led to important changes. The East India Company's
white troops were amalgamated with the Queen's army, and the whole
reorganized (see _Indian Army_ below).
The fact that such difficulties as those of 1854 and 1857, not to speak
of the disorders of 1848, had been surmounted by the weak army which
remained over from the reductions of forty years, coupled with the
instantaneous and effective rejoinder to the threats of the French
colonels in 1859--the creation of the Volunteer Force--certainly lulled
the nation and its representatives into a false sense of security. Thus
the two obvious lessons of the German successes of 1866 and 1870--the
power of a national army for offensive invasion, and the rapidity with
which such an army when thoroughly organized could be moved--created the
greatest sensation in England. The year 1870 is, therefore, of prime
importance in the history of the regular forces of the crown. The
strength of the home forces at different times between 1815 and 1870 is
given as follows (Biddulph, _Lord Cardwell at the War Office_):--
+------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+
| | Regulars. | Auxiliaries. | Field Guns. |
+------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+
| 1820 | 64,426 | 60,740 | 22 |
| 1830 | 50,876 | 34,614 | 30 |
| 1840 | 53,379 | 20,791 | 30 |
| 1850 | 68,538 | 29,868 | 70 |
| 1860 | 100,701 | 229,301 | 180 |
| 1870 | 89,051 | 281,692 | 180 |
| | (later 109,000) | | |
+------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+
69. The period of reform commences therefore with 1870, and is connected
indissolubly with the name of Edward, Lord Cardwell, secretary of state
for war 1869-1874. In the matter of organization the result of his
labours was seen in the perfectly arranged expedition to Ashanti (1874);
as for recruiting, the introduction of short service and reserve
enlistment together with many rearrangements of pay, &c., proved so far
popular that the number of men annually enlisted was more than trebled
(11,742 in 1869; 39,971 in 1885; 40,729 in 1898), and so far efficient
that "Lord Cardwell's ... system, with but small modification, gave us
during the Boer War 80,000 reservists, of whom 96 or 97% were found
efficient, and has enabled us to keep an army of 150,000 regulars in the
field for 15 months" (Rt. Hon. St John Brodrick, House of Commons, 8th
of March 1901). The localization of the army, subsequently completed by
the territorial system of 1882, was commenced under Cardwell's regime,
and a measure which encountered much powerful opposition at the time,
the abolition of the purchase of commissions, was also effected by him
(1871). The machinery of administration was improved, and autumn
manoeuvres were practised on a scale hitherto unknown in England. In
1871 certain powers over the militia, formerly held by lords-lieutenant,
were transferred to the crown, and the auxiliary forces were placed
directly under the generals commanding districts. In 1881 came an
important change in the infantry of the line, which was entirely
remodelled in two-battalion regiments bearing territorial titles. This
measure (the "linked battalion" system) aroused great opposition; it was
dictated chiefly by the necessity of maintaining the Indian and colonial
garrisons at full strength, and was begun during Lord Cardwell's tenure
of office, the principle being that each regiment should have one
battalion at home and one abroad, the latter being fed by the former,
which in its turn drew upon the reserve to complete it for war. The
working of the system is to be considered as belonging to present
practice rather than to history, and the reader is therefore referred to
the article UNITED KINGDOM. On these general lines the army progressed
up to 1899, when the Boer War called into the field on a distant theatre
of war all the resources of the regular army, and in addition drew
largely upon the existing auxiliary forces, and even upon wholly
untrained civilians, for the numbers required to make war in an area
which comprised nearly all Africa south of the Zambezi. As the result
of this war (see TRANSVAAL) successive schemes of reform were undertaken
by the various war ministers, leading up to Mr Haldane's "territorial"
scheme (1908), which put the organization of the forces in the United
Kingdom (q.v.) on a new basis.
Innovations had not been unknown in the period immediately preceding the
war; as a single example we may take the development of the mounted
infantry (q.v.). It was natural that the war itself, and especially a
war of so peculiar a character, should intensify the spirit of
innovation. The corresponding period in the German army lasted from 1871
to 1888, and such a period of unsettlement is indeed the common,
practically the universal, result of a war on a large scale. Much that
was of value in the Prussian methods, faithfully and even slavishly
copied by Great Britain as by others after 1870, was temporarily
forgotten, but the pendulum swung back again, and the Russo-Japanese War
led to the disappearance, so far as Europe was concerned, of many
products of the period of doubt and controversy which followed the
struggle in South Africa. Side by side with continuous discussions of
the greater questions of military policy, amongst these being many
well-reasoned proposals for universal service, the technical and
administrative efficiency of the service has undergone great
improvement, and this appears to be of more real and permanent value
than the greater part of the solutions given for the larger problems.
The changes in the organization of the artillery afford the best
evidence of this spirit of practical and technical reform. In the first
place the old "royal regiment" was divided into two branches. The
officers for the field and horse artillery stand now on one seniority
list for promotion, the garrison, heavy and mountain batteries on
another. In each branch important changes of organization have been also
made. In the field branch, both for Royal Field and Royal Horse
Artillery, the battery is no longer the one unit for all purposes. A
lieutenant-colonel's command, the "brigade," has been created. It
consists of a group, in the horse artillery of two, in the field
artillery of three batteries. For the practical training of the horse
and field artillery a large area of ground on the wild open country of
Dartmoor, near Okehampton, has for some years been utilized. A similar
school has been started at Glen Imaal in Ireland, and a new training
ground has been opened on Salisbury Plain. Similarly, with the Royal
Garrison Artillery a more perfect system has been devised for the
regulation and practice of the fire of each fortress, in accordance with
the varying circumstances of its position, &c. A practice school for the
garrison artillery has been established at Lydd, but the various coast
fortresses themselves carry out regular practice with service
ammunition.
INDIAN ARMY
70. Historically, the Indian army grew up in three distinct divisions,
the Bengal, Madras and Bombay armies. This separation was the natural
result of the original foundation of separate settlements and factories
in India; and each retains to the present day much of its old identity.
_Bengal._--The English traders in Bengal were long restricted by the
native princes to a military establishment of an ensign and 30 men;
and this force may be taken as the germ of the Indian army. In 1681
Bengal received the first reinforcement from Madras, and two years
later a company was sent from Madras, raising the little Bengal army
to a strength of 250 Europeans. In 1695 native soldiers were first
enlisted. In 1701-1702 the garrison of Calcutta consisted of 120
soldiers and seamen gunners. In 1756 occurred the defence of Calcutta
against Suraj-ud-Dowlah, and the terrible tragedy of the Black Hole.
The work of reconquest and punishment was carried out by an expedition
from Madras, and in the little force with which Clive gained the great
victory of Plassey the Bengal army was represented by a few hundred
men only (the British 39th, now Dorsetshire regiment, which was also
present, was the first King's regiment sent to India, and bears the
motto _Primus in Indis_); but from this date the military power of the
Company rapidly increased. A company of artillery had been organized
in 1748; and in 1757, shortly before Plassey, the 1st regiment of
Bengal native infantry was raised. Next, in 1759 the native infantry
was augmented, in 1760 dragoons were raised, and in 1763 the total
forces amounted to 1500 Europeans and 12 battalions of native infantry
(11,500 men). In 1765 the European infantry was divided into 3
regiments, and the whole force was organized in 3 brigades, each
consisting of 1 company of artillery, 1 regiment European infantry, 1
troop of native cavalry, and 7 battalions of sepoys. In 1766, on the
reduction of some money allowances, a number of officers of the Bengal
army agreed to resign their commissions simultaneously. This dangerous
combination was promptly put down by Clive, to whom the Bengal army
may be said to owe its existence.
The constant wars and extensions of dominion of the next thirty years
led to further augmentations; the number of brigades and of European
regiments was increased to 6; and in 1794 the Bengal army numbered
about 3500 Europeans and 24,000 natives.
71. _Madras._--The first armed force in the Madras presidency was the
little garrison of Armegon on the Coromandel coast, consisting of 28
soldiers. In 1644 Fort St George was built and garrisoned, and in 1653
Madras became a presidency. In 1745 the garrison of Fort St George
consisted of 200 Europeans, while a similar number, with the addition
of 200 "Topasses" (descendants of the Portuguese), garrisoned Fort St
David. In 1748 the various independent companies on the Coromandel
coast and other places were consolidated into the Madras European
regiment. From this time the military history of the Madras army was
full of incident, and it bore the principal part in Clive's victories
of Arcot, Kavaripak and Plassey. In 1754 the 39th regiment of the
Royal army was sent to Madras. In 1758 three others followed. In 1772
the Madras army numbered 3000 European infantry and 16,000 natives,
and in 1784 the number of native troops had risen to 34,000.
72. _Bombay._--The island of Bombay formed part of the marriage
portion received by Charles II. with the infanta of Portugal, and in
1662 the Bombay regiment of Europeans was raised to defend it. In 1668
the island was granted to the Company, and the regiment at the same
time transferred to them. In 1708 Bombay became a presidency, but it
did not play so important a part as the others in the early extension
of British power, and its forces were not so rapidly developed. It is
said, however, to have been the first to discipline native troops, and
Bombay sepoys were sent to Madras in 1747, and took part in the battle
of Plassey in 1757. In 1772 the Bombay army consisted of 2500
Europeans and 3500 sepoys, but in 1794, in consequence of the
struggles with the Mahratta power, the native troops had been
increased to 24,000.
73. _Consolidation of the Army._--In 1796 a general reorganization
took place. Hitherto the officers in each presidency had been borne on
general "lists," according to branches of the service. These lists
were now broken up and cadres of regiments formed. The colonels and
lieutenant-colonels remained on separate lists, and an establishment
of general officers was created, while the divisional commands were
distributed between the royal and Company's officers. Further
augmentations took place, consequent on the great extension of British
supremacy. In 1798 the native infantry in India numbered 122
battalions. In 1808 the total force in India amounted to 24,500
Europeans and 154,500 natives.
The first half of the 19th century was filled with wars and
annexations and the army was steadily increased. Horse artillery was
formed, and the artillery in general greatly augmented. "Irregular
cavalry" was raised in Bengal and Bombay, and recruited from a better
class of troopers, who received high pay and found their own horses
and equipment. "Local forces" were raised in various parts from time
to time, the most important being the Punjab irregular force (raised
after the annexation of the Punjab in 1849), consisting of 3 field
batteries, 5 regiments of cavalry, and 5 of infantry, and the Nagpur
and Oudh irregular forces. Another kind of force, which had been
gradually formed, was that called "contingents"--troops raised by the
protected native states. The strongest of these was that of Hyderabad,
originally known as the nizam's army. Changes were also made in the
organization of the army. Sanitary improvements were effected,
manufacturing establishments instituted or increased, and the
administration generally improved.
74. _The Army before the Mutiny._--The officering and recruiting of
the three armies were in all essentials similar. The officers were
mainly supplied by the Company's military college at Addiscombe in
Surrey (established in 1809), and by direct appointments. The Bengal
army was recruited from Hindustan, the infantry being mostly drawn
from Oudh and the great Gangetic plains. The soldiers were chiefly
high-caste Hindus, a sixth being Mahommedans. The cavalry was composed
mainly of Mahommedans, recruited from Rohilkhand and the Gangetic
Doab. The only other elements in the army were four Gurkha regiments,
enlisted from Nepal, and the local Punjab irregular force. The Madras
army was chiefly recruited from that presidency, or the native states
connected with it, and consisted of Mahommedans, Brahmans, and of the
Mahratta, Tamil and Telugu peoples. The Bombay army was recruited from
its own presidency, with some Hindustanis, but chiefly formed of
Mahrattas and Mahommedans; the Bombay light cavalry mainly from
Hindustan proper.
Including the local and irregular troops (about 100,000 strong), the
total strength amounted to 38,000 Europeans of all arms, with 276
field guns, and 348,000 native troops, with 248 field guns,--truly a
magnificent establishment, and, outwardly, worthy of the great empire
which England had created for herself in the East, but inwardly
unsound, and on the very verge of the great mutiny of 1857.
In 1856 the establishment in the several presidencies was a follows:--
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+
| | Bengal. | Madras. | Bombay. | Total.|
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+
| British Cavalry Regiments | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| British Infantry Battalions | 15 | 3 | 4 | 22 |
| Company's European Battalions | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| European and Native Artillery | | | | |
| Battalions | 12 | 7 | 5 | 24 |
| Native Infantry Battalions | 74 | 52 | 29 | 155 |
| Native Cavalry Regiments | 28 | 8 | 3 | 39 |
+-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+
An account of the events of 1857-58 will be found under INDIAN MUTINY.
After the catastrophe the reorganization of the military forces on
different lines was of course unavoidable. Fortunately, the armies of
Madras and Bombay had been almost wholly untouched by the spirit of
disaffection, and in the darkest days the Sikhs, though formerly
enemies of the British, had not only remained faithful to them, but
had rendered them powerful assistance.
75. _The Reorganization._--By the autumn of 1858 the mutiny was
virtually crushed, and the task of reorganization commenced. On the
1st of September 1858 the East India Company ceased to rule, and Her
Majesty's government took up the reins of power. On the important
question of the army, the opinions and advice of the most
distinguished soldiers and civilians were invited. Masses of reports
and evidence were collected in India, and by a royal commission in
England. On the report of this commission the new system was based.
The local European army was abolished, and its personnel amalgamated
with the royal army. The artillery became wholly British, with the
exception of a few native mountain batteries. The total strength of
the British troops, all of the royal army, was largely increased,
while that of the native troops was largely diminished. Three distinct
native armies--those of Bengal, Madras and Bombay--were still
maintained. The reduced Indian armies consisted of cavalry and
infantry only, with a very few artillery, distributed as follows:--
Battalions Regiments
Infantry. Cavalry.
Bengal 49 19
Madras 40 4
Bombay 30 7
Punjab Force 12 6
--- ---
Total 131 36
There were also three sapper battalions, one to each army.
The Punjab force, which had 5 batteries of native artillery attached
to it, continued under the Punjab government. In addition, the
Hyderabad contingent of 4 cavalry, 6 infantry regiments and 4
batteries, and a local force in central India of 2 regiments cavalry
and 6 infantry, were retained under the government of India. After all
the arrangements had been completed the army of India consisted of
62,000 British and 125,000 native troops.
76. _The Modern Army._--The college at Addiscombe was closed in 1860,
and the direct appointment of British officers to the Indian local
forces ceased in 1861. In that year a staff corps was formed by royal
warrant in each presidency "to supply a body of officers for service
in India, by whom various offices and appointments hitherto held by
officers borne on the strength of the several corps in the Indian
forces shall in future be held." Special roles were laid down. The
corps was at first recruited partly from officers of the Company's
service and partly from the royal army, holding staff appointments
(the new regimental employment being considered as staff duty) and all
kinds of political and civil posts; for the system established later
see INDIA: _Army_. The native artillery and sappers and miners were to
be officered from the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. The only
English warrant and non-commissioned officers now to be employed in
the native army were to be those of the Royal Engineers with the
sappers and miners.
A radical change in the regimental organization of all the native
armies was effected in 1863. The Punjab Frontier Force was from the
first organized on the irregular system, which was there seen at its
best, as also were the new regiments raised during the Mutiny. This
system was now applied to the whole army, each regiment and battalion
having seven British officers attached to it for command and
administrative duties, the immediate command of troops and companies
being left to the native officers. Thus was the system reverted to,
which was initiated by Clive, of a few British officers only being
attached to each corps for the higher regimental duties of command and
control. Time had shown that this was more effective than the regular
system instituted in 1796 of British officers commanding troops and
companies.
A new spirit was breathed into the army. The supremacy of the
commandant was the main principle. He was less hampered by the
unbending regulations enjoined upon the old regular regiments, had
greater powers of reward and punishment, was in a position to assume
larger responsibility and greater freedom of action, and was supported
in the full exercise of his authority. The system made the officers.
Up to 1881 the native army underwent little change, but in that year
18 regiments of infantry and 4 of cavalry were broken up, almost the
same total number of men being maintained in fewer and stronger
regiments. The only reduction made in the British troops was in the
Royal Artillery, which was diminished by 11 batteries. The events of
1885, however, on the Russo-Afghan frontier, led to augmentations. The
11 batteries Royal Artillery were brought back from England; each of
the 9 British cavalry regiments in India received a fourth squadron;
each of the British infantry battalions was increased by 100 men, and
3 battalions were added. The native cavalry had a fourth squadron
added to each regiment; three of the four regiments broken up in 1881
were re-raised, while the native infantry was increased in regimental
strength, and 9 new battalions raised composed of Gurkhas, Sikhs and
Punjabis. The addition in all amounted to 10,600 British and 21,200
native troops. In 1890 the strength of the army of India was 73,000
British and, including irregulars, 147,500 native troops. For the
Indian volunteers, see VOLUNTEERS.
Many important changes took place between 1885 and 1904. Seven Madras
infantry regiments were converted into regiments for service in Burma,
composed of Gurkhas and hardy races from northern India; six Bengal
and Bombay regiments were similarly converted into regiments of
Punjabis, Pathans and Gurkhas; the native mountain batteries have been
increased to ten; a system of linked battalions has been introduced
with the formation of regimental centres for mobilization; and
reserves for infantry and mountain artillery have been formed. The
number of British officers with each regiment has been increased to
nine, and the two wing commands in battalions have been converted into
4 double-company commands of 250 men each, under a British commander,
who is responsible to the commandant for their training and
efficiency, the command of the companies being left to the native
officers. This system, which is analogous to the squadron command in
the cavalry, admits of closer individual attention to training, and
distributes among the senior British regimental officers effective
responsibility of a personal kind.
An addition (at the imperial expense) of five battalions of Sikhs,
Punjabi Mahommedans, Jats and hillmen in northern India was made in
1900, as the result of India being called upon to furnish garrisons
for Mauritius and other stations overseas.
The unification of the triplicate army departments in the different
presidential armies was completed in 1891, all being brought directly
under the supreme government; and the three separate staff corps of
Bengal, Madras and Bombay were fused into one in 1891 as the Indian
Staff Corps. The term "Indian Staff Corps" was in turn replaced by
that of "Indian Army" in 1903. These measures prepared the way for the
new system of army organization which, by authority of parliament,
abolished divided control and placed the whole army of India under the
governor-general and the commander-in-chief in India.
CANADIAN FORCES
77. In the earliest European settlements in Canada, the necessity of
protection against Indians caused the formation of a militia, and in
1665 companies were raised in every parish. The military history of
the Canadian forces under French rule is full of incident, and they
served not only against Indian raiders but also against the troops of
Great Britain and of her North American colonies. Six militia
battalions took part in the defence of Quebec in 1759, and even the
transfer of Canada from the French to the British crown did not cause
the disbandment of the existing forces. The French Canadians
distinguished themselves not less than the British settlers in the War
of American Independence, and in particular in the defence of Quebec
against Montgomery and Arnold. In 1787 an ordinance was made whereby
three battalions of the militia were permanently embodied, each
contingent serving for two years, at the end of which time a fresh
contingent relieved it, and after this a succession of laws and
regulations were made with a view to complete organization of the
force. The brunt of the fighting on the American frontier in the war
of 1812 was borne very largely by the permanent force of three
battalions and the fresh units called out, all these being militia
corps. Up to 1828 a distinction had been made between the British and
the French regiments: this was then abolished. The militia was again
employed on active service during the disturbances of 1837, and the
"Active Militia" in 1863 had grown to a strength of 25,000 men. The
Fenian troubles of 1864 and 1866 caused the embodiment of the Canadian
forces once more. In 1867 took place the unification of Canada, after
which the whole force was completely organized on the basis of a
militia act (1868). A department of Militia and Defence with a
responsible minister was established, and the strength of the active
militia of all arms was fixed at 40,000 rank and file. Two years later
the militia furnished 6000 men to deal with the Fenian Raid of 1870,
and took part in Colonel (Lord) Wolseley's Red River expedition. In
1871 a permanent force, serving the double purpose of a regular
nucleus and an instructional cadre, was organized in two troops of
cavalry, two batteries of artillery and one regiment of infantry, and
in 1876 the Royal Military College of Canada was founded at Kingston.
In 1885 the Riel rebellion was dealt with, and the important action of
Batoche won, by the militia, without assistance from regular troops.
In the same year Canada contributed a force of _voyageurs_ to the Nile
expedition of Lord Wolseley; the experience of these men was
admittedly of great assistance in navigating the Rapids. The militia
sent contingents of all arms to serve in the South African War,
1899-1902, including "Strathcona's Horse," a special corps, recruited
almost entirely from the Active Militia and the North-west Mounted
Police. The latter, a permanent constabulary of mounted riflemen, was
formed in 1873.
After the South African War an extensive scheme of reorganization was
taken in hand, the command being exercised for two years (1902-1904)
by Major-General Lord Dundonald, and subsequently by a militia council
(Militia Act 1904), similar in constitution to the home Army Council.
For details of the present military strength of Canada, see the
article CANADA.
AUSTRIAN ARMY
78. The _Landsknecht_ infantry constituted the mainstay of the imperial
armies in the 16th century. Maximilian I. and Charles V. are recorded to
have marched and carried the "long pike" in their ranks. Maximilian also
formed a corps of _Kyrisser_, who were the origin of the modern
cuirassiers. It was not, however, until much later that the Austrian
army came into existence as a permanent force. Rudolph II. formed a
small standing force about 1600, but relied upon the "enlistment"
system, like other sovereigns of the time, for the bulk of his armies.
The Thirty Years' War produced the permanence of service which led in
all the states of Europe to the rise of standing armies. In the Empire
it was Wallenstein who first raised a distinctly imperial army of
soldiers owing no duty but to the sovereign; and it was the suspicion
that he intended to use this army, which was raised largely at his own
expense, to further his own ends, that led to his assassination. From
that time the regiments belonged no longer to their colonels, but to the
emperor; and the oldest regiments in the present Austrian army date from
the Thirty Years' War, at the close of which Austria had 19 infantry, 6
cuirassier and 1 dragoon regiments. The almost continuous wars of
Austria against France and the Turks (from 1495 to 1895 Austrian troops
took part in 7000 actions of all sorts) led to a continuous increase in
her establishments. The wars of the time of Montecucculi and of Eugene
were followed by that of the Polish Succession, the two Turkish wars,
and the three great struggles against Frederick the Great. Thus in 1763
the army had been almost continuously on active service for more than
100 years, in the course of which its organization had been modified in
accordance with the lessons of each war. This, in conjunction with the
fact that Austria took part in other Turkish campaigns subsequently,
rendered this army the most formidable opponent of the forces of the
French Revolution (1792). But the superior leading, organization and
numbers of the emperor's forces were totally inadequate to the magnitude
of the task of suppressing the Revolutionary forces, and though such
victories as Neerwinden were sufficient proof of the efficiency and
valour of the Austrians, they made no headway. In later campaigns, in
which the enemy had acquired war experience, and the best of their
officers had come to the front, the tide turned against the Imperialists
even on the field of battle. The archduke Charles's victories of 1796
were more than counterbalanced by Bonaparte's Italian campaign, and the
temporary success of 1799 ended at Marengo and Hohenlinden.
79. The Austrians, during the short peace which preceded the war of
1805, suffered, in consequence of all this, from a feeling of distrust,
not merely in their leaders, but also in the whole system upon which the
army was raised, organized and trained. This was substantially the same
as that of the Seven Years' War time. Enlistment being voluntary and for
long service, the numbers necessary to cope with the output of the
French conscription could not be raised, and the inner history of the
Austrian headquarters in the Ulm campaign shows that the dissensions and
mutual distrust of the general officers had gone far towards the
disintegration of an army which at that time had the most _esprit de
corps_ and the highest military qualities of any army in Europe. But the
disasters of 1805 swept away good and bad alike in the abolition of the
old system. Already the archduke Charles had designed a "nation in arms"
after the French model, and on this basis the reconstruction was begun.
The conscription was put in force and the necessary numbers thus
obtained; the administration was at the same time reformed and the
organization and supply services brought into line with modern
requirements. The war of 1809 surprised Austria in the midst of her
reorganization, yet the new army fought with the greatest spirit. The
invasion of Bavaria was by no means so leisurely as it had been in 1805,
and the archduke Charles obtained one signal victory over Napoleon in
person. Aspern and Wagram were most desperately contested, and though
the archduke ceased to take part in the administration after 1809 the
work went on steadily until, in 1813, the Austrian armies worthily
represented the combination of discipline with the "nation in arms"
principle. Their intervention in the War of Liberation was decisive, and
Austria, in spite of her territorial losses of the past years, put into
the field well-drilled armies far exceeding in numbers those which had
appeared in the wars of the Revolution. After the fall of Napoleon,
Austria's hold on Italy necessitated the maintenance of a large army of
occupation. This army, and in particular its cavalry, was admittedly the
best in Europe, and, having to be ready to march at a few days' notice,
it was saved from the deadening influence of undisturbed peace which
affected every other service in Europe from 1815 to 1850.
80. The Austrian system has conserved much of the peculiar tone of the
army of 1848, of which English readers may obtain a good idea from
George Meredith's _Vittoria_. It was, however, a natural result of this
that the army lost to some considerable extent the spirit of the "nation
in arms" of 1809 and 1813. It was employed in dynastic wars, and the
conscription was of course modified by substitution; thus, when the war
of 1859 resulted unfavourably to the Austrians, the army began to lose
confidence, precisely as had been the case in 1805. Once more, in 1866,
an army animated by the purely professional spirit, which was itself
weakened by distrust, met a "nation in arms," and in this case a nation
well trained in peace and armed with a breechloader. Bad staff work, and
tactics which can only be described as those of pique, precipitated the
disaster, and in seven weeks the victorious Prussians were almost at the
gates of Vienna.
The result of the war, and of the constitutional changes about this
time, was the re-adoption of the principles of 1806-1813, the abolition
of conscription and long service in favour of universal service for a
short term, and a thorough reform in the methods of command and staff
work. It has been said of the Prussian army that "discipline is--the
officers." This is more true of the "K.K." army[1] than of any other in
Europe; the great bond of union between the heterogeneous levies of
recruits of many races is the spirit of the corps of officers, which
retains the personal and professional characteristics of the old army of
Italy.
FRENCH ARMY
81. The French army (see for further details FRANCE: _Law and
Institutions_) dates from the middle of the 15th century, at which time
Charles VII. formed, from mercenaries who had served him in the Hundred
Years' War, the _compagnies d'ordonnance_, and thus laid the foundation
of a national standing army. But the armies that followed the kings in
their wars still consisted mainly of mercenaries, hired for the
occasion; and the work of Charles and his successors was completely
undone in the confusion of the religious wars. Louvois, who was minister
of Louis XIV., was the true creator of the French royal army. The
organization of the first standing army is here given in some detail, as
it served as a model for all armies for more than a century, and is also
followed to some extent in our own times. Before the advent of Louvois,
the forces were royal only in name. The army was a fortuitous concourse
of regiments of horse and foot, each of which was the property of its
colonel. The companies similarly belonged to their captains, and, the
state being then in no condition to buy out these vested interests,
superior control was almost illusory. Indeed, all the well-known devices
for eluding such control, for instance, showing imaginary men on the pay
lists, can be traced to the French army of the 16th century. A further
difficulty lay in the existence of the offices called Colonel-General,
Marshal-General and Grand Master of Artillery, between whom no common
administration was possible. The grand master survived until 1743, but
Louvois managed to suppress the other offices, and even to put one of
his own subordinates into the office of grand master. Thus was assured
direct royal control, exercised through the war minister. Louvois was
unable indeed to overthrow the proprietary system, but he made stringent
regulations against abuses, and confined it to the colonels (_mestre de
camp_ in the cavalry) and the captains. Henceforward the colonel was a
wealthy noble, with few duties beyond that of spending money freely and
of exercising his court influence on behalf of his regiment. The real
work of the service was done by the lieutenant-colonels and lieutenants,
and the king and the minister recognized this on all occasions. Thus
Vauban was given, as a reward for good service, a company in the
"Picardie" regiment without purchase. Promotions from the ranks were
very rare but not unknown, and all promotions were awarded according to
merit except those to captain or colonel. One of the captains in a
regiment was styled major, and acted as adjutant. This post was of
course filled by selection and not by purchase. The grades of general
officers were newly fixed by Louvois--the _brigadier, marechal de camp_,
lieutenant-general and marshal of France. The general principle was to
give command, but not promotion, according to merit. The rank and file
were recruited by voluntary enlistment for four years' service. The
infantry company was maintained in peace at an effective of 60, except
in the guards and the numerous foreign corps, in which the company was
always at the war strength of 100 to 200 men. This arm was composed, in
1678, of the _Gardes francaises_, the Swiss guards, the old (_vieux_ and
_petits vieux_) regiments of the line, of which the senior, "Picardie,"
claimed to be the oldest regiment in Europe, and the regiments raised
under the new system. The _regiment du roi_, which was deliberately made
the model of all others and was commanded by the celebrated Martinet,
was the senior of these latter. The whole infantry arm in 1678 numbered
320,000 field and garrison troops. The cavalry consisted of the _Maison
du Roi_ (which Louvois converted from a "show" corps to one of the
highest discipline and valour), divided into the _Gardes du Corps_ and
the _Mousquetaires_, the _Gendarmerie_ (descended from the old feudal
cavalry and the _ordonnance_ companies) and the line cavalry, the whole
being about 55,000 strong. There were also 10,000 dragoons. In addition
to the regular army, the king could call out, in case of need, the
ancient _arriere-ban_ or levy, as was in fact done in 1674. On that
occasion, however, it behaved badly, and it was not again employed. In
1688 Louvois organized a militia raised by ballot. This numbered 25,000
men and proved to be better, at any rate, than the _arriere-ban_. Many
infantry regiments of the line were, as has been said, foreign, and in
1678 the foreigners numbered 30,000, the greater part of these being
Swiss.
82. The artillery had been an industrial concern rather than an arm of
the service. In sieges a sum of money was paid for each piece put in
battery, and the grand master was not subordinated to the war office. A
nominee of Louvois, as has been said, filled the post at this time, and
eventually Louvois formed companies of artillerymen, and finally the
regiment of "Fusiliers" which Vauban described as the "finest regiment
in the world." The engineer service, as organized by Vauban, was
composed of engineers "in ordinary," and of line officers especially
employed in war. Louvois further introduced the system of magazines. To
ensure the regular working of supply and transport, he instituted direct
control by the central executive, and stored great quantities of food in
the fortresses, thereby securing for the French armies a precision and
certainty in military operations which had hitherto been wanting. The
higher administration of the army, under the minister of war, fell into
two branches, that of the commissaries and that of the inspecting
officers. The duties of the former resembled those of a modern "routine"
staff--issue of equipment, checking of returns, &c. The latter exercised
functions analogous to those of a general staff, supervising the
training and general efficiency of the troops. Louvois also created an
excellent hospital service, mobile and stationary, founded the Hotel des
Invalides in Paris for the maintenance of old soldiers, established
cadet schools for the training of young officers, and stimulated bravery
and good conduct by reviving and creating military orders of merit.
83. The last half of the 17th century is a brilliant period in the
annals of the French armies. Thoroughly organized, animated by the
presence of the king, and led by such generals as Conde, Turenne,
Luxembourg, Catinat and Vendome, they made head against coalitions which
embraced nearly all the powers of Europe, and made France the first
military nation of Europe. The reverses of the later part of Louis
XIV.'s reign were not of course without result upon the tone of the
French army, and the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene for a time
diminished the repute in which the troops of Louis were held by other
powers. Nevertheless the War of the Spanish Succession closed with
French victories, and generals of the calibre of Villars and Berwick
were not to be found in the service of every prince. The war of the
Polish Succession in Germany and Italy reflected no discredit upon the
French arms; and the German general staff, in its history of the wars of
Frederick the Great, states that "in 1740 the French army was still
regarded as the first in Europe." Since the death of Louvois very little
had changed. The army was still governed as it had been by the great war
minister, and something had been done to reduce evils against which even
he had been powerless. A royal regiment of artillery had come into
existence, and the engineers were justly regarded as the most skilful in
Europe. Certain alterations had been made in the organization of both
the guard and the line, and the total strength of the French in peace
was somewhat less than 200,000. Relatively to the numbers maintained in
other states, it was thus as powerful as before. Indeed, only one
feature of importance differentiated the French army from its
contemporaries--the proportion of officers to men, which was one to
eleven. In view of this, the spirit of the army was necessarily that of
its officers, and these were by no means the equals of their
predecessors of the time of Turenne or Luxembourg. Louvois' principle of
employing professional soldiers for command and wealthy men for
colonelcies and captaincies was not deliberately adopted, but inevitably
grew out of the circumstances of the time. The system answered fairly
whilst continual wars gave the professional soldiers opportunities for
distinction and advancement. But in a long peace the captains of
eighteen and colonels of twenty-three blocked all promotion, and there
was no work save that of routine to be done. Under these conditions the
best soldiers sought service in other countries, the remainder lived
only for pleasure, whilst the titular chiefs of regiments and companies
rarely appeared on parade. Madame de Genlis relates how, when young
courtiers departed to join their regiments for a few weeks' duty, the
ladies of the court decked them with favours, as if proceeding on a
distant and perilous expedition.
On the other hand, the fact that the French armies required large drafts
of militia to bring up their regular forces to war strength gave them a
vitality which was unusual in armies of the time. Even in the time of
Louis XIV. the military spirit of the country had arisen at the threat
of invasion, and the French armies of 1709 fought far more desperately,
as the casualty lists of the allies at Malplaquet showed, than those of
1703 or 1704. In the time of the Revolution the national spirit of the
French army formed a rallying-point for the forces of order, whereas
Prussia, whose army was completely independent of the people, lost all
power of defending herself after a defeat in the field. It is difficult
to summarize the conduct of the royal armies in the wars of 1740-63.
With a few exceptions the superior leaders proved themselves
incompetent, and in three great battles, at least, the troops suffered
ignominious defeat (Dettingen 1743, Rossbach 1757, Minden 1759). On the
other hand, Marshal Saxe and others of the younger generals were
excellent commanders, and Fontenoy was a victory of the first magnitude.
The administration, however, was corrupt and inefficient, and the
general reputation of the French armies fell so low that Frederick the
Great once refused an important command to one of his generals on the
ground that his experience had been gained only against French troops.
Under Louis XVI. things improved somewhat; the American War and the
successes of Lafayette and Rochambeau revived a more warlike spirit.
Instruction was more carefully attended to, and a good system of drill
and tactics was elaborated at the camp of St Omer. Attempts were made to
reform the administration. Artillery and engineer schools had come into
existence, and the intellectual activity of the best officers was
remarkable (see Max Jahns, _Gesch. der Kriegswissenschaften_, vol. iii.
passim). But the Revolution soon broke over France, and the history of
the royal army was henceforward carried on by that revolutionary army,
which, under a new flag, was destined to raise the military fame of
France to its greatest height.
84. If Louis was the creator of the royal army, Carnot was so of the
revolutionary army. At the outbreak of the Revolution the royal army
consisted of 224 infantry battalions, 7 regiments of artillery, and 62
regiments of cavalry, numbering about 173,000 in all, but capable of
augmentation on war strength to 210,000. To this might be added about
60,000 militia (see Chuquet, _Premiere invasion prussienne_).
The first step of the Constituent Assembly was the abrogation of an
edict of 1781 whereby men of non-noble birth had been denied
commissioned rank (1790). Thus, when many of the officers emigrated
along with their fellows of the _noblesse_, trained non-commissioned
officers, who would already have been officers save for this edict, were
available to fill their places. The general scheme of reform (see
CONSCRIPTION) was less satisfactory, but the formation of a National
Guard, comprising in theory the whole military population, was a step of
the highest importance. At this time the titles of regiments were
abandoned in favour of numbers, and the costly and dangerous _Maison du
Roi_ abolished. But voluntary enlistment soon failed; the old corps,
which kept up their discipline, were depleted, and the men went to the
volunteers, where work was less exacting and promotion more rapid.
_"Aussi fut-on,"_ says a French writer, _"reduit bientot a forcer
l'engagement volontaire et a imposer le choix du corps."_ The "first
invasion" (July 1792) put an end to half-measures, and the country was
declared "in danger." Even these measures, however, were purely designed
to meet the emergency, and, after Valmy, enthusiasm waned to such a
degree that, of a paper strength of 800,000 men (December 1792), only
112,000 of the line and 290,000 volunteers were actually present. The
disasters of the following spring once more called for extreme energy,
and 300,000 national guards were sent to the line, a step which was
followed by a compulsory _levee en masse_; one million men were thus
assembled to deal with the manifold dangers of civil and foreign war.
France was saved by mere numbers and the driving energy of the
Terrorists, not by discipline and organization. The latter was chaotic,
and almost every element of success was wanting to the tumultuary levies
of the year 1793 save a ferocious energy born of liberty and the
guillotine. But under the Terrorist regime the army became the
rallying-point of the nation, and when Lazare Carnot (q.v.) became
minister of war a better organization and discipline began to appear.
The amalgamation of the old army and the volunteers, which had been
commenced but imperfectly carried out, was effected on a different and
more thorough principle. The infantry was organized in demi-brigades of
three battalions (usually one of the old army to two of volunteers). A
permanent organization in divisions of all arms was introduced, and the
ablest officers selected for the commands. Arsenals and manufactories of
warlike stores were created, schools of instruction were re-established;
the republican forces were transformed from hordes to armies, well
disciplined, organized and equipped. Later measures followed the same
lines, and the artillery and engineers, which in 1790 were admittedly
the best in Europe and which owing to the _roturier_ element in their
officer cadres had not been disorganized by the emigration, steadily
improved. The infantry, and in a less degree the cavalry, became good
and trustworthy soldiers, and the glorious campaigns of 1794, 1795 and
1796, which were the direct result of Carnot's administration, bore
witness to the potentialities of the essentially modern system. But,
great as was the triumph of 1796-97, the exhaustion of years of
continuous warfare had made itself felt: the armies were reduced to mere
skeletons, and no sufficient means existed of replenishing them, till in
1798 the _conscription_ was introduced. From that time the whole male
population of France was practically at her ruler's disposal; and
Napoleon had full scope for his genius in organizing these masses. His
principal improvements were effected in the interval between the peace
of Amiens and the war with the third coalition, while threatening the
invasion of England. His armies were collected in large camps on the
coasts of the Channel, and there received that organization which, with
minor variations, they retained during all his campaigns, and which has
since been copied by all European nations. The divisions had already
given place to the army corps, and Napoleon completed the work of his
predecessors. He withdrew the whole of the cavalry and a portion of the
artillery from the divisions, and thus formed "corps troops" and cavalry
and artillery reserves for the whole army. The grade of marshal of
France was revived at Napoleon's coronation. At the same time, the
operation of Jourdan's law, acquiesced in during times of national
danger and even during peace, soon found opposition when the conscripts
realized that long foreign wars were to be their lot. It was not the
actual losses of the field armies, great as these undoubtedly were,
which led Napoleon in the full tide of his career to adopt the fatal
practice of "anticipating" the conscription, but the steady increase in
the number of _refractaires_, men who refused to come up for service. To
hunt these men down, no less than forty thousand picked soldiers were
engaged within the borders of France, and the actual French element in
the armies of Napoleon grew less and less with every extension of the
empire. Thus, in the Grand Army of 1809, about one-third of the corps of
all arms were purely German, and in 1812 the army which invaded Russia,
467,000 strong, included 280,000 foreigners. In other words, the million
of men produced by the original conscription of 1793 had dwindled to
about half that number (counting the various subsidiary armies in Spain,
&c.), and one hundred thousand of the best and sturdiest Frenchmen were
engaged in a sort of civil war in France itself. The conscription was
"anticipated" even in 1806, the conscripts for 1807 being called up
before their time. As the later wars of the Empire closed one by one the
foreign sources of recruiting, the conscription became more terrible
every year, with the result that more _refractaires_ and more trusted
soldiers to hunt them down were kept in non-effective employment.
Finally the capacity for resistance was exhausted, and the army, from
the marshals downward, showed that it had had enough.
85. One of the first acts of the Restoration was to abolish the
conscription, but it had again to be resorted to within three years. In
1818 the annual contingent was fixed at 40,000, and the period of
service at six years; in 1824 the contingent was increased to 60,000,
and in 1832 to 80,000. Of this, however, a part only, according to the
requirements of the service, were enrolled; the remainder were sent home
on leave or furlough. Up to 1855 certain exemptions were authorized, and
substitution or exchange of lots amongst young men who had drawn was
permitted, but the individual drawn was obliged either to serve
personally or find a substitute. The long series of Algerian wars
produced further changes, and in 1855 the law of "dotation" or exemption
by payment was passed, and put an end to personal substitution. The
state now undertook to provide substitutes for all who paid a fixed sum,
and did so by high bounties to volunteers or to soldiers for
re-engaging. Although the price of exemption was fixed as high as L92,
on an average 23,000 were claimed annually, and in 1859 as many as
42,000 were granted. Thus gradually the conscription became rather
subsidiary to voluntary enlistment, and in 1866, out of a total
establishment of 400,000, only 120,000 were conscripts. Changes had also
taken place in the constitution of the army. On the Restoration its
numbers were reduced to 150,000, the old regiments broken up and recast,
and a royal guard created in place of the old imperial one. When the
revolution of July 1830 had driven Charles X. from his throne, the royal
guard, which had made itself peculiarly obnoxious, was dissolved; and
during Louis Philippe's reign the army was augmented to about 240,000
with the colours. Under the Provisional Government of 1848 it was
further increased, and in 1854, when France allied herself with England
against Russia, the army was raised to 500,000 men. The imperial guard
was re-created, and every effort made to revive the old Napoleonic
traditions in the army. In 1859 Napoleon III. took the field as the
champion and ally of Italy, and the victories of Montebello, Magenta and
Solferino raised the reputation of the army to the highest pitch, and
for a time made France the arbiter of Europe. But the campaign of 1866
suddenly made the world aware that a rival military power had arisen,
which was prepared to dispute that supremacy.
Marshal Niel (q.v.), the then war minister, saw clearly that the
organization which had with difficulty maintained 150,000 men in Italy,
was no match for that which had within a month thrown 250,000 into the
very heart of Austria, while waging a successful war on the Main against
Bavaria and her allies. In 1867, therefore, he brought forward a measure
for the reorganization of the army. This was to have been a true "nation
in arms" based on universal service, and Niel calculated upon producing
a first-line army 800,000 strong--half with the colours, half in
reserve--with a separate army of the second line. But many years must
elapse before the full effect of this principle of recruiting can be
produced, as the army is incomplete in some degree until the oldest
reservist is a man who has been through the line training. Niel himself
died within a year, and 1870 witnessed the complete ruin of the French
army. The law of 1868 remained therefore no more than an expression of
principle.
86. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War (q.v.) the French field
troops consisted of 368 battalions, 252 squadrons, and 984 guns. The
strength of the entire army on peace footing was 393,000 men; on war
footing, 567,000. Disasters followed one another in rapid succession,
and the bulk of this war-trained long-service army was captive in
Germany within three months of the opening battle. But the spirit of the
nation rose to the occasion as it had done in 1793. The next year's
contingent of recruits was called out and hastily trained. Fourth
battalions were formed from the depot cadres, and organized into
_regiments de marche_. The _gardes mobiles_ (Niel's creation) were
mobilized, and by successive decrees and under various names nearly all
the manhood of the country called to arms.
The regular troops raised as _regiments de marche_, &c., amounted to
213,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 10,000 artillery. The _garde
mobile_ exceeded 300,000, and the mobilized national guard exceeded
1,100,000--of whom about 180,000 were actually in the field and 250,000
in Paris; the remainder preparing themselves in camps or depots for
active work. Altogether the new formations amounted to nearly 1,700,000.
Though, in the face of the now war-experienced well-led and disciplined
Germans, their efforts failed, this cannot detract from the admiration
which must be felt by every soldier for the patriotism of the people and
the creative energy of their leaders, of whom Gambetta and Freycinet
were the chief. After the war every Frenchman set himself to solve the
army problem not less seriously than had every Prussian after Jena, and
the reformed French army (see FRANCE) was the product of the period of
national reconstruction. The adoption of the "universal service"
principle of active army, reserves and second-line troops, the essential
feature of which is the _line_ training of every man, was almost as a
matter of course the basis of the reorganization, for the want of a
trained reserve was the most obvious cause of the disasters of "the
terrible year."
GERMAN ARMY
87. The German army, strictly speaking, dates only from 1871, or at
earliest 1866. Before the unification of the German empire or
confederation, the several states possessed distinct armies, federal
armies when required being formed from the contingents which the members
of the union, like those of an ordinary alliance, engaged to furnish.
The armies of the Holy Roman Empire were similarly formed from "single,"
"double," or "treble" contingents under the supreme command of specially
appointed field marshals of the Empire. In the troubles of 1848 there
was witnessed the curious spectacle of half of a victorious army being
unable to pursue the enemy; this, being composed of "Prussian" as
distinct from "federal contingent" troops, had to stop at the frontier
of another state. The events of 1866 and 1870 put an end to all this,
and to a very great extent to the separate armies of the old
confederation, all being now remodelled on Prussian lines. The Prussian
army therefore is at once the most important and historically the most
interesting of the forces of the German empire. Its _debut_ (about 1630)
was not satisfactory, and in the Thirty Years' War troops of Sweden, of
the Emperor, of the League, &c., plundered Brandenburg unharmed. The
elector, when appealed to for protection, could but answer, "Que faire?
Ils ont des canons." The humiliations of this time, were, however,
avenged by the troops of the next ruler of Brandenburg, called the Great
Elector. The supposed invincibility of the Swedes did not prevent him
from inflicting upon them a severe defeat at Fehrbellin, and thereafter
the Prussian contingents which took part in the many European wars of
the time acquitted themselves creditably. One of their generals was the
famous Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, and the reckless gallantry of this
leader was conspicuous on many fields, from Blenheim to Malplaquet. But
Leopold's greatest work was done in the years of peace (1715-40), during
which Prussia was preparing the army with which Frederick the Great won
his battles. He had introduced (about 1700) iron ramrods into the
infantry service, and for over twenty years the Prussian infantry was
drilled to a perfection which gave it a superiority of five to three
over the best-drilled troops of the Austrian service, and still greater
predominance over the French, which was then accounted the best in
Europe. Frederick William I., king of Prussia, directed and supervised
the creation of the new Prussian army, and Leopold was his principal
assistant. In organization and methods of recruiting, as well as in
tactical efficiency, the army of 1740 was equally pre-eminent. Then came
the wars of Frederick the Great. It is not too much to say that the
infantry won his earlier battles; the cavalry had been neglected both by
Frederick William and by Leopold, and Frederick wrote that "it was not
worth the devil's while to fetch it away." But the predominance of the
infantry was so far indisputable that Frederick was able to devote
himself to the reorganization of the mounted arm, with results which
appeared in the splendid victories of Hohenfriedberg, Rossbach, Leuthen
and Zorndorf. But long before the close of the Seven Years' War the
incomparable infantry of the old army had disappeared, to be replaced by
foreigners, deserters and vagabonds of all kinds, not to mention the
unwilling Saxon and other recruits forced into the king's service. The
army of 200,000 men which Frederick bequeathed to his successor was
indeed superb, and deserved to be the model of Europe. But with
Frederick's death the genius which had animated it, and which alone gave
value to such heterogeneous materials, was gone. The long peace had the
customary effect of sapping the efficiency of the long-service troops.
They still retained their imposing appearance and precision of movement,
and overweening self-confidence. But in 1806, after two crushing defeats
and a series of humiliating surrenders, Prussia found herself at the
feet of the conqueror, shorn of half her territory, obliged to receive
French troops in all her towns and fortresses, and only existing on
sufferance. But in these very disasters were laid the seeds of her
future greatness. By the treaty of Tilsit the Prussian army was limited
to 43,000 men. This limitation suggested to Scharnhorst "universal
service" on the _Krumper_[2] system already described (see S 36 above).
88. The bitter humiliation and suffering endured under the French yoke
aroused a national spirit which was capable of any sacrifices. The
civilian became eager to be trained to fight against the oppressor of
his country; and when Prussia rose in 1813, the armies she poured into
the field were no longer professional, but national armies, imperfectly
trained and organized, but animated by a spirit which more than
compensated for these defects. At the close of the war her rulers, with
far-seeing sagacity, at once devoted themselves to organize on a
permanent footing the system which had sprung up under the necessities
and enthusiasm of the moment. Universal compulsory service, and a three
years' term in the ranks, with further periods in the reserve and
_Landwehr_, were then introduced; and though variations have
subsequently been made in the distribution of time, the principles were
substantially the same as those now in force. By the law of 1814 the
periods of service were fixed at three years in the army, two in the
reserve and fourteen in the _Landwehr_, and the annual contingent at
40,000 men. As the population increased, it was felt that the service
was unequally distributed, pressing unnecessarily heavily on some, while
others escaped altogether. Further, the experiences of Bronnzell and
Olmutz in 1850, and of 1859, when Prussia armed in anticipation of a war
with France, aroused great doubts as to the efficiency of the
_Landwehr_, which then formed the bulk of Prussia's forces, and of whom
many had been as long as ten years away from the colours. At this time
the French remark that the Prussian army was "a sort of militia" was by
no means untrue. Accordingly, by the law of 1860 the annual contingent
was fixed at 63,000, the period in the reserve was increased from two to
four years, and that in the _Landwehr_ reduced from fourteen to five.
The total armed force thus remained nearly the same (12 contingents of
63,000, in place of 19 of 40,000), but the army and its reserves were
more than doubled (increased from 5 X 40,000 to 7 X 63,000) while the
_Landwehr_ was proportionately reduced.
This change was not effected without great opposition, and led to a
prolonged struggle between the king, guided by Bismarck, and the
parliament. It required the victories of 1866 and 1870, and the position
thereby won for Prussia, to reconcile the nation to the new law. The
military alliance (1866) of Prussia with the other German states gave
place in 1871 to the union of all the armies into the German army as it
is to-day. Some retained their old peculiarities of uniform, and even
more than this was allowed to Bavaria and to Saxony, but the whole army,
which has been increased year by year to its present strength, is
modelled on the Prussian part of it. The Prussian army corps are the
Guard, and the line numbered I. to XI., and XV. to XVIII.
89. The _Saxon Army_ formerly played a prominent part in all the wars of
northern Europe, chiefly in connexion with Poland. In the War of the
Austrian Succession the Saxon army played a prominent part, but in the
end it suffered a heavy defeat in the battle of Kesselsdorf (1745). In
the Seven Years' War Saxony was overrun by the Prussians almost without
resistance, and the military forces of the country under Field Marshal
Rutowski were forced to surrender _en masse_ at Pirna (1756); the men
were compelled by Frederick the Great to join the Prussian army, and
fought, though most unwillingly, through the remainder of the war as
Prussian soldiers. A few outlying regiments which had not been involved
in the catastrophe served with the Austrians, and on one occasion at
least, at Kolin, inflicted a severe blow on the Prussians. At the
outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution the Saxon army was over
30,000 strong. It took part in the campaign of Jena on the side of the
Prussians, and during the Napoleonic domination in Germany Saxony
furnished strong contingents to the armies of Napoleon, who in return
recognized her elector as king, and largely increased his territories.
The newly made king remained faithful to Napoleon even in his reverses;
but the army was too German in feeling to fight willingly under the
French flag. Their defection at Leipzig contributed not a little to the
results of that bloody day. After the peace the king was shorn of a
great part of his dominions, and the army was reconstituted on a smaller
scale. In 1866 Saxony sided with Austria, and her army shared in the
disasters of the brief campaign and the crowning defeat at Koniggratz.
Under the crown prince's leadership, however, the Saxons distinguished
themselves by their courage and steadiness wherever they were engaged.
After the war Saxony became part of the North German Confederation, and
in 1870-1871 her troops, under the command of the crown prince, formed
the XII. corps of the great German army. They were assigned to the II.
army of Prince Frederick Charles, and delivered the decisive attack on
the French right at Gravelotte. Subsequently a IV. army was formed under
the command of the crown prince, in which the XII. corps, now under
Prince George of Saxony, served with unvarying credit in the campaign of
Sedan and the siege of Paris. The Saxon army is now organized in every
respect on Prussian lines, and forms two army corps (XII. at Dresden and
XIX. at Leipzig) of the German army. The German emperor, in concert with
the king of Saxony, names the officers for the higher commands. Saxony
retains, however, her separate war ministry, budget, &c.; and
appointments and promotion to all but the highest commands are made by
the king. The colours of the older Saxon forces, and especially the
green of the tunics, are retained in many of the uniforms of the present
day.
90. The _Bavarian Army_ has perhaps the most continuous record of good
service in the field of any of the minor German armies. The oldest
regiments date from the Thirty Years' War, in which the veteran army
of the Catholic league, commanded by Count Tilly and formed on the
nucleus of the Bavarian army, played a conspicuous part. Later in the
war the Bavarian general, Count Mercy, proved himself a worthy
opponent of Turenne and Conde. Henceforward the Bavarians were engaged
in almost every war between France and Austria, taking part
successively in the wars of the Grand Alliance, the Spanish Succession
(in which they came into conflict with the English), and the Polish
and Austrian Succession wars. In pursuance of the traditional
anti-Austrian policy, the troops of Bavaria, led by a distinguished
Bavarian, Marshal (Prince) Wrede, served in the campaigns of 1805 to
1813 side by side with the French, and Napoleon made the electorate
into a kingdom. But in 1813 Bavaria joined the Alliance, and Wrede
tried to intercept the French on their retreat from Leipzig. Napoleon,
however, inflicted a severe defeat on his old general at Hanau, and
opened his road to France. In 1866 the Bavarians took part against
Prussia, but owing to their dilatoriness in taking the field, the
Prussians were able to beat them in detail. In 1870, reorganized to
some extent on Prussian lines, they joined their former enemy in the
war against France, and bore their full share in the glories and
losses of the campaign, the II. Bavarian corps having suffered more
heavily than any but the III. Prussian corps. The I. Bavarian corps
distinguished itself very greatly at Sedan and on the Loire. Bavaria
still retains her separate war office and special organization, and
the troops have been less affected by the Prussian influence than
those of the other states. The Bavarian corps are numbered separately
(I. Bav., Munich; II. Bav., Wurzburg; III. Bav., Nuremberg), and the
old light blue uniforms and other distinctive peculiarities of detail
are still maintained.
91. _Wurttemberg_ furnishes one army corps (XIII.; headquarters,
Stuttgart), organized, clothed and equipped in all respects like the
Prussian army. Like the Bavarians, the Wurttembergers fought against
the Prussians in 1866, but in 1870 made common cause with them against
the French, and by the convention entered into the following year
placed their army permanently under the command of the Prussian king
as emperor. The emperor nominates to the highest commands, but the
king of Wurttemberg retains the nomination and appointment of officers
in the lower grades.
92. The old _Hanoverian Army_ disappeared, of course, with the
annexation of Hanover to Prussia in 1866, but it is still represented
officially by certain regiments of the X. army corps, and, in one case
at least, battle honours won by the King's German Legion in the
British service are borne on German colours of to-day. The _Hessian
Army_ is now represented by the XXV. (Grand-ducal Hessian) division,
which forms part of the XVIII. army corps.
ITALIAN ARMY
93. The old conscription law of the kingdom of Sardinia is the basis of
the military organization of Italy, as its constitution is of that of
the modern Italian kingdom. The Piedmontese have long borne a high
reputation for their military qualities, a reputation shared by the
rulers of the house of Savoy (q.v.), many of whom showed special ability
in preserving the independence of their small kingdom between two such
powerful neighbours as France and Austria. During the wars of the French
Revolution Piedmont was temporarily absorbed into the French republic
and empire. The Italian troops who fought under Napoleon proved
themselves, in many if not most cases, the best of the French allies,
and Italy contributed large numbers of excellent general officers to the
_Grande Armee_.
After 1815 various causes combined to place Piedmont (Sardinia) at the
head of the national movement which agitated Italy during the ensuing
thirty years, and bring her in direct antagonism to Austria. Charles
Albert, her then ruler, had paid great attention to the army, and when
Italy rose against Austria in 1848 he took the field with an excellent
force of nearly 70,000 men. At the outset fortune favoured the arms of
Italy; but the genius and energy of Radetzky, the veteran Austrian
commander, turned the tide, and in the summer of 1849 after many
battles the Piedmontese army was decisively defeated at Novara, and
her king compelled to sue for peace. Charles Albert abdicated in
favour of his son Victor Emanuel, a prince who had already
distinguished himself by his personal gallantry in the field. Under
his care the army soon recovered its efficiency, and the force which
joined the allied armies in the Crimea attracted general admiration
from the excellence of its organization, equipment and discipline. In
1859 Piedmont again took up arms against Austria for the liberation of
Italy; but this time she had the powerful assistance of France, and
played but a subordinate part herself. In this campaign the Sardinian
army was composed of one cavalry and five infantry divisions, and
numbered about 60,000 combatants. By the peace of Villafranca, Italy,
with the exception of Venetia, was freed from the Austrians, and
Lombardy was added to Piedmont. The revolutionary campaign of
Garibaldi in the following year united the whole peninsula under the
rule of Victor Emanuel, and in 1866, when Italy for the third time
took up arms against Austria--this time as the ally of Prussia--her
forces had risen to nearly 450,000, of whom about 270,000 actually
took the field. But in quality these were far from being equal to the
old Piedmontese army; and the northern army, under the personal
command of the king, was decisively defeated at Custozza by the
archduke Albert of Austria.
The existing organization of the Italian army is determined by the
laws of 1873, which made universal liability to service the basis of
recruiting. The territorial system has not, however, been adopted at
the same time, the materials of which the Italian army is composed
varying so much that it was decided to blend the different types of
soldiers so far as possible by causing them to serve together. The
colonial wars in which Italian troops have taken part have been marked
with great disasters, but relieved by the gallantry of the officers
and the rank and file.
RUSSIAN ARMY
94. The history of the Russian army begins with the abolition of the
Strelitz (q.v.) by Peter the Great in 1698, the nucleus of the new
forces being four regiments of foot, two of which are well known to-day
under their old titles of Preobrazhenski and Semenovski. Throughout the
18th century Russian military progress obeyed successive dynasties of
western European models--first those of Prussia, then those of France.
In the earlier part of the 19th century the army, used chiefly in wars
against the revolutionary spirit, became, like others of that time, a
dynastic force; subsequently the "nation in arms" principle reasserted
itself, and on this basis has been carried out the reorganization of
Russia's military power. The enormous development of this since 1874 is
one of the most striking phenomena in recent military history. In 1892,
in expectation of a general European war, whole armies were massed in
the districts of Warsaw and Vilna, three-fifths of the entire forces
being in position on the German and Austrian frontiers.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 is generally held to have proved that
the fighting power of the Russian has in no way diminished in
intrinsic value from that of the days of Zorndorf, Borodino and
Sevastopol. The proverbial stubbornness of the rank and file is the
distinctive quality of the armies of the tsar, and in view of the
general adoption of two-years' service in other countries it is a
matter for grave consideration whether, against European forces and in
defence of their own homes, the Russians would not prove more than
formidable antagonists to the men of more highly individualized races
who are their probable opponents. Equally remarkable is the new power
of redistribution possessed by Russia. Formerly it was usual to count
upon one campaign at least elapsing before Russia could intervene
effectively in European wars; much, in fact the greater part, of her
losses in the Crimean War was due to the enormous distances which had
to be traversed on foot. Nowadays the original equal distribution of
the army over the country has been modified in accordance with the
political needs of each moment. In 1892 the centre of gravity was
shifted to Poland and Kiev, in 1904 the performances of the
trans-Siberian railway in transporting troops to the seat of war in
Manchuria excited the admiration of military Europe. The attitude of
the army in the troubles which followed upon the Japanese War belongs
to the history of Russia, not to that of military organization, and it
will be sufficient to say that the conduct of the "nation in arms" at
times of political unrest may vary between the extremes of
unquestioning obedience to authority and the most dangerous form of
licence, examples of both being frequent in the history of nearly all
national armies. A remarkable innovation in the modern history of this
army is the conversion of the whole of the cavalry, except a few
_elite_ regiments, into dragoons of the old type. After the war of
1904-5, however, this policy was reversed and the cavalry reformed on
the usual model. The Cossacks still retain to a large extent the
peculiarities of the light troops of the 18th century.
SPANISH ARMY
95. The feudal sovereignties of medieval Spain differed but little, in
their military organization, from other feudal states. As usual,
mercenaries were the only forces on which reliance was placed for
foreign wars. These troops called _almugavares_ (Arabic = scouts) won a
great reputation on Italian and Greek battlefields of the 13th century,
and with many transformations in name and character appeared from time
to time up to the Peninsular War. Castile, however, had a military
system very different from the rest. The forces of the kingdom were
composed of local contingents similar to the English _fyrd_,
professional soldiers who were paid followers of the great lords, and
the heavy cavalry of the military orders. The groups of cities called
_Hermandades_, while they existed, also had permanent forces in their
pay. At the union of Castile and Aragon the Castilian methods received a
more general application. The new _Hermandad_ was partly a light
cavalry, partly a police, and was organized in the ratio of one soldier
to every hundred families. In the conquest of Grenada (1482-92)
_mesnadas_ or contingents were furnished by the crown, the nobles and
the cities, and permanently kept in the field. The _Hermandad_ served
throughout the war as a matter of course. From the veterans of this war
was drawn the army which in the Italian wars won its reputation as the
first army in Europe.
In 1596 the home defence of Spain was reorganized and the _ordenanza_,
or militia, which was then formed of all men not belonging to the still
extant feudal contingents, was generally analogous to the system of
"assizes at arms" in England. This _ordenanza_ served in the Peninsular
War.
96. With the Italian wars of the early 16th century came the
development of the regular army; a brief account of its place in the
evolution of armies has been given above. Discipline, the feeling of
comradeship and soldierly honour were the qualities which marked out
the Spanish army as the model for others to follow, and for more than
a century the Spanish army maintained its prestige as the first in
Europe. The oldest regiments of the present Spanish army claiming
descent from the _tercios_ date from 1535. An officer whose regiment
was reduced commonly took a pike in some other corps (e.g. Tilly), the
_senor soldado_ was counted as a gentleman, and his wife and family
received state allowances. Nor was this army open only to Spaniards.
Walloons, Italians, Burgundians and other nationalities ruled over by
the Habsburgs all contributed their quotas. But the career of the old
army came to an end at Rocroi (1643), and after this the forces of the
monarchy began more and more to conform to the French model.
97. The military history of Spain from 1650 to 1700 is full of
incident, and in the long war of the Spanish Succession both the army
and the _ordenanza_ found almost continuous employment. They were now
organized, as were most other armies of Europe, on the lines of the
French army, and in 1714 the old _tercios_, which had served in the
Spanish Netherlands under Marlborough, were brought to Spain. The
king's regiment "Zamora" of the present army descends from one of
these which, as the _tercio_ of Bovadilla, had been raised in 1580.
The army underwent few changes of importance during the 18th century,
and it is interesting to note that there were never less than three
Irish regiments in the service. In 1808 the _Irlanda, Ultonia_ (=
Ulster) and _Hibernia_ regiments had come to consist (as had similar
corps in the French service before the Revolution) largely of native
soldiers. At that time the Spanish army consisted of 119 Spanish and
foreign (Swiss, Walloon and Irish) battalions, with 24 cavalry
regiments and about 8000 artillery and engineers. There were further
51 battalions of militia, and the total forces numbered actually
137,000. The part played by the Spanish standing army in the
Peninsular War was certainly wholly insignificant relatively to these
figures. It must be borne in mind, however, that only continued wars
can give real value to long-service troops of the old style, and this
advantage the Spanish regulars did not possess. Further, the general
decadence of administration reacted in the usual way, the appointment
of court favourites to high command was a flagrant evil, and all that
can be urged is that the best elements of the army behaved as well as
did the Prussians of 1806, that the higher leading and the
administration of the army in the field were both sufficiently weak to
have ruined most armies, and that the men were drawn from the same
country and the same classes which furnished the _guerrilleros_ whom
it became fashionable to exalt at the expense of the soldiers. In the
later campaigns of Wellington, Spanish divisions did good service, and
the corps of La Romana (a picked contingent of troops which had been
sent before the war to Denmark at Napoleon's instance), though often
defeated, always retained some cohesion and discipline. But the result
of this war, the second French invasion, and the continued civil wars
of the 19th century was the destruction of the old army, and the
present army of Spain still bears traces of the confusion out of which
it arose.
The most important changes were in 1870, when conscription was
introduced, and in 1872, when universal service was proposed in its
place. The military virtues of the rank and file and the devotion of
the officers were conspicuously displayed in the Spanish-American War
of 1898, and it cannot be claimed even for the Germans of 1870 that
they fired so coolly and accurately as did the defenders of S. Juan
and El Caney.
TURKISH ARMY
98. The writers who have left the most complete and trustworthy
contemporary accounts of the Turkish army in the 14th and 15th
centuries, when it reached the height of its most characteristic
development, are Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, equerry to Philip the
Good, duke of Burgundy, and Francesco Filelfo of Tolentino. Bertrandon,
a professional soldier, visited Palestine in 1432, and returned overland
in 1433, traversing the Balkan Peninsula by the main trade-route from
Constantinople to Belgrade. He wrote an account of his journey for
Philip: see _Early Travels in Palestine_, translated and edited by T.
Wright (London, 1848). Filelfo served as secretary to the Venetian
_baylo_ at Constantinople, and recorded his observations in a series of
letters (see FILELFO). Both ascribe the military superiority of the
Turks over the nations of western Europe to two facts--firstly to their
possession of a well-organized standing army, an institution unknown
elsewhere, and secondly to their far stricter discipline, itself a
result of their military organization and of the moral training afforded
by Islam.
The regular troops comprised the Janissaries (q.v.), a corps of
infantry recruited from captured sons of Christians, and trained to
form a privileged caste of scientific soldiers and religious fanatics;
and the Spahis, a body of cavalry similarly recruited, and armed with
scimitar, mace and bow. Celibacy was one of the rules of this standing
army, which, in its semi-monastic ideals and constitution, resembled
the knightly orders of the West in their prime. The Janissaries
numbered about 12,000, the Spahis about 8000. A second army of some
40,000 men, mostly mounted and armed like the Spahis, was feudal in
character, and consisted chiefly of the personal followers of the
Moslem nobility; more than half its numbers were recruited in Europe.
This force of 60,000 trained soldiers was accompanied by a horde of
irregulars, levied chiefly among the barbarous mountaineers of the
Balkans and Asia Minor, and very ill-armed and ill-disciplined. Their
numbers may be estimated at 140,000, for Bertrandon gives 200,000 as
the total of the Turkish forces. Many 15th and 16th century writers
give a smaller total, but refer only to the standing and feudal
armies. Others place the total higher. Laonicus Chalcocondylas in his
_Turcica Historia_ states that at the siege of Constantinople in 1453
the sultan commanded 400,000 troops, but most other eye-witnesses of
the siege give a total varying from 150,000 to 300,000. Many Christian
soldiers of fortune enlisted with the Turks as artillerists or
engineers, and supplied them at Constantinople with the most powerful
cannon of the age. Other Christians were compelled to serve as
engineers or in the ranks. As late as 1683 a corps of Wallachians was
forced to join the Turkish army before Vienna, and entrusted with the
task of bridging the Danube. But in the 18th and early 19th centuries
the introduction of Christians tended to weaken the _moral_ of the
army already sapped by defeat; it was found impossible to maintain the
discipline of the Janissaries, whose privileges had become a source of
danger; and the feudal nobility became more and more independent of
the sultan's authority. These three causes contributed to make
reorganization inevitable.
The destruction of the Janissaries in 1826 marked the close of the
history of the old Turkish army; already the re-creation of the
service on the accepted models of western Europe had been commenced.
This was still incomplete when the new force was called upon to meet
the Russians in 1828, and though the army displayed its accustomed
bravery, its defective organization and other causes led to its
defeat. Since then the army has been almost as constantly on active
service as the British; the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877
and the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 witnessed the employment of a large
proportion of the sultan's available forces, while innumerable local
revolts in different parts of the empire called for great exertions,
and often for fierce fighting on the part of the troops locally in
garrison and those sent up from the nearest provinces.
UNITED STATES ARMY
99. The regular army of the United States has always been small. From
the first it has been a voluntary force, and until 1898 its chief work
in peace was to furnish numerous small posts on the frontier and amongst
the Indians, and to act as a reserve to the civil power in the great
cities. In war-time the regular army, if, as was usually the case, it
was insufficient in numbers for the task of subduing the enemy, formed
the nucleus of large armies raised "for the war." In 1790 the rank and
file of the army, as fixed by act of Congress, amounted to 1216 men; and
in 1814 an English expedition of only 3500 men was able to seize and
burn Washington, the capital of a country which even then numbered eight
millions of inhabitants. In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, the
whole regular force amounted to about 15,300 men. In April of that year
the president called out 75,000 volunteers for three months; and in May
a further call for 42,000 was made. In July a call for 500,000 men was
authorized by Congress, and as even this vast force proved insufficient
it was found necessary to use a system of drafts. In October 1863 a levy
of 300,000 men was ordered, and in February 1864 a further call of
500,000 was made. Finally, in the beginning of 1865 two further levies,
amounting in all to 500,000 men, were ordered, but were only partially
carried out in consequence of the cessation of hostilities. The total
number of men called under arms by the government of the United States,
between April 1861 and April 1865, amounted to 2,759,049, of whom
2,656,053 were actually embodied in the armies. If to these be added the
1,100,000 men embodied by the South during the same time, the total
armed forces reach the enormous amount of nearly four millions, drawn
from a population of only 32 millions--figures before which the
celebrated uprising of the French nation in 1793, or the efforts of
France and Germany in the Franco-German War, sink into insignificance.
These 2,700,000 Federals were organized into volunteer regiments bearing
state designations. The officers, except general and staff officers,
were appointed by the governors of the respective states. The maximum
authorized strength of the regular army never, during the war, exceeded
40,000 men; and the number in the field, especially towards the close of
the war, was very much less. The states, in order to obtain men to fill
their quotas, offered liberal bounties to induce men to enlist, and it
therefore became very difficult to obtain recruits for the regular army,
for which no bounties were given. The regular regiments accordingly
dwindled away to skeletons. The number of officers present was also much
reduced, since many of them, while retaining their regular commissions,
held higher rank in the volunteer army. After the close of the Civil War
the volunteers were mustered out; and by the act of Congress of the 28th
of July 1866 the line of the army was made to consist of 10 regiments of
cavalry of 12 troops each, 5 regiments of artillery of 12 batteries each
and 45 regiments of infantry of 10 companies. The actual strength in
August 1867 was 53,962. The act of the 3rd of March 1869 reduced the
number of infantry regiments to 25 and the enlisted strength of the army
to 35,036. The numbers were further reduced, without change in
organization, to 32,788 in 1870 and to 25,000 in 1874. The latter number
remained the maximum for twenty-four years.
In March 1898, in view of hostilities with Spain, the artillery was
increased by 2 regiments, and, in April, 2 companies were added to each
infantry regiment, giving it 3 battalions of 4 companies each. The
strength of batteries, troops and companies was increased, the maximum
enlisted strength reached during 1898 being over 63,000. A volunteer
army was also organized. Of this army, 3 regiments of engineer troops, 3
of cavalry and 10 of infantry were United States volunteers, all the
officers being commissioned by the president. The other organizations
came from the states, the officers being appointed by the respective
governors. As fast as they were organized and filled up, they were
mustered into the service of the United States. The total number
furnished for the war with Spain was 10,017 officers and 213,218
enlisted men. All general and staff officers were appointed by the
president. Three hundred and eighty-seven officers of the regular army
received volunteer commissions. After the conclusion of hostilities with
Spain, the mustering out of the volunteers was begun, and by June 1899
all the volunteers, except those in the Philippines, were out of the
service. The latter, as well as those serving elsewhere, having enlisted
only for the war, were brought home and mustered out as soon as
practicable.
The act of the 2nd of March 1899 added 2 batteries to each regiment of
artillery. On the 2nd of February 1901 Congress passed an important bill
providing for the reorganization and augmentation (max. 100,000) of the
regular army, and other measures followed in the next years. (See UNITED
STATES.)
MINOR ARMIES
100. _Dutch and Belgian Armies._--The military power of the "United
Provinces" dates its rise from the middle of the 16th century, when,
after a long and sanguinary struggle, they succeeded in emancipating
themselves from the yoke of Spain; and in the following century it
received considerable development in consequence of the wars they had
to maintain against Louis XIV. In 1702 they had in their pay upwards
of 100,000 men, including many English and Scottish regiments, besides
30,000 in the service of the Dutch East India Company. But the
slaughter of Malplaquet deprived the republic of the flower of the
army. Its part in the War of the Austrian Succession was far from
being as creditable as its earlier deeds, a Prussian army overran
Holland in 1787 almost without opposition, and at the beginning of the
wars of the French Revolution the army had fallen to 36,000 men. In
1795 Holland was conquered by the French under Pichegru, and in the
course of the changes which ensued the army was entirely reorganized,
and under French direction bore its share in the great wars of the
empire.
With the fall of Napoleon and the reconstitution of the Netherlands,
the Dutch-Belgian army, formed of the troops of the now united
countries, came into existence. The army fought at Waterloo, but was
not destined to a long career, for the revolution of 1830 brought
about the separation of Belgium. A Dutch garrison under Baron Chasse,
a distinguished veteran of the Napoleonic wars, defended Antwerp
against the French under Marshal Gerard, and the Netherlands have been
engaged in many arduous colonial wars in the East Indies. The Belgian
army similarly has contributed officers and non-commissioned officers
to the service of the Congo Free State.
101. _Swiss Army._--The inhabitants of Switzerland were always a hardy
and independent race, but their high military reputation dates from
the middle of the 15th century, when the comparatively ill-armed and
untrained mountaineers signally defeated Charles the Bold of Burgundy
and the flower of the chivalry of Europe in the battles of Granson,
Morat and Nancy. The Swabian war, towards the end of that century, and
the Milanese war, at the beginning of the following one, added to the
fame of the Swiss infantry, and made it the model on which that arm
was formed all over Europe. The wealthier countries vied with each
other in hiring them as mercenaries, and the poor but warlike Swiss
found the profession of arms a lucrative one.
A brief account of the Swiss mercenaries will be found earlier in this
article. Their fall was due in the end to their own indiscipline in
the first place, and the rise of the Spanish standing army and its
musketeers in the second. Yet it does not seem that the military
reputation of the Swiss was discredited, even by reverses such as
Marignan. On the contrary, they continued all through the 17th and
18th centuries to furnish whole regiments for the service of other
countries, notably of France, and individuals, like Jomini in a later
age, followed the career of the soldier of fortune everywhere. The
most notable incident in the later military history of the Swiss, the
heroic faithfulness of Louis XVI.'s Swiss guard, is proverbial, and
has been commemorated with just pride by their countrymen. The French
Revolutionary armies overran Switzerland, as they did all the small
neighbouring states, and during Napoleon's career she had to submit to
his rule, and furnish her contingent to his armies. On the fall of
Napoleon she regained her independence, and returned to her old trade
of furnishing soldiers to the sovereigns and powers of Europe. Charles
X. of France had at one time as many as 17,000 Swiss in his pay;
Naples and Rome had each four regiments. The recruiting for these
foreign services was openly acknowledged and encouraged by the
government. The young Swiss engaged usually for a period of four or
six years; they were formed in separate regiments, officered by
countrymen of their own, and received a higher rate of pay than the
national regiments; and at the close of their engagement returned with
their earnings to settle down on their paternal holdings. A series of
revolutions, however, expelled them from France and Italy, and
recently the advance of liberal ideas, and the creation of great
national armies based on the principle of personal service, has
destroyed their occupation. Switzerland is now remarkable in a
military sense as being the only country that maintains no standing
army (see Militia).
102. The _Swedish Army_ can look back with pride to the days of
Gustavus Adolphus and of Charles XII. The contributions made by it to
the military science of the 17th century have been noticed above. The
triumphs of the small and highly disciplined army of Charles were
often such as to recall the similar victories of the Greeks under
Alexander. The then nebulous armies of Russia and Poland resembled
indeed the forces of Darius in the 4th century B.C., but Peter the
Great succeeded at last in producing a true army, and the resistance
of the Swedes collapsed under the weight of the vastly superior
numbers then brought against them.
The _Danish Army_ has a long and meritorious record of good service
dating from the Thirty Years' War.
103. The existing Army of _Portugal_ dates from the Peninsular War,
when a considerable force of Portuguese, at one time exceeding 60,000
men, was organized under Marshal Beresford. Trained and partly
officered by English officers, it proved itself not unworthy of its
allies, and bore its full share in the series of campaigns and battles
by which the French were ultimately expelled from Spain. At the peace
the army numbered about 50,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry, formed on
the English model, and all in the highest state of efficiency. This
force was reduced in 1821, under the new constitutional government, to
about one-half.
104. The _Rumanian, Bulgarian_ and _Servian_ armies are the youngest
in Europe. The conduct of the Rumanians before Plevna in 1877 earned
for them the respect of soldiers of all countries. Servia and Bulgaria
came to war in 1885, and the Bulgarian soldiers, under the most
adverse conditions, achieved splendid victories under the leadership
of their own officers. In the crisis following the Austrian annexation
of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908-9), it seemed likely that the Servian
forces might play an unexpectedly active part in war even with a
strong power.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Below are the titles of some of the more important
works on the subject of armies. See also under biographical headings
and articles dealing with the several arms, &c. A large proportion of
the works mentioned below are concerned mainly with the development of
strategy and tactics.
V. der Goltz, _Das Volk in Waffen_ (1883, new ed., 1898, English
translation, P.A. Ashworth, _Nation in Arms_, London, 1887, new ed.,
1907, French, _Nation armee_, Paris, 1889); Jahns, _Heeresverfassung
und Volkerleben_ (Berlin, 1885); Berndt, _Die Zahl im Kriege_ (Vienna,
1895); F.N. Maude, _Evolution of Modern Strategy_ (1903), _Voluntary
versus Compulsory Service_ (1897), and _War and the World's Life_
(1907); Pierron, _Methodes de guerre_, vol. i.; Jahns, _Geschichte der
Kriegswissenschaften_ (an exhaustive bibliography, with critical
notes); Troschke, _Mil. Litteratur seit den Befreiungskriegen_
(Berlin, 1870); T.A. Dodge, _Great Captains_ (_Alexander, Hannibal,
Caesar, Gustavus, Napoleon_); Bronsart v. Schellendorf (Eng. trans.,
War Office, 1905) _Duties of the General Staff_; Fave, _Histoire et
tactique des trois armes_ (Liege, 1850); Maynert, _Gesch. des
Kriegswesens u. der Heeresverfassungen in Europa_ (Vienna, 1869);
Jahns, _Handbuch fur eine Geschichte des Kriegswesens v. der Urzeit
bis zur Renaissance_ (Leipzig, 1880); de la Barre Duparcq, _Histoire
de l'art de la guerre avant l'usage de poudre_ (Paris, 1860); Rustow
and Kochly, _Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens_ (Aarau, 1852);
Kochly and Rustow, _Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller_ (Leipzig, 1855);
Forster, in _Hermes_, xii. (1877); D.G. Hogarth, _Philip and
Alexander_ (London, 1897); Macdougall, _Campaigns of Hannibal_
(London, 1858); Rustow, _Heerwesen, &c., Julius Casars_ (Nordhausen,
1855); _Organ der M. Wissensch. Verein_ of 1877 (Vienna); Polybius
literature of the 17th and 18th centuries; supplement to _M.W.B._,
1883; the works of Xenophon, Aelian, Arrian, Vegetius, Polybius,
Caesar, &c. (see Kochly and Rustow: a collection was made in the 15th
century, under the title _Veteres de re militari scriptores_, 1487);
Oman, _A History of the Art of War: Middle Ages_ (London, 1898);
Delpech, _La Tactique au XIII^e siecle_ (Paris, 1886); Kohler, _Die
Entwickelung des Kriegswesens v. II. Jahrhdt. bis zu den
Hussitenkriegen_ (Breslau, 1886-1893); Ricotti, _Storia delle
Compagnie di Ventura_ (Turin, 1846); Steger, _Gesch. Francesco Sforzas
und d. ital. Condottieri_ (Leipzig, 1865); J.A. Symonds, _The
Renaissance in Italy and The Age of the Despots; A Brandenburg
Mobilization of 1477_ (German General Staff Monograph, No. 3);
Palacky, "Kriegskunst der Bohmen," _Zeitschrift bohmisch. Museums_
(Prague, 1828); George, _Battles of English History_ (London, 1895);
Biottot, _Les Grands inspires devant la science: Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris,
1907); V. Ellger, _Kriegswesen, &c., der Eidgenossen, 14., 15., 16.
Jahrhdt._ (1873); de la Chauvelays, _Les Armees de Charles le
Temeraire_ (Paris, 1879); Guillaume, _Hist. des bandes d'ordonnance
dans les Pays-Bas_ (Brussels, 1873); the works of Froissart, de
Brantome, Machiavelli, Lienhard Fronsperger (_Kriegsbuch_, 1570), de
la Noue, du Bellay, &c.; Villari, _Life and Times of Machiavelli_
(English version); "Die frommen Landsknechte" (_M. W. B._, supplement,
1880); _Kriegsbilder aus der Zeit der Landsknechte_ (Stuttgart, 1883);
C.H. Firth, _Cromwell's Army_ (London, 1902); Heilmann, _Das
Kriegswesen der Kaiserlichen und Schweden_ (Leipzig, 1850); C. Walton,
_History of the British Standing Army, 1660-1700_ (London, 1894); E.A.
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history of Prince Eugene's campaigns, &c.; de la Barre Duparcq, _Hist,
milit. de la Prusse avant 1756_ (Paris, 1857); Marsigli, _L'Etat
militaire de l'emp. ottoman_ (1732); Prussian Staff History of the
Silesian wars; C. von B(inder)-K(rieglstein), _Geist und Stoff im
Kriege_ (Vienna, 1895); E. d'Hauterive, _L'Armee sous la Revolution_
(Paris, 1894); C. Rousset, _Les Volontaires de 1791-1794_; Michelet,
_Les Soldats de la Revolution_ (Paris, 1878); publications of the
French general staff on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars; H.
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history, 1805-1870); Paimblant du Rouil, _La Division Durutte, les
Refractaires_, also supplement, _M.W.B._, 1890; "The French
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bis Jena und Auerstadt_ (a new edition of the original _Rossbach und
Jena_, Berlin, 1883); German General Staff Monograph, No. 10; _M.W.B._
supplements of 1845, 1846, 1847, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1862,
1865, 1866, 1867, 1887; v. Duncker, _Preussen wahrend der franz.
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1892 and 1896; histories of the wars of 1866 and 1870; V. Chareton,
_Comme la Prusse a prepare sa revanche, 1806-1813; Reports_ of Col.
Baron Stoffel, French attache at Berlin (translation into English, War
Office, London); Haxthausen, _Les Forces militaires de la Prusse_
(Paris, 1853); de la Barre Duparcq, _Etudes historiques generales et
militaires sur la Prusse_ (Paris, 1854); Paixhans, _Constitution
militaire de la France_ (Paris, 1849); Duc d'Aumale, _Les Institutions
militaires de la France_ (Paris, 1867); C. v. Decker, _Uber die
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_Army Book of the British Empire_ (London, 1893); M. Jahns, _Das
franzosische Heer von der grossen Revolution bis zur Gegenwart_
(Leipzig, 1873); Baron Kaulbars, _The German Army_ (in Russian) [St
Petersburg, 1890]; _Die Schweiz im 19. Jahrhundert_ (Berne and
Lausanne, 1899); Heimann, _L'Armee allemande_ (Paris, 1895); R. de
l'Homme de Courbiere, _Grundzuge der deutschen Militarverwaltung_
(Berlin, 1882); G.F.R. Henderson, _The Science of War_ (London, 1905);
J.W. Fortescue, _History of the British Army_ (London, 1899- ----); R.
de l'Homme de Courbiere, _Gesch. der brandenburg-preussisch.
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(Berlin, 1839); A. v. Boguslawksi, _Die Landwehr, 1813-1893_ (1893);
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Reitzenstein, _Die k. hannover. Kavallerie, 1631-1866_ (1892); Schlee,
_Zur Gesch. des hessischen Kriegswesens_ (Kassel, 1867); Leichtlen,
_Badens Kriegsverfassung_ (Carlsruhe, 1815); v. Stadlinger, _Gesch.
des wurttembergischen Kriegswesens_ (Stuttgart, 1858); Munich,
_Entwickelung der bayerischen Armee_ (Munich, 1864); official _Gesch.
d. k. bayer. Armee_ (Munich, 1901 onward); Wurdinger,
_Kriegsgeschichte v. Bayern_ (Munich, 1868); H. Meynert, _Gesch. des
osterr. Kriegswesens_ (Vienna, 1852), _Kriegswesen Ungarns_ (Vienna,
1876); Anger, _Gesch. der K.-K. Armee_ (Vienna, 1886); _Beitrage zur
Gesch. des osterr. Heerwesens, 1754-1814_ (Vienna, 1872); R. v.
Ottenfeld and Teuber, _Die osterr. Armee, 1700-1867_ (Vienna, 1895);
v. Wrede, _Gesch. d. K. u. K. Wehrmacht_ (Vienna, 1902); May de
Rainmoter, _Histoire militaire de la Suisse_ (Lausanne, 1788); Cusachs
y Barado, _La Vida Militar en Espana_ (Barcelona, 1888); Guillaume,
_Hist. de l'infanterie wallonne sous la maison d'Espagne_ (Brussels,
1876); A. Vitu, _Histoire civile de l'armee_ (Paris, 1868); A. Pascal,
_Hist. de l'armee_ (Paris, 1847); L. Jablonski, _L'Armee francaise a
travers les ages_; C. Romagny, _Hist. generale de l'armee nationale_
(Paris, 1893); E. Simond, _Hist. mil. de la France_; Susane, _Hist. de
l'infanterie, cavalerie, artillerie francaises_ (Paris, 1874); Pere
Daniel, _Hist. des milices francaises_ (1721); the official
_Historique des corps de troupe_ (Paris, 1900- ----); Cahu, _Le Soldat
francais_ (Paris, 1876); J. Molard, _Cent ans de l'armee francaise,
1780-1889_ (Paris, 1890); v. Stein, _Lehre vom Heerwesen_ (Stuttgart,
1872); du Verger de S. Thomas, _L'Italie et son armee_, 1865 (Paris,
1866); "C. Martel," _Military Italy_ (London, 1884); Sir R. Biddulph,
_Lord Cardwell at the War Office_ (London, 1904); Willoughby Verner,
_Military Life of the Duke of Cambridge_ (London, 1905); W.H. Daniel,
_The Military Forces of the Crown_ (London, 1902); War Office, _Annual
Report of the British Army_; Broome, _Rise and Progress of the Bengal
Army_ (Calcutta, 1850); W.J. Wilson, _Hist. of the Madras Army_
(London, 1882-1885); C.M. Clode, _Military Forces of the Crown_;
Blume, _Die Grundlage unserer Wehrkraft_ (Berlin, 1899); Spenser
Wilkinson, _The Brain of an Army_ (London, 1890 and 1895); v. Olberg,
_Die franzosische Armee im Exerzirplatz und im Felde_ (Berlin, 1861);
_Die Heere und Flotte der Gegenwart_, ed. Zepelin (Berlin, 1896);
Molard, _Puissances militaires de l'Europe_ (Paris, 1895); works of
Montecucculi, Puysegur, Vauban, Feuquieres, Guibert, Folard, Guichard,
Joly de Maizeroy, Frederick the Great, Marshal Saxe, the prince de
Ligne, Napoleon, Carnot, Scharnhorst, Clausewitz, Napoleon III.,
Moltke, Hamley, &c.
The principal general military periodicals are:--English, _Journal of
the R. United Service Institution_; United States, _Journal of the
Military Service Institution_; French, _Revue d'histoire_ and _Revue
des armees etrangeres_ (general staff); Rau and Lauth, _L'Etat
militaire des puissances_ (about every 4 years); _Revue militaire
generale_, founded in 1907 by General Langlois; _Almanach du drapeau_
(a popular _aide-memoire_ published annually); German, the
_Vierteljahrsheft_ of the general staff; _Militar-Wochenblatt_
(referred to above as _M.W.B._--the supplements are of great value);
von Lobell's _Jahresberichte_ (annual detailed reports on the state,
&c., of all armies--an English _precis_ appears annually in the
_Journal_ of the R.U.S. Institution); Austrian, _Streffleurs ost.
Militar-Zeitschrift_, with which was amalgamated (1907) the _Organ d.
militarwissenschaft. Vereins._ The British War Office issues from time
to time handbooks dealing with foreign armies, and, quarterly since
April 1907, a critical review and bibliography of recent military
literature in the principal languages, under the name of _Recent
Publications of Military Interest_. (C. F. A.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The phrase "K. und K." (_Kaiserlich und Koniglich_) is applied to
all services common to the Austrian and Hungarian armies. "K.-K."
(_Kaiserlich-Koniglich_) refers strictly only to the troops of
Austria, the Hungarian army being known as the "K. Ung." (Royal
Hungarian) service.
[2] From _Krumperpferde_ (cast horses attached to batteries, &c., for
odd jobs), applied to the recruits in jest.
ARNAL, ETIENNE (1794-1872), French actor, was born at Meulan,
Seine-et-Oise, on the 1st of February 1794. After serving in the army,
and working in a button factory, he took to the stage. His first
appearance (1815) was in tragedy, and for some time he was unsuccessful;
it was not until 1827 that he showed his real ability in comedy parts,
especially in plays by Felix August Duvert (1795-1876) and Augustin
Theodore Lauzanne (1805-1877), whose _Cabinets particuliers_ (1832), _Le
Mari de la dame de choeurs_ (1837), _Passe minuit, L'Homme blase_
(1843), _La Clef dans le dos_ (1848), &c., contained parts written for
him. He was twenty years at the Vaudeville, and completed at the various
Parisian theatres a stage career of nearly half a century. Arnal was the
author of _Epitre a bouffe_ (1840), which is reprinted in his volume of
poetry, _Boutades en vers_ (1861).
ARNALDUS DE VILLA NOVA, also called ARNALDUS DE VILLANUEVA, ARNALDUS
VILLANOVANUS or ARNAUD DE VILLENEUVE (c. 1235-1313), alchemist,
astrologer and physician, appears to have been of Spanish origin, and to
have studied chemistry, medicine, physics, and also Arabian philosophy.
After having lived at the court of Aragon, he went to Paris, where he
gained a considerable reputation; but he incurred the enmity of the
ecclesiastics and was forced to flee, finally finding an asylum in
Sicily. About 1313 he was summoned to Avignon by Pope Clement V., who
was ill, but he died on the voyage. Many alchemical writings, including
_Thesaurus Thesaurorum_ or _Rosarius Philosophorum, Novum Lumen, Flos
Florum_, and _Speculum Alchimiae_, are ascribed to him, but they are of
very doubtful authenticity. Collected editions of them were published at
Lyons in 1504 and 1532 (with a biography by Symphorianus Campegius), at
Basel in 1585, at Frankfort in 1603, and at Lyons in 1686. He is also
the reputed author of various medical works, including _Breviarium
Practicae_.
See J.B. Haureau in the _Histoire litteraire de la France_ (1881),
vol. 28; E. Lalande, _Arnaud de Villeneuve, sa vie et ses oeuvres_
(Paris, 1896). A list of writings is given by J. Ferguson in his
_Bibliotheca Chemica_ (1906). See also U. Chevalier, _Repertoire des
sources hist., &c., Bio-bibliographie_ (Paris, 1903).
ARNAUD, HENRI (1641-1721), pastor and general of the Vaudois or
Waldensians of Piedmont, was born at Embrun. About 1650 his family
returned to their native valley of Luserna, where Arnaud was educated at
La Tour (the chief village), later visiting the college at Basel (1662
and 1668) and the Academy at Geneva (1666). He then returned home, and
seems to have been pastor in several of the Vaudois valleys before
attaining that position at La Tour (1685). He was thus the natural
leader of his co-religionists after Victor Amadeus expelled them (1686)
from their valleys, and most probably visited Holland, the ruler of
which, William of Orange, certainly gave him help and money. Arnaud
occupied himself with organizing his 3000 countrymen who had taken
refuge in Switzerland, and who twice (1687-1688) attempted to regain
their homes. The English revolution of 1688, and the election of William
to the throne, encouraged the Vaudois to make yet another attempt.
Furnished with detailed instructions from the veteran Josue Janavel
(prevented by age from taking part in the expedition) Arnaud, with about
1000 followers, started (August 17, 1689) from near Nyon on the Lake of
Geneva for the _glorieuse rentree_. On the 27th of August, the valiant
band, after many hardships and dangers, reached the Valley of St
Martin, having passed by Sallanches and crossed the Col de Very (6506
ft.), the Enclave de la Fenetre (7425 ft.), the Col du Bonhomme (8147
ft.), the Col du Mont Iseran (9085 ft.), the Grand Mont Cenis (6893
ft.), the Petit Mont Cenis (7166 ft.), the Col de Clapier (8173 ft.),
the Col de Coteplane (7589 ft.), and the Col du Piz (8550 ft.). They
soon took refuge in the lofty and secure rocky citadel of the Balsille,
where they were besieged (October 24, 1689 to May 14, 1690) by the
troops (about 4000 in number) of the king of France and the duke of
Savoy. They maintained this natural fortress against many fierce attacks
and during the whole of a winter. In particular, on the 2nd of May, one
assault was defeated without the loss of a single man of Arnaud's small
band. But another attack (May 14) was not so successful, so that Arnaud
withdrew his force, under cover of a thick mist, and led them over the
hills to the valley of Angrogna, above La Tour. A month later the
Vaudois were received into favour by the duke of Savoy, who had then
abandoned his alliance with France for one with Great Britain and
Holland. Hence for the next six years the Vaudois helped Savoy against
France, though suffering much from the repeated attacks of the French
troops. But by a clause in the treaty of peace of 1696, made public in
1698, Victor Amadeus again became hostile to the Vaudois, about 3000 of
whom, with Arnaud, found a shelter in Protestant countries, mainly in
Wurttemberg, where Arnaud became the pastor of Durrmenz-Schonenberg,
N.W. of Stuttgart (1699). Once again (1704-1706) the Vaudois aided the
duke against France. Arnaud, however, took no part in the military
operations, though he visited England (1707) to obtain pecuniary aid
from Queen Anne. He died at Schonenberg (which was the church hamlet of
the parish of Durrmenz) in 1721. It was during his retirement that he
compiled from various documents by other hands his _Histoire de la
glorieuse rentree des Vaudois dans leurs vallees_, which was published
(probably at Cassel) in 1710, with a dedication to Queen Anne. It was
translated into English (1827) by H. Dyke Acland, and has also appeared
in German and Dutch versions. A part of the original MS. is preserved in
the Royal Library in Berlin.
See K.H. Klaiber, _Henri Arnaud, ein Lebensbild_ (Stuttgart, 1880); A.
de Rochas d'Aiglun, _Les Vallees vaudoises_ (Paris, 1881); various
chapters in the _Bulletin du bicentenaire de la glorieuse rentree_
(Turin, 1889). (W. A. B. C.)
ARNAULD, the surname of a family of prominent French lawyers, chiefly
remembered in connexion with the Jansenist troubles of the 17th century.
At their head was ANTOINE ARNAULD (1560-1619), a leader of the Paris
bar; in this capacity he delivered a famous philippic against the
Jesuits in 1594, accusing them of gross disloyalty to the newly
converted Henry IV. This speech was afterwards known as the original sin
of the Arnaulds.
Of his twenty children several grew up to fight the Jesuits on more
important matters. Five gave themselves up wholly to the church. HENRI
ARNAULD (1597-1692), the second son, became bishop of Angers in 1649,
and represented Jansenism on the episcopal Bench for as long as
forty-three years. The youngest son, ANTOINE (1612-1694), was the most
famous of Jansenist theologians (see below). The second daughter,
ANGELIQUE (1591-1661), was abbess and reformer of Port Royal; here she
was presently joined by her sister AGNES (1593-1671) and two younger
sisters, both of whom died early.
Only two of Antoine's children married--ROBERT ARNAULD D'ANDILLY
(1588-1674), the eldest son, and CATHERINE LEMAISTRE (1590-1651), the
eldest daughter. But both of these ended their lives under the shadow of
the abbey. Andilly's five daughters all took the veil there; the second,
ANGELIQUE DE ST JEAN ARNAULD D'ANDILLY (1624-1684) rose to be abbess,
was a writer of no mean repute, and one of the most remarkable figures
of the second generation of Jansenism. One of Andilly's sons became a
hermit at Port Royal; the eldest, ANTOINE (1615-1699), was first a
soldier, afterwards a priest. As the Abbe Arnauld, he survives as author
of some interesting _Memoirs_ of his time. The second son, SIMON ARNAULD
DE POMPONNE (1616-1699), early entered public life. After holding
various embassies, he rose to be foreign secretary to Louis XIV., and
was created marquis de Pomponne. Lastly Madame Lemaistre and two of her
sons became identified with Port Royal. On her husband's death she took
the veil there. Her eldest son, ANTOINE LEMAISTRE (1608-1658), became
the first of the _solitaires_, or hermits of Port Royal. There he was
joined by his younger brother, ISAAC LEMAISTRE DE SACI (1613-1684), who
presently took holy orders, and became confessor to the hermits.
The Arnaulds' connexion with Port Royal (q.v.)--a convent of Cistercian
nuns in the neighbourhood of Versailles--dated back to 1599, when the
original Antoine secured the abbess's chair for his daughter Angelique,
then a child of eight. About 1608 she started to reform her convent in
the direction of its original Rule; but about 1623 she made the
acquaintance of du Vergier (q.v.) and thenceforward began to move in a
Jansenist direction. Her later history is entirely bound up with the
fortunes of that revival. Angelique's strength lay chiefly in her
character. Her sister and collaborator, Agnes, was also a graceful
writer; and her _Letters_, edited by Prosper Feugere (2 vols., Paris,
1858), throw most valuable light on the inner aims and aspirations of
the Jansenist movement. The first relative to join their projects of
reform was their nephew, Antoine Lemaistre, who threw up brilliant
prospects at the bar to settle down at the Abbey gates (1638). Here he
was presently joined by his brother, de Saci, and other hermits, who led
an austere semi-monastic existence, though without taking any formal
vow. In 1646 they were joined by their uncle, Arnauld d'Andilly,
hitherto a personage of some importance at court and in the world; he
was a special favourite of the queen regent, Anne of Austria, and had
held various offices of dignity in the government. Uncle and nephews
passed their time partly in ascetic exercises--though Andilly never
pretended to vie in austerity with the younger men--partly in managing
the convent estates, and partly in translating religious classics.
Andilly put Josephus, St Augustine's _Confessions_, and many other
works, into singularly delicate French. Lemaistre attacked the lives of
the saints; in 1654 Saci set to work on a translation of the Bible. His
labours were interrupted by the outbreak of persecution. In 1661 he was
forced to go into hiding; in 1666 he was arrested, thrown into the
Bastille, and kept there more than two years. Meanwhile his friends
printed his translation of the New Testament--really in Holland,
nominally at Mons in the Spanish Netherlands (1667). Hence it is usually
known as the _Nouveau Testament de Mons_. It found enthusiastic friends
and violent detractors. Bossuet approved its orthodoxy, but not its
over-elaborate style; and it was destructively criticized by Richard
Simon, the founder of Biblical criticism in France. On the other hand it
undoubtedly did much to popularize the Bible, and was bitterly attacked
by the Jesuits on that ground.
Le grand Arnauld.
By far the most distinguished of the family, however, was Antoine--_le
grand_ Arnauld, as contemporaries called him--the twentieth and youngest
child of the original Antoine. Born in 1612, he was originally intended
for the bar; but decided instead to study theology at the Sorbonne. Here
he was brilliantly successful, and was on the high-road to preferment,
when he came under the influence of du Vergier, and was drawn in the
direction of Jansenism. His book, _De la frequente Communion_ (1643),
did more than anything else to make the aims and ideals of this movement
intelligible to the general public. Its appearance raised a violent
storm, and Arnauld eventually withdrew into hiding; for more than twenty
years he dared not make a public appearance in Paris. During all this
time his pen was busy with innumerable Jansenist pamphlets. In 1655 two
very outspoken _Lettres a un duc et pair_ on Jesuit methods in the
confessional brought on a motion to expel him from the Sorbonne. This
motion was the immediate cause of Pascal's _Provincial Letters_. Pascal,
however, failed to save his friend; in February 1656 Arnauld was
solemnly degraded. Twelve years later the tide of fortune turned. The
so-called peace of Clement IX. put an end to persecution. Arnauld
emerged from his retirement, was most graciously received by Louis XIV.,
and treated almost as a popular hero. He now set to work with Nicole
(q.v.) on a great work against the Calvinists: _La Perpetuite de la foi
catholique touchant l'eucharistie_. Ten years later, however, another
storm of persecution burst. Arnauld was compelled to fly from France,
and take refuge in the Netherlands, finally settling down at Brussels.
Here the last sixteen years of his life were spent in incessant
controversy with Jesuits, Calvinists and misbelievers of all kinds; here
he died on the 8th of August 1694. His inexhaustible energy is best
expressed by his famous reply to Nicole, who complained of feeling
tired. "Tired!" echoed Arnauld, "when you have all eternity to rest in?"
Nor was this energy by any means absorbed by purely theological
questions. He was one of the first to adopt the philosophy of Descartes,
though with certain orthodox reservations; and between 1683 and 1685 he
had a long battle with Malebranche on the relation of theology to
metaphysics. On the whole, public opinion leant to Arnauld's side. When
Malebranche complained that his adversary had misunderstood him, Boileau
silenced him with the question: "My dear sir, whom do you expect to
understand you, if M. Arnauld does not?" And popular regard for
Arnauld's penetration was much increased by his _Art de penser_,
commonly known as the _Port-Royal Logic_, which has kept its place as an
elementary text-book until quite modern times. Lastly a considerable
place has quite lately been claimed for Arnauld among the mathematicians
of his age; a recent critic even describes him as the Euclid of the 17th
century. In general, however, since his death his reputation has been
steadily on the wane. Contemporaries admired him chiefly as a master of
close and serried reasoning; herein Bossuet, the greatest theologian of
the age, was quite at one with d'Aguesseau, the greatest lawyer. But a
purely controversial writer is seldom attractive to posterity. Anxiety
to drive home every possible point, and cut his adversary off from every
possible line of retreat, makes him seem intolerably prolix. "In spite
of myself," Arnauld once said regretfully, "my books are seldom very
short." And even lucidity may prove a snare to those who trust to it
alone, and scornfully refuse to appeal to the imagination or the
feelings. It is to be feared that, but for his connexion with Pascal,
Arnauld's name would be almost forgotten--or, at most, live only in the
famous epitaph Boileau consecrated to his memory--
"Au pied de cet autel de structure grossiere
Git sans pompe, enferme dans une vile biere
Le plus savant mortel qui jamais ait ecrit."
Full details as to the lives and writings of the Arnaulds will be
found in the various books mentioned at the close of the article on
Port Royal. The most interesting account of Angelique will be found in
_Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de Port-Royal_ (3 vols., Utrecht
1742). Three volumes of her correspondence were also published at the
same time and place. There are excellent modern lives of her in
English by Miss Frances Martin (_Angelique Arnauld_, 1873) and by A.
K. H. (_Angelique of Port Royal_, 1905). Antoine Arnauld's complete
works--thirty-seven volumes in forty-two parts--were published in
Paris, 1775-1781. No modern biography of him exists; but there is a
study of his philosophy in Bouillier, _Histoire de la philosophie
cartesienne_ (Paris, 1868); and his mathematical achievements are
discussed by Dr Bopp in the 14th volume of the _Abhandlungen zur
Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften_ (Leipzig, 1902). The
memoirs of Arnauld d'Andilly and of his son, the abbe Arnauld, are
reprinted both in Petitot's and Poujoulat's collections of memoirs
illustrative of the 17th century. (St. C.)
ARNAULT, ANTOINE VINCENT (1766-1834), French dramatist, was born in
Paris in January 1766. His first play, _Marius a Minturnes_ (1791),
immediately established his reputation. A year later he followed up his
first success with a second republican tragedy, _Lucrece_. He left
France during the Terror and on his return was arrested by the
revolutionary authorities, but was liberated through the intervention of
Fabre d'Eglantine and others. He was commissioned by Bonaparte in 1797
with the reorganization of the Ionian Islands, and was nominated to the
Institute and made secretary general of the university. He was faithful
to his patron through his misfortunes, and after the Hundred Days
remained in exile until 1819. In 1829 he was re-elected to the Academy
and became perpetual secretary in 1833. Others of his plays are _Blanche
et Montcassin, ou les Venitiens_ (1798); and _Germanicus_ (1816), the
performance of which was the occasion of a disturbance in the _parterre_
which threatened serious political complications. His tragedies are
perhaps less known now than his _Fables_ (1813, 1815 and 1826), which
are written in very graceful verse. Arnault collaborated in a _Vie
politique et militaire de Napoleon_ (1822), and wrote some very
interesting _Souvenirs d'un sexagenaire_ (1833), which contain much
out-of-the-way information about the history of the years previous to
1804. Arnault died at Goderville on the 16th of September 1834.
His eldest son, Emilien Lucien (1787-1863), wrote several tragedies, the
leading roles in which were interpreted by Talma.
See Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. 7. Arnault's _Oeuvres
completes_ (4 vols.) were published at the Hague and Paris in
1818-1819 and again (8 vols.) at Paris in 1824.
ARNDT, ERNST MORITZ (1769-1860), German poet and patriot, was born on
the 26th of December 1769 at Schoritz in the island of Rugen, which at
that time belonged to Sweden. He was the son of a prosperous farmer, and
emancipated serf of the lord of the district, Count Putbus; his mother
came of well-to-do German yeoman stock. In 1787 the family removed into
the neighbourhood of Stralsund, where Arndt was enabled to attend the
academy. After an interval of private study he went in 1791 to the
university of Greifswald as a student of theology and history, and in
1793 removed to Jena, where he fell under the influence of Fichte. On
the completion of his university course he returned home, was for two
years a private tutor in the family of Ludwig Kosegarten (1758-1818),
pastor of Wittow and poet, and having qualified for the ministry as a
"candidate of theology," assisted in the church services. At the age of
twenty-eight he renounced the ministry, and for eighteen months he led a
wandering life, visiting Austria, Hungary, Italy, France and Belgium.
Returning homewards up the Rhine, he was moved by the sight of the
ruined castles along its banks to intense bitterness against France. The
impressions of this journey he later described in _Reisen durch einen
Theil Teutschlands, Ungarns, Italiens und Frankreichs in den Jahren 1798
und 1799_ (1802-1804). In 1800 he settled in Greifswald as
_privat-docent_ in history, and the same year published _Uber die
Freiheit der alien Republiken_. In 1803 appeared _Germanien und
Europa_," a fragmentary ebullition," as be himself called it, of his
views on the French aggression. This was followed by one of the most
remarkable of his books, _Versuch einer Geschichte der Leibeigenschaft
in Pommern und Rugen_ (Berlin, 1803), a history of serfdom in Pomerania
and Rugen, which was so convincing an indictment that King Gustavus
Adolphus IV. in 1806 abolished the evil. Arndt had meanwhile risen from
_privat-docent_ to extraordinary professor, and in 1806 was appointed to
the chair of history at the university. In this year he published the
first part of his _Geist der Zeit_, in which he flung down the gauntlet
to Napoleon and called on his countrymen to rise and shake off the
French yoke. So great was the excitement it produced that Arndt was
compelled to take refuge in Sweden to escape the vengeance of Napoleon.
Settling in Stockholm, he obtained government employment, but devoted
himself to the great cause which was nearest his heart, and in
pamphlets, poems and songs communicated his enthusiasm to his
countrymen. Schill's heroic death at Stralsund impelled him to return to
Germany and, under the disguise of "Almann, teacher of languages," he
reached Berlin in December 1809. In 1810 he returned to Greifswald, but
only for a few months. He again set out on his adventurous travels,
lived in close contact with the first men of his time, such as Blucher,
Gneisenau and Stein, and in 1812 was summoned by the last named to St
Petersburg to assist in the organization of the final struggle against
France. Meanwhile, pamphlet after pamphlet, full of bitter hatred of the
French oppressor, came from his pen, and his stirring patriotic songs,
such as _Was ist das deutsche Vaterland? Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen
liess_, and _Was blasen die Trompeten?_ were on all lips. When, after
the peace, the university of Bonn was founded in 1818, Arndt was
appointed to the chair of modern history. In this year appeared the
fourth part of his _Geist der Zeit_, in which he criticized the
reactionary policy of the German powers. The boldness of his demands for
reform offended the Prussian government, and in the summer of 1819 he
was arrested and his papers confiscated. Although speedily liberated, he
was in the following year, at the instance of the Central Commission of
Investigation at Mainz, established in accordance with the Carlsbad
Decrees, arraigned before a specially constituted tribunal. Although not
found guilty, he was forbidden to exercise the functions of his
professorship, but was allowed to retain the stipend. The next twenty
years he passed in retirement and literary activity. In 1840 he was
reinstated in his professorship, and in 1841 was chosen rector of the
university. The revolutionary outbreak of 1848 rekindled in the
venerable patriot his old hopes and energies, and he took his seat as
one of the deputies to the National Assembly at Frankfort. He formed one
of the deputation that offered the imperial crown to Frederick William
IV., and indignant at the king's refusal to accept it, he retired with
the majority of von Gagern's adherents from public life. He continued to
lecture and to write with freshness and vigour, and on his 90th birthday
received from all parts of Germany good wishes and tokens of affection.
He died at Bonn on the 29th of January 1860. Arndt was twice married,
first in 1800, his wife dying in the following year; a second time in
1817.
Arndt's untiring labour for his country rightly won for him the title
of "the most German of all Germans." His lyric poems are not, however,
all confined to politics. Many among the Gedichte (1803-1818; complete
edition, 1860) are religious pieces of great beauty. Among his other
works are _Reise durch Schweden_ (1797); _Nebenstunden, eine
Beschreibung und Geschichte der schottlandischen Inseln und der
Orkaden_ (1820); _Die Frage uber die Niederlande_ (1831);
_Erinnerungen aus dem ausseren Leben_ (an autobiography, and the most
valuable source of information for Arndt's life, 1840); _Rhein- und
Ahrwanderungen_ (1846), _Wanderungen und Wandlungen mit dem
Reichsfreiherrn von Stein_ (1858), and _Pro populo Germanico_ (1854),
which was originally intended to form the fifth part of the _Geist der
Zeit_. Arndt's _Werke_ have been edited by H. Rosch and H. Meisner in
8 vols. (not complete) (1892-1898). Biographies have been written by
E. Langenberg (1869) and Wilhelm Baur (5th ed., 1882); see also H.
Meisner and R. Geerds, _E.M. Arndt, ein Lebensbild in Briefen_ (1898),
and R. Thiele, _E.M. Arndt_ (1894). There are monuments to his memory
at Schoritz, his birthplace, and at Bonn, where he is buried.
ARNDT, JOHANN (1555-1621), German Lutheran theologian, was born at
Ballenstedt, in Anhalt, and studied in several universities. He was at
Helmstadt in 1576; at Wittenberg in 1577. At Wittenberg the
crypto-Calvinist controversy was then at its height, and he took the
side of Melanchthon and the crypto-Calvinists. He continued his studies
in Strassburg, under the professor of Hebrew, Johannes Pappus
(1549-1610), a zealous Lutheran, the crown of whose life's work was the
forcible suppression of Calvinistic preaching and worship in the city,
and who had great influence over him. In Basel, again, he studied
theology under Simon Sulzer (1508-1585), a broad-minded divine of
Lutheran sympathies, whose aim was to reconcile the churches of the
Helvetic and Wittenberg confessions. In 1581 he went back to
Ballenstedt, but was soon recalled to active life by his appointment to
the pastorate at Badeborn in 1583. After some time his Lutheran
tendencies exposed him to the anger of the authorities, who were of the
Reformed Church. Consequently, in 1590 he was deposed for refusing to
remove the pictures from his church and discontinue the use of exorcism
in baptism. He found an asylum in Quedlinburg (1590), and afterwards was
transferred to St Martin's church at Brunswick (1599). Arndt's fame
rests on his writings. These were mainly of a mystical and devotional
kind, and were inspired by St Bernard, J. Tauler and Thomas a Kempis.
His principal work, _Wahres Christentum_ (1606-1609), which has been
translated into most European languages, has served as the foundation of
many books of devotion, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Arndt here
dwells upon the mystical union between the believer and Christ, and
endeavours, by drawing attention to Christ's life _in_ His people, to
correct the purely forensic side of the Reformation theology, which paid
almost exclusive attention to Christ's death _for_ His people. Like
Luther, Arndt was very fond of the little anonymous book, _Deutsche
Theologie_. He published an edition of it and called attention to its
merits in a special preface. After _Wahres Christentum_, his best-known
work is _Paradiesgartlein aller christlichen Tugenden_, which was
published in 1612. Both these books have been translated into English;
_Paradiesgartlein_ with the title the _Garden of Paradise_. Several of
his sermons are published in R. Nesselmann's _Buch der Predigten_
(1858). Arndt has always been held in very high repute by the German
Pietists. The founder of Pietism, Philipp Jacob Spener, repeatedly
called attention to him and his writings, and even went so far as to
compare him with Plato (cf. Karl Scheele, _Plato und Johann Arndt, Ein
Vortrag, &c._, 1857).
A collected edition of his works was published in Leipzig and Gorlitz
in 1734. A valuable account of Arndt is to be found in C. Aschmann's
_Essai sur la vie, &c., de J. Arndt_. See further, Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_.
ARNE, THOMAS AUGUSTINE (1710-1778), English musical composer, was born
in London on the 12th of March 1710, his father being an upholsterer.
Intended for the legal profession, he was educated at Eton, and
afterwards apprenticed to an attorney for three years. His natural
inclination for music, however, proved irresistible, and his father,
finding from his performance at an amateur musical party that he was
already a skilful violinist, furnished him with the means of educating
himself in his favourite art. On the 7th of March 1733 he produced his
first work at Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre, a setting of Addison's
_Rosamond_, the heroine's part being performed by his sister, Susanna
Maria, who afterwards became celebrated as Mrs Gibber. This proving a
success was immediately followed by a burletta, entitled _The Opera of
Operas_, based on Fielding's _Tragedy of Tragedies_. The part of Tom
Thumb was played by Arne's young brother, and the opera was produced at
the Haymarket theatre. On the 19th of December 1733 Arne produced at the
same theatre the masque _Dido and Aeneas_, a subject of which the
musical conception had been immortalized for Englishmen more than half a
century earlier by Henry Purcell. Arne's individuality of style first
distinctly asserted itself in the music to Dr Dalton's adaptation of
Milton's _Comus_, which was performed at Drury Lane in 1738, and
speedily established his reputation. In 1740 he wrote the music for
Thomson and Mallet's _Masque of Alfred_, which is noteworthy as
containing the most popular of all his airs--"Rule, Britannia!" In 1740
he also wrote his beautiful settings of the songs, "Under the greenwood
tree," "Blow, blow, thou winter wind" and "When daisies pied," for a
performance of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_. Four years before this,
in 1736, he had married Cecilia, the eldest daughter of Charles Young,
organist of All Hallows Barking. She was considered the finest English
singer of the day and was frequently engaged by Handel in the
performance of his music. In 1742 Arne went with his wife to Dublin,
where he remained two years and produced his oratorio _Abel_, containing
the beautiful melody known as the Hymn of Eve, the operas _Britannia,
Eliza_ and _Comus_, and where he also gave a number of successful
concerts. On his return to London he was engaged as leader of the band
at Drury Lane theatre (1744), and as composer at Vauxhall (1745). In
this latter year he composed his successful pastoral dialogue, _Colin
and Phoebe_, and in 1746 the song, "Where the bee sucks." In 1759 he
received the degree of doctor of music from Oxford. In 1760 he
transferred his services to Covent Garden theatre, where on the 28th of
November he produced his _Thomas and Sally_. Here, too, on the 2nd of
February 1762 he produced his _Artaxerxes_, an opera in the Italian
style with recitative instead of spoken dialogue, the popularity of
which is attested by the fact that it continued to be performed at
intervals for upwards of eighty years. The libretto, by Arne himself,
was a very poor translation of Metastasio's _Artaserse_. In 1762 also
was produced the ballad-opera _Love in a Cottage_. His oratorio
_Judith_, of which the first performance was on the 27th of February
1761 at Drury Lane, was revived at the chapel of the Lock hospital,
Pimlico, on the 29th of February 1764, in which year was also performed
his setting of Metastasio's _Olimpiade_ in the original language at the
King's theatre in the Haymarket. At a later performance of _Judith_ at
Covent Garden theatre on the 26th of February 1773 Arne for the first
time introduced female voices into oratorio choruses. In 1769 he wrote
the musical parts for Garrick's ode for the Shakespeare jubilee at
Stratford-on-Avon, and in 1770 he gave a mutilated version of Purcell's
_King Arthur_. One of his last dramatic works was the music to Mason's
_Caractacus_, published in 1775. Though inferior to Purcell in intensity
of feeling, Arne has not been surpassed as a composer of graceful and
attractive melody. There is true genius in such airs as "Rule,
Britannia!" and "Where the bee sucks," which still retain their original
freshness and popularity. As a writer of glees he does not take such
high rank, though he deserves notice as the leader in the revival of
that peculiarly English form of composition. He was author as well as
composer of _The Guardian outwitted_, _The Rose_, _The Contest of Beauty
and Virtue_, and _Phoebe at Court_. Dr Arne died on the 5th of March
1778, and was buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden.
See also the article in _Grove's Dictionary_ (new ed.); and two
interesting papers in the _Musical Times_, November and December 1901.
ARNETH, ALFRED, RITTER VON (1819-1897), Austrian historian, born at
Vienna on the both of July 1819, was the son of Joseph Calasanza von
Arneth (1791-1863), a well-known historian and archaeologist, who wrote
a history of the Austrian empire (Vienna, 1827) and several works on
numismatics. Alfred Arneth studied law, and became an official of the
Austrian state archives, of which in 1868 he was appointed keeper. He
was a moderate liberal in politics and a supporter of the ideal of
German unity. As such he was elected to the Frankfort parliament in
1848. In 1861 he became a member of the Lower Austrian diet and in 1869
was nominated to the Upper House of the Austrian Reichsrath. In 1879 he
was appointed president of the _Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften_
(Academy of Sciences) at Vienna, and in 1896 succeeded von Sybel as
chairman of the historical commission at Munich. He died on the 30th of
July 1897.
Arneth was an indefatigable worker, and, as director of the archives,
his broad-minded willingness to listen to the advice of experts, as well
as his own sound sense, did much to promote the more scientific
treatment and use of public records in most of the archives of Europe.
His scientific temper and the special facilities which he enjoyed for
drawing from original sources give to his numerous historical works a
very special value.
Among his publications may be mentioned: _Leben des Feld-marschalls
Grafen Guido Starhemberg_ (Vienna, 1863); _Prinz Eueen von Savoyen_ (3
vols., _ib_. 1864); _Gesch. der Maria Theresa_ (10 vols., _ib_.
1863-1879); _Maria Theresa u. Marie Antoinette, ihr Briefwechsel_
(_ib_. 1866); _Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II., ihr
Briefwechsel_ (1866); _Maria Theresa und Joseph II., ihre
Korrespondenz samt Briefen Josephs an seinen Bruder Leopold_ (3 vols.,
1867); _Beaumarchais und Sonnenfels_ (1868); _Joseph II. und Katharina
von Russland, ihr Briefwechsel_ (1869); _Johann Christian Barthenstein
und seine Zeit_ (1871); _Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana, ihr
Briefwechsel_ (2 vols., 1872); _Briefe der Kaiserin Maria Theresa an
ihre Kinder und Freunde_ (4 vols., 1881); _Marie Antoinette:
Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et le comte de
Mercy-Argenteau_ (3 vols., Paris, 1875), in collaboration with Auguste
Geffroy; _Graf Philipp Cobenzl und seine Memoiren_ (1885);
_Correspondance secrete du comte de Mercy-Argenteau avec l'empereur
Joseph II. et Kaunitz_ (2 vols., 1889-1891), in collaboration with
Jules Flammermont; _Anton Ritter von Schmerling. Episoden aus seinem
Leben 1835, 1848-1849_ (1895); _Johann Freiherr von Wessenberg, ein
osterreichischer Staatsmann des 19. Jahrh._ (2 vols., 1898). Arneth
also published in 1893 two volumes of early reminiscences under the
title of _Aus meinem Leben_.
ARNHEM, or ARNHEIM, the capital of the province of Gelderland, Holland,
on the right bank of the Rhine (here crossed by a pontoon bridge), and a
junction station 35 m. by rail E.S.E. of Utrecht. Pop. (1900) 57,240. It
is connected by tramway with Zutphen and Utrecht, and there is a regular
service of steamers to Cologne, Amsterdam, Nijmwegen, Tiel, 's
Hertogenbosch and Rotterdam. Arnhem is a gay and fashionable town
prettily situated at the foot of the Veluwe hills, and enjoys a special
reputation for beauty on account of its wooded and hilly surroundings,
which have attracted many wealthy people to its neighbourhood. The
Groote Kerk of St Eusebius, built in the third quarter of the 15th
century, contains the marble monument to Charles (d. 1538), the last
duke of Gelderland of the Egmont dynasty. High up against the wall is an
effigy of the same duke in his armour. The fine lofty tower contains a
chime of forty-five bells. The Roman Catholic church of St Walburgis is
of earlier date, and a new Roman Catholic church dates from 1894. The
town hall was built as a palace by Maarten van Rossum, Duke Charles's
general, at the end of the 15th century, and was only converted to its
present use in 1830. Its grotesque external ornamentation earned for it
the name of Duivelshuis, or devil's house. The provincial government
house occupies the site of the former palace of the dukes of Gelderland.
Other buildings are the court-house, a public library containing many
old works, a theatre, a large concert-hall, a museum of antiquities (as
well as a separate collection of Spanish antiquities), a gymnasium, a
teachers' and art school, a building (1880) to contain the provincial
archives, a hospital (1889) and barracks. On account of its proximity to
the fertile Betuwe district and its situation near the confluence of the
Rhine and Ysel, the markets and shipping of Arnhem are in a flourishing
condition. A wharf for building and repairing iron steamers was
constructed in 1889. The manufactures include woollen and cotton goods,
paper, earthenware, soap, carriages, furniture and tobacco, which is
cultivated in the neighbourhood. Wool-combing and dyeing are also
carried on, and there are oil and timber mills.
The environs of Arnhem are much admired. Following either the Zutphen or
the Utrecht road, numerous pleasing views of the Rhine valley present
themselves, and country houses and villas appear among the woods on
every side. At Bronbeek, a short distance east of the town, is a
hospital endowed by King William III. for soldiers of the colonial army.
Beyond is the popular summer resort of Velp, with the castle of Biljoen
built by Charles, duke of Gelderland, in 1530, and the beautiful park of
the ancient castle of Rozendaal in the vicinity. The origin of the
castle of Rozendaal is unknown. The first account of it is in connexion
with a tournament given there by Reinald I., count of Gelderland, in the
beginning of the 14th century, and it ever after remained the favourite
residence of the counts and dukes of Gelderland. About the beginning of
the 18th century fountains and lanes in the style of those at Versailles
were laid out in the park, and soon after the castle itself, of which
only the round tower remained (and is still standing), was rebuilt. The
park is open to the public, and is famous for the beauty of the beech
avenues and fir woods. Beyond this is De Steeg, another popular resort,
whence stretches the famous Middachten Allee of beech trees to Dieren.
On the Apeldoorn road is Sonsbeek, with a wooded park and small lakes,
formerly a private seat and now belonging to the municipality. On the
west of Arnhem is another pleasure ground, called the Reeberg, with a
casino, and the woods of Heienoord. Close by is the ancient and
well-preserved castle of Doornwerth with its own chapel. It was the seat
of an independent lordship until 1402, after which time it was held in
fief from the dukes of Gelderland. Beyond Doornwerth, at Renkum, is the
royal country seat called Oranje-Nassau's Oord, which was bought by the
crown in 1881.
_History._--Arnhem, called _Arnoldi Villa_ in the middle ages, is,
according to some, the _Arenacum_ of the Romans, and is first mentioned
in a document in 893. In 1233 Otto II., count of Gelderland, chose this
spot as his residence, conferred municipal rights on the town, and
fortified it. At a later period it entered the Hanseatic League. In 1473
it was captured by Charles the Bold of Burgundy. In 1505 it received the
right of coining from Philip, son of the emperor Maximilian I. In 1514
Charles of Egmont, duke of Gelderland, took it from the Spaniards; but
in 1543 it fell to the emperor Charles V., who made it the seat of the
council of Gelderland. It joined the union of Utrecht in 1579, and came
finally under the effective government of the states-general in 1585,
all the later attacks of the Spaniards being repulsed. In 1586 Sir
Philip Sidney died in the town from the effects of his wound received
before Zutphen. The French took the town in 1672, but left it dismantled
in 1674. It was refortified by the celebrated Dutch general of
engineers, Coehoorn, in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1795 it
was again stormed by the French, and in 1813 it was taken from them by
the Prussians under Bullow. Gardens and promenades have now taken the
place of the old ramparts, the last of which was levelled in 1853.
ARNICA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Compositae, and
containing 18 species, mostly north-west American. The most important
species is _Arnicamontana_ (mountain tobacco), a perennial herb found in
upland meadows in northern and central Europe (but not extending to
Britain), and on the mountains of western and central Europe. A closely
allied species (_A. angustifolia_), with very narrow leaves, is met with
in Arctic Asia and America. The heads of flowers are large, 2 to 2-1/2
in. across, orange-yellow in colour, and borne on the summit of the stem
or branches; the outer ray-flowers are an inch in length. The achenes
(fruits) are brown and hairy, and are crowned by a tuft of stiffish
hairs (pappus). The root-stock of _A. montana_ is tough, slender, of a
dark brown colour and an inch or two in length. It gives off numerous
simple roots from its under side, and shows on its upper side the
remains of rosettes of leaves. It yields an essential oil in small
quantity, and a resinous matter called arnicin, C12H22O2, a yellow
crystalline substance with an acrid taste. The tincture prepared from it
is an old remedy which has a popular reputation in the treatment of
bruises and sprains. The plant was introduced into English gardens about
the middle of the 18th century, but is not often grown; it is a handsome
plant for a rockery.
ARNIM, ELISABETH (BETTINA) VON (1785-1859), German authoress, sister of
Klemens Brentano, was born at Frankfort-On-Main on the 4th of April
1785. After being educated at a convent school in Fritzlar, she lived
for a while with her grandmother, the novelist, Sophie Laroche
(1731-1807), at Offenbach, and from 1803 to 1806 with her
brother-in-law, Friedrich von Savigny, the famous jurist, at Marburg. In
1807 she made at Weimar the acquaintance of Goethe, for whom she
entertained a violent passion, which the poet, although entering into
correspondence with her, did not requite, but only regarded as a
harmless fancy. Their friendship came to an abrupt end in 1811, owing to
"Bettina's" insolent behaviour to Goethe's wife. In this year she
married Ludwig Achim von Arnim (q.v.), by whom she had seven children.
After her husband's death in 1831, her passion for Goethe revived, and
in 1835 she published her remarkable book, _Goethes Briefwechsel mit
einem Kinde_, which purported to be a correspondence between herself and
the poet. Regarded at first as genuine, it was afterwards for many years
looked upon as wholly fictitious, until the publication in 1879 of G.
von Loeper's _Briefe Goethes an Sophie Laroche und Bettina Brentano,
nebst dichterischen Beilagen_, which proved it to be based on authentic
material, though treated with the greatest poetical licence. Equally
fantastic is her correspondence _Die Gunderode_ (1840), with her unhappy
friend, the poet, Karoline von Gunderode (1780-1806), who committed
suicide, and that with her brother Klemens Brentano, under the title
_Klemens Brentanos Fruhlingskranz_ (1844). She also published _Dies Buck
gehort dem Konig_ (1843), in which she advocated the emancipation of the
Jews, and the abolition of capital punishment. Among her other works may
be mentioned _Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia_ (1848), also a
supposititious correspondence. In all her writings she showed real
poetical genius, combined with evidence of an unbalanced mind and a
mannerism which becomes tiresome. She died at Berlin on the 20th of
January 1859. Part of a design by her for a colossal statue of Goethe,
executed in marble by the sculptor Karl Steinhauser (1813-1878), is in
the museum at Weimar.
Her collected works (_Samtliche Schriften_) were published in Berlin
in 11 vols., 1853. Goethe's _Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde_ has been
edited by H. Grimm (4th ed., Berlin, 1890). See also C. Alberti, _B.
von Arnim_ (Leipzig, 1885); Moritz Carriere, _Bettina von Arnim_
(Breslau, 1887), and the literature cited under Ludwig von Arnim.
ARNIM, HARRY KARL KURT EDUARD VON, COUNT (1824-1881), German
diplomatist, was a member of one of the most numerous and most widely
spread families of the Prussian nobility. He was born in Pomerania on
the 3rd of October 1824, and brought up by his uncle Heinrich von Arnim,
who was Prussian ambassador at Paris and foreign minister from March to
June 1848, while Count Arnim-Boytzenburg, whose daughter Harry von Arnim
afterwards married, was minister-president. It is noticeable that the
uncle was brought before a court of justice and fined for publishing a
pamphlet directed against the ministry of Manteuffel. After holding
other posts in the diplomatic service Arnim was in 1864 appointed
Prussian envoy (and in 1867 envoy of the North German Confederation) at
the papal court. In 1869 he proposed that the governments should appoint
representatives to be present at the Vatican council, a suggestion which
was rejected by Bismarck, and foretold that the promulgation of papal
infallibility would bring serious political difficulties. After the
recall of the French troops from Rome he attempted unsuccessfully to
mediate between the pope and the Italian government. He was appointed in
1871 German commissioner to arrange the final treaty with France, a task
which he carried out with such success that in 1871 he was appointed
German envoy at Paris, and in 1872 received his definite appointment as
ambassador, a post of the greatest difficulty and responsibility.
Differences soon arose between him and Bismarck; he wished to support
the monarchical party which was trying to overthrow Thiers, while
Bismarck ordered him to stand aloof from all French parties; he did not
give that implicit obedience to his instructions which Bismarck
required. Bismarck, however, was unable to recall him because of the
great influence which he enjoyed at court and the confidence which the
emperor placed in him. He was looked upon by the Conservative party, who
were trying to overthrow Bismarck, as his successor, and it is said that
he was closely connected with the court intrigues against the
chancellor. In the beginning of 1874 he was recalled and appointed to
the embassy at Constantinople, but this appointment was immediately
revoked. A Vienna newspaper published some correspondence on the Vatican
council, including confidential despatches of Arnim's, with the object
of showing that he had shown greater foresight than Bismarck. It was
then found that a considerable number of papers were missing from the
Paris embassy, and on the 4th of October Arnim was arrested on the
charge of embezzling state papers. This recourse to the criminal law
against a man of his rank, who had held one of the most important
diplomatic posts, caused great astonishment. His defence was that the
papers were not official, and he was acquitted on the charge of
embezzlement, but convicted of undue delay in restoring official papers
and condemned to three months' imprisonment. On appeal the sentence was
increased to nine months. Arnim avoided imprisonment by leaving the
country, and in 1875 published anonymously at Zurich a pamphlet entitled
"Pro nihilo," in which he attempted to show that the attack on him was
caused by Bismarck's personal jealousy. For this he was accused of
treason, insult to the emperor, and libelling Bismarck, and in his
absence condemned to five years' penal servitude. From his exile in
Austria he published two more pamphlets on the ecclesiastical policy of
Prussia, "Der Nunzius kommt!" (Vienna, 1878), and "Quid faciamus nos?"
(_ib._ 1879). He made repeated attempts, which were supported by his
family, to be allowed to return to Germany in order to take his trial
afresh on the charge of treason; his request had just been granted when
he died on the 19th of May 1881.
In 1876 Bismarck carried an amendment to the criminal code making it an
offence punishable with imprisonment or a fine up to L250 for an
official of the foreign office to communicate to others official
documents, or for an envoy to act contrary to his instructions. These
clauses are commonly spoken of in Germany as the "Arnim paragraphs."
(J. W. He.)
ARNIM, LUDWIG ACHIM (JOACHIM) VON (1781-1831), German poet and novelist,
was born at Berlin on the 26th of January 1781. He studied natural
science at Halle and Gottingen, and published one or two essays on
scientific subjects; but his bent was from the first towards literature.
From the earlier writings of Goethe and Herder he learned to appreciate
the beauties of German traditional legends and folk-songs; and, forming
a collection of these, published the result (1806-1808), in
collaboration with Klemens Brentano (q.v.) under the title _Des Knaben
Wunderhorn._ From 1810 onward he lived with his wife Bettina, Brentano's
sister, alternately at Berlin and on his estate at Wiepersdorf, near
Dahme in Brandenburg, where he died on the 21st of January 1831. Arnim
was a prolific and versatile writer, gifted with a sense of humour and a
refined imagination--qualities shown in the best-known of his works,
_Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, deficient as this is in the philological
accuracy and faithfulness to original sources which would now be
expected of such a compilation. In general, however, his writings, full
as they are of the exaggerated sentiment and affectations of the
romantic school, make but little appeal to modern taste. There are
possible exceptions, such as the short stories _Furst Ganzgott und
Sanger Halbgott_ and _Der tolle Invalide auf dem Fort Ratonneau_ and the
unfinished romance _Die Kronenwachter_ (1817), which promised to develop
into one of the finest historical romances of the 19th century. Among
Arnim's other works may be mentioned _Hollins Liebesleben_ (1802), _Der
Wintergarten_ (1809), a collection of tales; _Armut, Reichtum Schuld,
und Busse der Grafin Dolores_ (1810), a novel; _Halle und Jerusalem_
(1811), a dramatic romance; and one or two smaller novels, such as
_Isabella von Agypten_ (1812).
Arnim's _Samtliche Werke_ were edited by his widow and published in
Berlin in 1839-1840; second edition in 22 vols., 1853-1856. Selections
have been edited by J. Dohmke (1892); M. Koch, _Arnim, Klemens und
Bettina Brentano, Gorres_ (1893). _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_ has been
frequently republished, the best edition being that of A. Birlinger
and W. Crecelius (2 vols., 1872-1876). See R. Steig, _Achim von Arnim
und Klemens Brentano_ (1894).
ARNIM-BOYTZENBURG, HANS GEORG VON (1581-1641), German general and
diplomatist, was born in 1581 at Boytzenburg in Brandenburg. From 1613
to 1617 he served in the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus, took part
in the Russian War, and afterwards fought against the Turks in the
service of the king of Poland. In 1626, though a Protestant, he was
induced by Wallenstein to join the new imperial army, in which he
quickly rose to the rank of field marshal, and won the esteem of his
soldiers as well as that of his commander, whose close friend and
faithful ally he became. This attachment to Wallenstein, and a spirit of
religious toleration, were the leading motives of a strange career of
military and political inconstancy. Thus the dismissal of Wallenstein
and the perilous condition of German Protestantism after the edict of
Restitution combined to induce Arnim to quit the imperial service for
that of the elector of Saxony. He had served under Gustavus many years
before, and later he had defeated him in the field, when in command of a
Polish army; the fortune of war now placed Arnim at the head of the
Saxon army which fought by the side of the Swedes at Breitenfeld (1631),
and indeed the alliance of these two Protestant powers in the cause of
their common religion was largely his work. The reappearances of
Wallenstein, however, caused him to hesitate and open negotiations,
though he did not attempt to conceal his proceedings from the elector
and Gustavus. During the Lutzen campaign, Arnim was operating with
success at the head of an allied army in Silesia. In the following year
he was under the hard necessity of opposing his old friend in the field,
but little was done by either; the complicated political situation which
followed the death of Gustavus at Lutzen led him into a renewal of the
private negotiations of the previous year, though he did nothing
actually treasonable in his relations with Wallenstein. In 1634
Wallenstein was assassinated, and Arnim began at once more active
operations. He won an important victory at Liegnitz in May 1634, but
from this time he became more and more estranged from the Swedes. The
peace of Prague followed, in which Arnim's part, though considerable,
was not all-important (1635). Soon after this event he refused an offer
of high command in the French army and retired from active life. From
1637 to 1638 he was imprisoned in Stockholm, having been seized at
Boytzenburg by the Swedes on suspicion of being concerned in various
intrigues. He made his escape ultimately, and returned to Saxony. Arnim
died suddenly at Dresden in 1641, whilst engaged in raising an army to
free German soil from foreign armies of all kinds. (See THIRTY YEARS'
WAR.)
See K.G. Helbig, "Wallenstein und Arnim" (1850) and "Der Prager
Friede," in Raumer's _Historisches Taschenbuch_ (1858); also E.D.M.
Kirchner, _Das Schloss Boytzenburg, &c._ (1860) and _Archiv fur die
sachsische Geschichte_, vol. viii. (1870).
ARNO, ARN or AQUILA (c. 750-821), bishop and afterwards archbishop of
Salzburg, entered the church at an early age, and after passing some
time at Freising became abbot of Elnon, or St Amand as it was afterwards
called, where he made the acquaintance of Alcuin. In 785 he was made
bishop of Salzburg and in 787 was employed by Tassilo III., duke of the
Bavarians, as an envoy to Charlemagne at Rome. He appears to have
attracted the notice of the Frankish king, through whose influence in
798 Salzburg was made the seat of an archbishopric; and Arno, as the
first holder of this office, became metropolitan of Bavaria and received
the pallium from Pope Leo III. The area of his authority was extended to
the east by the conquests of Charlemagne over the Avars, and he began to
take a prominent part in the government of Bavaria. He acted as one of
the _missi dominici_, and spent some time at the court of Charlemagne,
where he was known by the assembled scholars as Aquila, and his name
appears as one of the signatories to the emperor's will. He established
a library at Salzburg, furthered in other ways the interests of
learning, and presided over several synods called to improve the
condition of the church in Bavaria. Soon after the death of Charlemagne
in 814, Arno appears to have withdrawn from active life, although he
retained his archbishopric until his death on the 24th of January 821.
Aided by a deacon named Benedict, Arno drew up about 788 a catalogue of
lands and proprietary rights belonging to the church in Bavaria, under
the title of _Indiculus_ or _Congestum Arnonis_. An edition of this
work, which is of considerable value to historical students, was
published at Munich in 1869 with notes by F. Keinz. Many other works
were produced under the protection of Arno, among them a Salzburg
consuetudinary, an edition of which appears in _Quellen und Erorterungen
zur bayrischen und deutschen Geschichte_, Band vii., edited by L.
Rockinger (Munich, 1856). It has been suggested by W. von Giesebrecht
that Arno was the author of an early section of _Annales Laurissenses
majores_, which deals with the history of the Frankish kings from 741 to
829, and of which an edition appears in _Monumenta Germaniae historica.
Scriptores_, Band i. pp. 128-131, edited by G.H. Pertz (Hanover, 1826).
If this supposition be correct, Arno was the first extant writer to
apply the name _Deutsch_ (_theodisca_) to the German language.
ARNO (anc. _Arnus_), a river of Italy which rises from the Monte
Falterona, about 25 m. E.N.E. of Florence, 4265 ft. above the sea. It
first runs S.S.E. through a beautiful valley, the Casentino; near Arezzo
it turns W., and at Montevarchi N.N.W.; 10 m. below it forces its way
through the limestone rock at Incisa and 10 m. farther on, at
Pontassieve, it is joined by the Sieve. Thence it runs westward to
Florence and through the gorge of Golfolina onwards to Empoli and Pisa,
receiving various tributaries in its course, and falls into the sea
7-1/2 m. west of Pisa, after a total course of 155 m. In prehistoric
times the river ran straight on along the valley of the Chiana and
joined the Tiber near Orvieto; and there was a great lake, the north end
of which was at Incisa and the south at the lake of Chiusi. The distance
from Pisa to the mouth in the time of Strabo was only 2-1/2 m. The
Serchio (anc. _Auser_), which joined the Arno at Pisa in ancient times,
now flows into the sea independently. The Arno is navigable for barges
as far as Florence; but it is liable to sudden floods, and brings down
with it large quantities of earth and stones, so that it requires
careful regulation. The most remarkable inundations were those of 1537
and 1740; in the former year the water rose to 8 ft. in the streets of
Florence. The valley between Incisa and Arezzo contains accumulations of
fossil bones of the deer, elephant, rhinoceros, mastodon, hippopotamus,
bear, tiger, &c.
ARNOBIUS (called _Afer_, and sometimes "the Elder"), early Christian
writer, was a teacher of rhetoric at Sicca Venerea in proconsular Africa
during the reign of Diocletian. His conversion to Christianity is said
by Jerome to have been occasioned by a dream; and the same writer adds
that the bishop to whom Arnobius applied distrusted his professions, and
asked some proof of them, and that the treatise _Adversus Gentes_ was
composed for this purpose. But this story seems rather improbable; for
Arnobius speaks contemptuously of dreams, and besides, his work bears no
traces of having been written in a short time, or of having been revised
by a Christian bishop. From internal evidence (bk. iv. 36) the time of
composition may be fixed at about A.D. 303. Nothing further is known of
the life of Arnobius. He is said to have been the author of a work on
rhetoric, which, however, has not been preserved. His great treatise, in
seven books, _Adversus Gentes_ (or _Nationes_), on account of which he
takes rank as a Christian apologist, appears to have been occasioned by
a desire to answer the complaint then brought against the Christians,
that the prevalent calamities and disasters were due to their impiety
and had come upon men since the establishment of their religion. In the
first book Arnobius carefully discusses this complaint; he shows that
the allegation of greater calamities having come upon men since the
Christian era is false; and that, even if it were true, it could by no
means be attributed to the Christians. He skilfully contends that
Christians who worship the self-existent God cannot justly be called
less religious than those who worship subordinate deities, and concludes
by vindicating the Godhead of Christ. In the second book Arnobius
digresses into a long discussion on the soul, which he does not think is
of divine origin, and which he scarcely believes to be immortal. He even
says that a belief in the soul's immortality would tend to remove moral
restraint, and have a prejudicial effect on human life. In the
concluding chapters he answers the objections drawn from the recent
origin of Christianity. Books iii., iv. and v. contain a violent attack
on the heathen mythology, in which he narrates with powerful sarcasm the
scandalous chronicles of the gods, and contrasts with their grossness
and immorality the pure and holy worship of the Christian. These books
are valuable as a repertory of mythological stories. Books vi. and vii.
ably handle the questions of sacrifices and worship of images. The
confusion of the final chapter points to some interruption. The work of
Arnobius appears to have been written when he was a recent convert, for
he does not possess a very extensive knowledge of Scripture. He knows
nothing of the Old Testament, and only the life of Christ in the New,
while he does not quote directly from the Gospels. He is also at fault
in regard to the Jewish sects. He was much influenced by Lucretius and
had read Plato. His statements concerning Greek and Roman mythology are
based respectively on the _Protrepticus_ of Clement of Alexandria, and
on Antistius Labeo, who belonged to the preceding generation and
attempted to restore Neoplatonism. There are some pleasing passages in
Arnobius, but on the whole he is a tumid and a tedious author.
EDITIONS.--Migne, _Patr. Lat._ iv. 349; A. Reifferscheich in the
_Vienna Corpus Script. Eccles. Lat._ (1875).
TRANSLATIONS.--A.H. Bryce and H. Campbell in _Ante-Nicene Fathers_,
vi.
LITERATURE.--H.C.G. Moule in _Dict. Chr. Biog._ i.; Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_; and G. Kruger, _Early Chr. Lit._ p. 304 (where
full bibliographies are given).
ARNOBIUS ("the younger"), Christian priest or bishop in Gaul, flourished
about 460. He is the author of a mystical and allegorical commentary on
the Psalms, first published by Erasmus in 1522, and by him attributed to
the elder Arnobius. It has been frequently reprinted, and in the edition
of De la Barre, 1580, is accompanied by some notes on the Gospels by the
same author. To him has sometimes been ascribed the anonymous treatise,
_Arnobii catholici et Serapionis conflictus de Deo trino et uno ... de
gratiae liberi arbitrii concordia_, which was probably written by a
follower of Augustine. The opinions of Arnobius, as appears from the
commentary, are semi-Pelagian.
ARNOLD, known as "ARNOLD OF BRESCIA" (d. 1155), one of the most ardent
adversaries of the temporal power of the popes. He belonged to a family
of importance, if not noble, and was born probably at Brescia, in Italy,
towards the end of the 11th century. He distinguished himself in his
monastic studies, and went to France about 1115. He studied theology in
Paris, but there is no proof that he was a pupil of Abelard. Returning
to Italy he became a canon regular. His life was rigidly austere, St
Bernard calling him "homo neque manducans neque bibens." He at once
directed his efforts against the corruption of the clergy, and
especially against the temporal ambitions of the high dignitaries of the
church. During the schism of Anacletus (1131-1137) the town of Brescia
was torn by the struggles between the partisans of Pope Innocent II. and
the adherents of the anti-pope, and Arnold gave effect to his abhorrence
of the political episcopate by inciting the people to rise against their
bishop, and, exiled by Innocent II., went to France. St Bernard accused
him of sharing the doctrines of Abelard (see _Ep._ 189, 195), and
procured his condemnation by the council of Sens (1140) at the same time
as that of the great scholastic. This was perhaps no more than the
outcome of the fierce polemical spirit of the abbot of Clairvaux, which
led him to include all his adversaries under a single anathema. It seems
certain that Arnold professed moral theology in Paris, and several times
reprimanded St Bernard, whom he accused of pride and jealousy. St
Bernard, as a last resort, begged King Louis VII. to take severe
measures against Arnold, who had to leave France and take refuge at
Zurich. There he soon became popular, especially with the lay nobility;
but, denounced anew by St Bernard to the ecclesiastical authorities, he
returned to Italy, and turned his steps towards Rome (1145). It was two
years since, in 1143, the Romans had rejected the temporal power of the
pope. The urban nobles had set up a republic, which, under forms
ostensibly modelled on antiquity (e.g. patriciate, _senatus populusque
romanus_, &c.), concealed but clumsily a purely oligarchical government.
Pope Eugenius III. and his adherents had been forced after a feeble
resistance to resign themselves to exile at Viterbo. Arnold, after
returning to Rome, immediately began a campaign of virulent denunciation
against the Roman clergy, and, in particular, against the Curia, which
he stigmatized as a "house of merchandise and den of thieves." His
enemies have attributed to him certain doctrinal heresies, but their
accusations do not bear examination. According to Otto of Freising
(_Lib. de gestis Friderici_, bk. ii. chap. xx.) the whole of his
teaching, outside the preaching of penitence, was summed up in these
maxims:--"Clerks who have estates, bishops who hold fiefs, monks who
possess property, cannot be saved." His eloquence gained him a hearing
and a numerous following, including many laymen, but consisting
principally of poor ecclesiastics, who formed around him a party
characterized by a rigid morality and not unlike the Lombard Patarenes
of the 11th century. But his purely political action was very
restricted, and not to be compared with that of a Rienzi or a
Savonarola. The Roman revolution availed itself of Arnold's popularity,
and of his theories, but was carried out without his aid. His name was
associated with this political reform solely because his was the only
vigorous personality which stood out from the mass of rebels, and
because he was the principal victim of the repression that ensued. On
the 15th of July 1148 Eugenius III. anathematized Arnold and his
adherents; but when, a short time afterwards, the pope, through the
support of the king of Naples and the king of France, succeeded in
entering Rome, Arnold remained in the town unmolested, under the
protection of the senate. But in 1152 the German king Conrad III., whom
the papal party and the Roman republic had in vain begged to intervene,
was succeeded by Frederick I. Barbarossa. Frederick, whose authoritative
temper was at once offended by the independent tone of the Arnoldist
party, concluded with the pope a treaty of alliance (October 16, 1152)
of such a nature that the Arnoldists were at once put in a minority in
the Roman government; and when the second successor of Eugenius III.,
the energetic and austere Adrian IV. (the Englishman, Nicholas
Breakspear), placed Rome under an interdict, the senate, already rudely
shaken, submitted, and Arnold was forced to fly into Campania (1155). At
the request of the pope he was seized by order of the emperor Frederick,
then in Italy, and delivered to the prefect of Rome, by whom he was
condemned to death. In June 1155 Arnold was hanged, his body burnt, and
the ashes were thrown into the Tiber. His death produced but a feeble
sensation in Rome, which was already pacified, and passed almost
unnoticed in Italy. The adherents of Arnold do not appear actually to
have formed, either before or after his death, a heretical sect. It is
probable that his adherents became merged in the communities of the
Lombard Waldenses, who shared their ideas on the corruption of the
clergy. Legend, poetry, drama and politics have from time to time been
much occupied with the personality of Arnold of Brescia, and not seldom
have distorted it, through the desire to see in him a hero of Italian
independence and a modern democrat. He was before everything an ascetic,
who denied to the church the right of holding property, and who occupied
himself only as an accessory with the political and social consequences
of his religious principles.
The bibliography of Arnold of Brescia is very vast and of very unequal
value. The following works will be found useful: W. von Giesebrecht,
_Arnold van Brescia_ (Munich, 1873); G. Gaggia, _Arnaldo da Brescia_
(Brescia, 1882); and notices by Vacandard in the _Revue des questions
historiques_ (Paris, 1884), pp. 52-114, by R. Breyer in the _Histor.
Taschenbuch_ (Leipzig, 1889), vol. viii. pp. 123-178, and by A.
Hausrath in _Neue Heidelberg. Jahrb._ (1891), Band i. pp. 72-144.
(P. A.)
ARNOLD, BENEDICT (1741-1801), American soldier, born in Norwich,
Connecticut, on the 14th of January 1741. He was the great-grandson of
Benedict Arnold (1615-1678), thrice colonial governor of Rhode Island
between 1663 and 1678; and was the fourth in direct descent to bear the
name. He received a fair education but was not studious, and his youth
was marked by the same waywardness which characterized his whole career.
At fifteen he ran away from home and took part in an expedition against
the French, but, restless under restraint, he soon deserted and returned
home. In 1762 he settled in New Haven, where he became the proprietor of
a drug and book shop; and he subsequently engaged successfully in trade
with the West Indies. Immediately after the battle of Lexington Arnold
led the local militia company, of which he was captain, and additional
volunteers to Cambridge, and on the 29th of April 1775 he proposed to
the Massachusetts Committee of Safety an expedition against Crown Point
and Ticonderoga. After a delay of four days the offer was accepted, and
as a colonel of Massachusetts militia he was directed to enlist in the
west part of Massachusetts and in the neighbouring colonies the men
necessary for the undertaking. He was forestalled, however, by Ethan
Allen (q.v.), acting on behalf of some members of the Connecticut
Assembly. Under him, reluctantly waiving his own claim to command,
Arnold served as a volunteer; and soon afterwards, Massachusetts having
yielded to Connecticut, and having angered Arnold by sending a committee
to make an inquiry into his conduct, he resigned and returned to
Cambridge. He was then ordered to co-operate with General Richard
Montgomery in the invasion of Canada, which he had been one of the first
to suggest to the Continental Congress. Starting with 1100 men from
Cambridge on the 17th of September 1775, he reached Gardiner, Maine, on
the 20th, advanced through the Maine woods, and after suffering terrible
privations and hardships, his little force, depleted by death and
desertion, reached Quebec on the 13th of November. The garrison had been
forewarned, and Arnold was compelled to await the coming of Montgomery
from Montreal. The combined attack on the 31st of December 1775 failed;
Montgomery was killed, and Arnold was severely wounded. Arnold, who had
been commissioned a brigadier-general in January 1776, remained in
Canada until the following June, being after April in command at
Montreal.
Some time after the retreat from Canada, charges of misconduct and
dishonesty, growing chiefly out of his seizure from merchants in
Montreal of goods for the use of his troops, were brought against him;
these charges were tardily investigated by the Board of War, which in a
report made on the 23rd of May 1777, and confirmed by Congress, declared
that his "character and conduct" had been "cruelly and groundlessly
aspersed." Having constructed a flotilla on Lake Champlain, Arnold
engaged a greatly superior British fleet near Valcour Island (October
11, 1776), and after inflicting severe loss on the enemy, made his
escape under cover of night. Two days later he was overtaken by the
British fleet, which however he, with only one war-vessel, and that
crippled, delayed long enough to enable his other vessels to make good
their escape, fighting with desperate valour and finally running his own
ship aground and escaping to Crown Point. The engagement of the 11th was
the first between British and American fleets. Arnold's brilliant
exploits had drawn attention to him as one of the most promising of the
Continental officers, and had won for him the friendship of Washington.
Nevertheless, when in February 1777 Congress created five new
major-generals, Arnold, although the ranking brigadier, was passed over,
partly at least for sectional reasons--Connecticut had already two
major-generals--in favour of his juniors. At this time it was only
Washington's urgent persuasion that prevented Arnold from leaving the
service. Two months later while he was at New Haven, Governor Tryon's
descent on Danbury took place; and Arnold, who took command of the
militia after the death of General Wooster, attacked the British with
such vigour at Ridgefield (April 27, 1777) that they escaped to their
ships with difficulty.
In recognition of this service Arnold was now commissioned major-general
(his commission dating from 17th February) but without his former
relative rank. After serving in New Jersey with Washington, he joined
General Philip Schuyler in the Northern Department, and in August 1777
proceeded up the Mohawk Valley against Colonel St Leger, and raised the
siege of Fort Stanwix (or Schuyler). Subsequently, after Gates had
superseded Schuyler (August 19), Arnold commanded the American left wing
in the first battle of Saratoga (September 19, 1777). His ill-treatment
at the hands of General Gates, whose jealousy had been aroused, led to a
quarrel which terminated in Arnold being relieved of command. He
remained with the army, however, at the urgent request of his brother
officers, and although nominally without command served brilliantly in
the second battle of Saratoga (October 7, 1777), during which he was
seriously wounded. For his services he was thanked by Congress, and
received a new commission giving him at last his proper relative rank.
In June 1778 Washington placed him in command of Philadelphia. Here he
soon came into conflict with the state authorities, jealous of any
outside control. In the social life of Philadelphia, largely dominated
by families of Loyalist sympathies, Arnold was the most conspicuous
figure; he lived extravagantly, entertained lavishly, and in April 1779
took for his second wife, Margaret Shippen (1760-1804), the daughter of
Edward Shippen (1729-1806), a moderate Loyalist, who eventually became
reconciled to the new order and was in 1799-1805 chief-justice of the
state. Early in February 1779 the executive council of Pennsylvania,
presided over by Joseph Reed, one of his most persistent enemies,
presented to Congress eight charges of misconduct against Arnold, none
of which was of any great importance. Arnold at once demanded an
investigation, and in March a committee of Congress made a report
exonerating him; but Reed obtained a reconsideration, and in April 1779
Congress, though throwing out four charges, referred the other four to a
court-martial. Despite Arnold's demand for a speedy trial, it was
December before the court was convened. It was probably during this
period of vexatious delay that Arnold, always sensitive and now incited
by a keen sense of injustice, entered into a secret correspondence with
Sir Henry Clinton with a view to joining the British service. On the
26th of January 1780 the court, before which Arnold had ably argued his
own case, rendered its verdict, practically acquitting him of all
intentional wrong, but, apparently in deference to the Pennsylvania
authorities, directing Washington to reprimand him for two trivial and
very venial offences. Arnold, who had confidently expected absolute
acquittal, was inflamed with a burning anger that even Washington's
kindly reprimand, couched almost in words of praise, could not subdue.
It was now apparently that he first conceived the plan of betraying some
important post to the British. With this in view he sought and obtained
from Washington (August 1780) command of West Point, the key to the
Hudson River Valley. Arnold's offers now became more explicit, and, in
order to perfect the details of the plot, Clinton's adjutant-general,
Major John Andre, met him near Stony Point on the night of the 21st of
September. On the 23rd, while returning by land, Andre with
incriminating papers was captured, and the officer to whom he was
entrusted unsuspectingly sent information of his capture to Arnold, who
was thus enabled to escape to the British lines. Arnold, commissioned a
brigadier-general in the British army, received L6315 in compensation
for his property losses, and was employed in leading an expedition into
Virginia which burned Richmond, and in an attack upon New London (q.v.)
in September 1781. In December 1781 he removed to London and was
consulted on American affairs by the king and ministry, but could obtain
no further employment in the active service. Disappointed at the failure
of his plans and embittered by the neglect and scorn which he met in
England, he spent the years 1787-1791 at St John, New Brunswick, once
more engaging in the West India trade, but in 1791 he returned to
London, and after war had broken out between Great Britain and France,
was active in fitting out privateers. Gradually sinking into
melancholia, worn down by depression, and suffering from a nervous
disease, he died at London on the 14th of June 1801.
Arnold had three sons--Benedict, Richard and Henry--by his first wife,
and four sons--Edward Shippen, James Robertson, George and William
Fitch--by his second wife; five of them, and one grandson, served in the
British army. Benedict (1768-1795) was an officer of the artillery and
was mortally wounded in the West Indies. Edward Shippen (1780-1813)
became lieutenant of the Sixth Bengal Cavalry and later paymaster at
Muttra, India. James Robertson (1781-1854) entered the corps of Royal
Engineers in 1798, served in the Napoleonic wars, in Egypt and in the
West Indies, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, was an
aide-de-camp to William IV., and was created a knight of the Hanoverian
Guelphic order and a knight of the Crescent. George (1787-1828) was a
lieutenant-colonel in the Second Bengal Cavalry at the time of his
death. William Fitch (1794-1828) became a captain in the Nineteenth
Royal Lancers; his son, William Trail (1826-1855) served in the Crimean
War as captain of the Fourth Regiment of Foot and was killed during the
siege of Sevastopol.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Jared Sparks' _Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold_
(Boston, 1835), in his "Library of American Biography," is biassed and
unfair. The best general account is Isaac Newton Arnold's _Life of
Benedict Arnold_ (Chicago, 1880), which, while offering no apologies
or defence of his treason, lays perhaps too great emphasis on his
provocations. Charles Burr Todd's _The Real Benedict Arnold_ (New
York, 1903) is a curious attempt to make Arnold's wife wholly
responsible for his defection. Francois de Barbe-Marbois's _Complot
d'Arnold et de Sir H. Clinton contre les Etats-Unis_ (Paris, 1816)
contains much interesting material, but is inaccurate. Two good
accounts of the Canadian Expedition are Justin H. Smith's _Arnold's
March from Cambridge to Quebec_ (New York, 1903), which contains a
reprint of Arnold's journal of the expedition; and John Codman's
_Arnold's Expedition to Quebec_ (New York, 1901). Arnold's _Letters on
the Expedition to Canada_ were printed in the Maine Historical
Society's _Collections_ for 1831 (repr. 1865). See also William
Abbatt, _The Crisis of the Revolution_ (New York, 1899); _The Northern
Invasion of 1780_ (Bradford Club Series, No. 6, New York, 1866); "The
Treason of Benedict Arnold" (letters of Sir Henry Clinton to Lord
George Germaine) in _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_,
vol. xxii. (Philadelphia, 1898); and _Proceedings of a General Court
Martial for the Trial of Major-General Arnold_ (Philadelphia, 1780;
reprinted with introduction and notes, New York, 1865).
ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN (1832-1904), British poet and journalist, was born on
the 10th of June 1832, and was educated at the King's school, Rochester;
King's College, London; and University College, Oxford, where in 1852 he
gained the Newdigate prize for a poem on Belshazzar's feast. On leaving
Oxford he became a schoolmaster, and went to India as principal of the
government Sanskrit College at Poona, a post which he held during the
mutiny of 1857, when he was able to render services for which he was
publicly thanked by Lord Elphinstone in the Bombay council. Returning to
England in 1861 he worked as a journalist on the staff of the _Daily
Telegraph_, a newspaper with which he continued to be associated for
more than forty years. It was he who, on behalf of the proprietors of
the _Daily Telegraph_ in conjunction with the _New York Herald_,
arranged for the journey of H.M. Stanley to Africa to discover the
course of the Congo, and Stanley named after him a mountain to the
north-east of Albert Edward Nyanza. Arnold must also be credited with
the first idea of a great trunk line traversing the entire African
continent, for in 1874 he first employed the phrase "a Cape to Cairo
railway" subsequently popularized by Cecil Rhodes. It was, however, as a
poet that he was best known to his contemporaries. _The Light of Asia_
appeared in 1879 and won an immediate success, going through numerous
editions both in England and America. It is an Indian epic, dealing with
the life and teaching of Buddha, which are expounded with much wealth of
local colour and not a little felicity of versification. The poem
contains many lines of unquestionable beauty; and its immediate
popularity was rather increased than diminished by the twofold criticism
to which it was subjected. On the one hand it was held by Oriental
scholars to give a false impression of Buddhist doctrine; while, on the
other, the suggested analogy between Sakyamuni and Christ offended the
taste of some devout Christians. The latter criticism probably suggested
to Arnold the idea of attempting a second narrative poem of which the
central figure should be the founder of Christianity, as the founder of
Buddhism had been that of the first. But though _The Light of the World_
(1891), in which this idea took shape, had considerable poetic merit, it
lacked the novelty of theme and setting which had given the earlier poem
much of its attractiveness; and it failed to repeat the success attained
by _The Light of Asia_. Arnold's other principal volumes of poetry were
_Indian Song of Songs_ (1875), _Pearls of the Faith_ (1883), _The Song
Celestial_ (1885), _With Sadi in the Garden_ (1888), _Potiphar's Wife_
(1892) and _Adzuma_ (1893). In his later years Arnold resided for some
time in Japan, and his third wife was a Japanese lady. In _Seas and
Lands_ (1891) and _Japonica_ (1892) he gives an interesting study of
Japanese life. He received the order of C.S.I. on the occasion of the
proclamation of Queen Victoria as empress of India in 1877, and in 1888
was created K.C.I.E. He also possessed decorations conferred by the
rulers of Japan, Persia, Turkey and Siam. Sir Edwin Arnold died on the
24th of March 1904.
ARNOLD, GOTTFRIED (1666-1714), German Protestant divine, was born at
Annaberg, in Saxony, where his father was a schoolmaster. In 1682 he
went to the Gymnasium at Gera, and three years later to the university
of Wittenberg. Here he made a special study of theology and history, and
afterwards, through the influence of P.J. Spener, "the father of
pietism," he became tutor in Quedlinburg. His first work, _Die Erste
Liebe zu Christo_, to which in modern times attention was again directed
by Leo Tolstoy, appeared in 1696. It went through five editions before
1728, and gained the author much reputation. In the year after its
publication he was invited to Giessen as professor of church history.
The life and work here, however, proved so distasteful to him that he
resigned in 1698, and returned to Quedlinburg. In 1699 he began to
publish his largest work, described by Tolstoy (_The Kingdom of God is
within You_, chap, iii.) as "remarkable, although little known,"
_Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie_, in which he has been
thought by some to show more impartiality towards heresy than towards
the Church (cp. Otto Pfleiderer, _Development of Theology_, p. 277). His
next work, _Geheimniss der gottlichen Sophia_, published in 1700, seemed
to indicate that he had developed a form of mysticism. Soon afterwards,
however, his acceptance of a pastorate marked a change, and he produced
a number of noteworthy works on practical theology. He was also known as
the author of sacred poems. Gottfried Arnold has rightly been classed
with the pietistic section of Protestant historians (_Bibliotheca
Sacra_, 1850).
See Calwer-Zeller, _Theologisches Handworterbuch_, and the account of
him in Albert Knapp's new edition of _Die erste Liebe zu Christo_
(1845).
ARNOLD, MATTHEW (1822-1888), English poet, literary critic and inspector
of schools, was born at Laleham, near Staines, on the 24th of December
1822. When it is said that he was the son of the famous Dr Arnold of
Rugby, and that Winchester, Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford,
contributed their best towards his education, it seems superfluous to
add that, in estimating Matthew Arnold and his work, training no less
than original endowment has to be considered. A full academic training
has its disadvantages as well as its gains. In the individual no less
than in the species the history of man's development is the history of
the struggle between the impulse to express original personal force and
the impulse to make that force bow to the authority of custom. Where in
any individual the first of these impulses is stronger than usual, a
complete academic training is a gain; but where the second of these
impulses is the dominant one, the effect of the academic habit upon the
mind at its most sensitive and most plastic period is apt to be
crippling. In regard to Matthew Arnold, it would be a bold critic of his
life and his writings who should attempt to say what his work would have
been if his training had been different. In his judgments on Goethe,
Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Hugo, it may be seen how strong was his
impulse to bow to authority. On the other hand, in Arnold's ingenious
reasoning away the conception of Providence to "a stream of tendency not
ourselves which makes for righteousness," we see how strong was his
natural impulse for taking original views. The fact that the very air
Arnold breathed during the whole of the impressionable period of his
life was academic is therefore a very important fact to bear in mind.
In one of his own most charming critical essays he contrasts the poetry
of Homer, which consists of "natural thoughts in natural words," with
the poetry of Tennyson, which consists of "distilled thoughts in
distilled words." "Distilled" is one of the happiest words to be found
in poetical criticism, and may be used with equal aptitude in the
criticism of life. To most people the waters of life come with all their
natural qualities--sweet or bitter--undistilled. Only the ordinary
conditions of civilization, common to all, flavoured the waters of life
to Shakespeare, to Cervantes, to Burns, to Scott, to Dumas, and those
other great creators whose minds were mirrors--broad and clear--for
reflecting the rich drama of life around them. To Arnold the waters of
life came distilled so carefully that the wonder is that he had any
originality left. A member of the upper stratum of that "middle class"
which he despised, or pretended to despise--the eldest son of one of the
most accomplished as well as one of the most noble-tempered men of his
time--Arnold from the moment of his birth drank the finest distilled
waters that can be drunk even in these days. Perhaps, on the whole, the
surprising thing is how little he suffered thereby. Indeed those who had
formed an idea of Arnold's personality from their knowledge of his
"culture," and especially those who had been delighted by the fastidious
and feminine delicacy of his prose style, used to be quite bewildered
when for the first time they met him at a dinner-table or in a friend's
smoking-room. His prose was so self-conscious that what people expected
to find in the writer was the Arnold as he was conceived by certain
"young lions" of journalism whom he satirized--a somewhat over-cultured
_petit-maitre_--almost, indeed, a coxcomb of letters. On the other hand,
those who had been captured by his poetry expected to find a man whose
sensitive organism responded nervously to every uttered word as an
aeolian harp answers to the faintest breeze. What they found was a
broad-shouldered, manly--almost burly--Englishman with a fine
countenance, bronzed by the open air of England, wrinkled apparently by
the sun, wind-worn as an English skipper's, open and frank as a
fox-hunting squire's--and yet a countenance whose finely chiselled
features were as high-bred and as commanding as Wellington's or Sir
Charles Napier's. The voice they heard was deep-toned, fearless, rich
and frank, and yet modulated to express every _nuance_ of thought, every
movement of emotion and humour. In his prose essays the humour he showed
was of a somewhat thin-lipped kind; in his more important poems he
showed none at all. It was here, in this matter of humour, that Arnold's
writings were specially misleading as to the personality of the man.
Judged from his poems, it was not with a poet like the writer of "The
Northern Farmer," or a poet like the writer of "Ned Bratts," that any
student of poetry would have dreamed of classing him. Such a student
would actually have been more likely to class him with two of his
contemporaries between whom and himself there were but few points in
common, the "humourless" William Morris and the "humourless" Rossetti.
For, singularly enough, between him and them there was this one point of
resemblance: while all three were richly endowed with humour, while all
three were the very lights of the sets in which they moved, the moment
they took pen in hand to write poetry they became sad. It would almost
seem as if, like Rossetti, Arnold actually held that poetry was not the
proper medium for humour. No wonder, then, if the absence of humour in
his poetry did much to mislead the student of his work as to the real
character of the man.
After a year at Winchester, Matthew Arnold entered Rugby school in 1837.
He early began to write and print verses. His first publication was a
Rugby prize poem, _Alaric at Rome_, in 1840. This was followed in 1843,
after he had gone up to Oxford in 1840 as a scholar of Balliol, by his
poem _Cromwell_, which won the Newdigate prize. In 1844 he graduated
with second-class honours, and in 1845 was elected a fellow of Oriel
College, where among his colleagues was A.H. Clough, his friendship with
whom is commemorated in that exquisite elegy _Thyrsis_. From 1847 to
1851 he acted as private secretary to Lord Lansdowne; and in the latter
year, after acting for a short time as assistant-master at Rugby, he was
appointed to an inspectorship of schools, a post which he retained until
two years before his death. He married, in June 1851, the daughter of Mr
Justice Wightman, Meanwhile, in 1849, appeared _The Strayed Reveller,
and other Poems, by A_, a volume which gained a considerable esoteric
reputation. In 1852 he published another volume under the same initial,
_Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems_. _Empedocles_ is as undramatic a
poem perhaps as was ever written in dramatic form, but studded with
lyrical beauties of a very high order. In 1853 Arnold published a volume
of _Poems_ under his own name. This consisted partially of poems
selected from the two previous volumes. A second series of poems, which
contained, however, only two new ones, was published in 1855. So great
was the impression made by these in academic circles, that in 1857
Arnold was elected professor of poetry at Oxford, and he held the chair
for ten years. In 1858 he published his classical tragedy, _Merope_.
Nine years afterwards his _New Poems_ (1867) were published. While he
held the Oxford professorship he published several series of lectures,
which gave him a high place as a scholar and critic. The essays[1] _On
Translating Homer: Three Lectures given at Oxford_, published in 1861,
supplemented in 1862 by _On Translating Homer: Last Words_, a fourth
lecture given in reply to F.W. Newman's _Homeric Translation in Theory
and Practice_ (1861), and _On the Study of Celtic Literature_, published
in 1867, were full of subtle and brilliant if not of profound criticism.
So were the two series of _Essays in Criticism_, the first of which,
consisting of articles reprinted from various reviews, appeared in 1865.
The essay on "A Persian Passion Play" was added in the editions of 1875;
and a second series, edited by Lord Coleridge, appeared in 1888.
Arnold's poetic activity almost ceased after he left the chair of poetry
at Oxford. He was several times sent by government to make inquiries
into the state of education in France, Germany, Holland and other
countries; and his reports, with their thorough-going and searching
criticism of continental methods, as contrasted with English methods,
showed how conscientiously he had devoted some of his best energies to
the work. His fame as a poet and a literary critic has somewhat
overshadowed the fact that he was during thirty-five years of his
life--from 1851 to 1836--employed in the Education Department as one of
H.M. inspectors of schools, while his literary work was achieved in such
intervals of leisure as could be spared from the public service. At the
time of his appointment the government, by arrangement with the
religious bodies, entrusted the inspection of schools connected with the
Church of England to clergymen, and agreed also to send Roman Catholic
inspectors to schools managed by members of that communion. Other
schools--those of the British and Foreign Society, the Wesleyans, and
undenominational schools generally--were inspected by laymen, of whom
Arnold was one. There were only three or four of these officers at
first, and their districts were necessarily large. It is to the
experience gained in intercourse with Nonconformist school managers that
we may attribute the curiously intimate knowledge of religious sects
which furnished the material for some of his keen though good-humoured
sarcasms. The Education Act of 1870, which simplified the administrative
system, abolished denominational inspection, and thus greatly reduced
the area assigned to a single inspector. Arnold took charge of the
district of Westminster, and remained in that office until his
resignation, taking also an occasional share in the inspection of
training colleges for teachers, and in conferences at the central
office. His letters, _passim_, show that some of the routine which
devolved upon him was distasteful, and that he was glad to entrust to a
skilled assistant much of the duty of individual examination and the
making up of schedules and returns. But the influence he exerted on
schools, on the department, and on the primary education of the whole
country, was indirectly far greater than is generally supposed. His
annual reports, of which more than twenty were collected into a volume
by his friend and official chief, Sir Francis (afterwards Lord)
Sandford, attracted, by reason of their freshness of style and thought,
much more of public attention than is usually accorded to blue-book
literature; and his high aims, and his sympathetic appreciation of the
efforts and difficulties of the teachers, had a remarkable effect in
raising the tone of elementary education, and in indicating the way to
improvement. In particular, he insisted on the formative elements of
school education, on literature and the "humanities," as distinguished
from the collection of scraps of information and "useful knowledge"; and
he sought to impress all the young teachers with the necessity of
broader mental cultivation than was absolutely required to obtain the
government certificate. In his reports also he dwelt often and forcibly
on the place which the study of the Bible, not the distinctive
formularies of the churches, ought to hold in English schools. He urged
that besides the religious and moral purposes of Scriptural teaching, it
had a literary value of its own, and was the best instrument in the
hands even of the elementary teacher for uplifting the soul and refining
and enlarging the thoughts of young children.
On three occasions Arnold was asked to assist the government by making
special inquiries into the state of education in foreign countries.
These duties were especially welcome to him, serving as they did as a
relief from the monotony of school inspection at home, and as
opportunities for taking a wider survey of the whole subject of
education, and for expressing his views on principles and national aims
as well as administrative details. In 1859, as foreign assistant
commissioner, he prepared for the duke of Newcastle's commission to
inquire into the subject of elementary education a report (printed 1860)
which was afterwards reprinted (1861) in a volume entitled _The Popular
Education of France, with Notices of that of Holland and Switzerland_.
In 1865 he was again employed as assistant-commissioner by the Schools
Inquiry Commission under Lord Taunton; and his report on this subject,
_On Secondary Education in Foreign Countries_ (1866), was subsequently
reprinted under the title _Schools and Universities on the Continent_
(1868). Twenty years later he was sent by the Education Department to
make special inquiries on certain specified points, e.g. free education,
the status and training of teachers, and compulsory attendance at
schools. The result of this investigation appeared as a parliamentary
paper, _Special Report on certain points connected with Elementary
Education in Germany, Switzerland and France_, in 1886. He also
contributed the chapter on "Schools" (1837-1887) to the second volume of
Mr Humphry Ward's _Reign of Queen Victoria_. Part of his official
writings may be studied in _Reports for Elementary Schools_ (1852-1882),
edited by Sir F. Sandford in 1889.
All these reports form substantial contributions to the history and
literature of education in the Victorian age. They have been quoted
often, and have exercised marked influence on subsequent changes and
controversies. One great purpose underlies them all. It is to bring home
to the English people a conviction that education ought to be a national
concern, that it should not be left entirely to local, or private, or
irresponsible initiative, that the watchful jealousy so long shown by
Liberals, and especially by Nonconformists, in regard to state action
was a grave practical mistake, and that in an enlightened democracy,
animated by a progressive spirit and noble and generous ideals, it was
the part of wisdom to invoke the collective power of the state to give
effect to those ideals. To this theme he constantly recurred in his
essays, articles and official reports. "_Porro unum est necessarium_.
One thing is needful; organize your secondary education."
In 1883 a pension of L250 was conferred on Arnold in recognition of his
literary merits. In the same year he went to the United States on a
lecturing tour, and again in 1886, his subjects being "Emerson" and the
"Principles and Value of Numbers." The success of these lectures, though
they were admirable in matter and form, was marred by the lecturer's
lack of experience in delivery. It is sufficient, further, to say that
_Culture and Anarchy: an Essay in Political and Social Criticism_,
appeared in 1869; _St Paul and Protestantism, with an Introduction on
Puritanism and the Church of England_ (1870); _Friendship's Garland:
being the Conversations, Letters and Opinions of the late Arminius Baron
van Thunder-ten-Tronckh_ (1871); _Literature and Dogma: an Essay towards
a Better Apprehension of the Bible_ (1873); _God and the Bible: a Review
of Objections to Literature and Dogma_ (1875); _Last Essays on Church
and Religion_ (1877); _Mixed Essays_ (1879); _Irish Essays and Others_
(1882); _Discourses in America_ (1885). Such essays as the first of
these, embodying as they did Arnold's views of theological and polemical
subjects, attracted much attention at the time of their publication,
owing to the state of the intellectual atmosphere at the moment; but it
is doubtful, perhaps, whether they will be greatly considered in the
near future. Many severe things have been said, and will be said,
concerning the inadequacy of poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth when
confronting subjects of a theological or philosophical kind.
Wordsworth's High Church Pantheism and Coleridge's disquisitions on the
Logos seem farther removed from the speculations of to-day than do the
dreams of Lucretius. But these two great writers lived before the days
of modern science. Arnold, living only a few years later, came at a
transition period when the winds of tyrannous knowledge had blown off
the protecting roof that had covered the centuries before, but when time
and much labour were needed to build another roof of new materials--a
period when it was impossible for the poet to enjoy either the quietism
of High Church Pantheism in which Wordsworth had basked, or the
sheltering protection of German metaphysics under which Coleridge had
preached--a period, nevertheless, when the wonderful revelations of
science were still too raw, too cold and hard, to satisfy the yearnings
of the poetic soul. Objectionable as Arnold's rationalizing criticism
was to contemporary orthodoxy, and questionable as was his equipment in
point of theological learning, his spirituality of outlook and ethical
purpose were not to be denied. Yet it is not Arnold's views that have
become current coin so much as his literary phrases--his craving for
"culture" and "sweetness and light," his contempt for "the dissidence of
Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion," his "stream
of tendency not ourselves making for righteousness," his classification
of "Philistines and barbarians"--and so forth. His death at Liverpool,
of heart failure on the 15th of April 1888, was sudden and quite
unexpected.
Arnold was a prominent figure in that great galaxy of Victorian poets
who were working simultaneously--Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, William
Morris and Swinburne--poets between whom there was at least this
connecting link, that the quest of all of them was the old-fashioned
poetical quest of the beautiful. Beauty was their watchword, as it had
been the watchword of their immediate predecessors--Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron. That this group of early
19th-century poets might be divided into two--those whose primary quest
was physical beauty, and those whose primary quest was moral beauty-is
no doubt true. Still, in so far as beauty was their quest they were all
akin. And so with the Victorian group to which Arnold belonged. As to
the position which he takes among them opinions must necessarily vary.
On the whole, his place in the group will be below all the others. The
question as to whether he was primarily a poet or a _prosateur_ has been
often asked. If we were to try to answer that question here, we should
have to examine his poetry in detail--we should have to inquire whether
his primary impulse of expression was to seize upon the innate
suggestive power of words, or whether his primary impulse was to rely
upon the logical power of the sentence. In nobility of temper, in
clearness of statement, and especially in descriptive power, he is
beyond praise. But intellect, judgment, culture and study of great poets
may do much towards enabling a prose-writer to write what must needs be
called good poetry. What they cannot enable him to do is to produce
those magical effects which poets of the rarer kind can achieve by
seizing that mysterious, suggestive power of words which is far beyond
all mere statement. Notwithstanding the exquisite work that Arnold has
left behind him, some critics have come to the conclusion that his
primary impulse in expression was that of the poetically-minded
_prosateur_ rather than that of the born poet. And this has been said by
some who nevertheless deeply admire poems like "The Scholar Gypsy,"
"Thyrsis," "The Forsaken Merman," "Dover Beach," "Heine's Grave," "Rugby
Chapel," "The Grande Chartreuse," "Sohrab and Rustum," "The Sick King in
Bokhara," "Tristram and Iseult," &c. It would seem that a man may show
all the endowments of a poet save one, and that one the most
essential--the instinctive mastery over metrical effects.
In all literary expression there are two kinds of emphasis, the emphasis
of sound and the emphasis of sense. Indeed the difference between those
who have and those who have not the true rhythmic instinct is that,
while the former have the innate faculty of making the emphasis of sound
and the emphasis of sense meet and strengthen each other, the latter are
without that faculty. But so imperfect is the human mind that it can
rarely apprehend or grasp simultaneously these two kinds of emphasis.
While to the born _prosateur_ the emphasis of sense comes first, and
refuses to be more than partially conditioned by the emphasis of sound,
to the born poet the emphasis of sound comes first, and sometimes will,
even as in the case of Shelley, revolt against the tyranny of the
emphasis of sense. Perhaps the very origin of the old quantitative
metres was the desire to make these two kinds of emphasis meet in the
same syllable. In manipulating their quantitative metrical system the
Greeks had facilities for bringing one kind of emphasis into harmony
with the other such as are unknown to writers in accentuated metres.
This accounts for the measureless superiority of Greek poetry in verbal
melody as well as in general harmonic scheme to all the poetry of the
modern world. In writers so diverse in many ways as Homer, Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Pindar, Sappho, the harmony between the emphasis of sound and
the emphasis of sense is so complete that each of these kinds of
emphasis seems always begetting, yet always born of the other. When in
Europe the quantitative measures were superseded by the accentuated
measures a reminiscence was naturally and inevitably left behind of the
old system; and the result has been, in the English language at least,
that no really great line can be written in which the emphasis of
accent, the emphasis of quantity and the emphasis of sense do not meet
on the same syllable. Whenever this junction does not take place the
weaker line, or lines, are always introduced, not for makeshift
purposes, but for variety, as in the finest lines of Milton and
Wordsworth. Wordsworth no doubt seems to have had a theory that the
accent of certain words, such as "without," "within," &c., could be
disturbed in an iambic line; but in his best work he does not act upon
his theory, and endeavours most successfully to make the emphasis of
accent, of quantity and of sense meet. It might not be well for a poem
to contain an entire sequence of such perfect lines as
"I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,"
or
"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart,"
for then the metricist's art would declare itself too loudly and weaken
the imaginative strength of the picture. But such lines should no doubt
form the basis of the poem, and weaker lines--lines in which there is no
such combination of the three kinds of emphasis--should be sparingly
used, and never used for makeshift purposes. Now, neither by instinct
nor by critical study was Arnold ever able to apprehend this law of
prosody. If he does write a line of the first order, metrically
speaking, he seems to do so by accident. Such weak lines as these are
constantly occurring--
"The poet, to whose mighty heart
Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart,
Subdues that energy to scan
Not his own course, but that of man."
Much has been said about what is called the "Greek temper" of Matthew
Arnold's muse. A good deal depends upon what it meant by the Hellenic
spirit. But if the Greek temper expresses itself, as is generally
supposed, in the sweet acceptance and melodious utterance of the beauty
of the world as it is, accepting that beauty without inquiring as to
what it means and as to whither it goes, it is difficult to see where in
Arnold's poetry this temper declares itself. Surely it is not in
_Empedocles on Etna_, and surely it is not in _Merope_. If there is a
poem of his in which one would expect to find the joyous acceptance of
life apart from questionings about the civilization in which the poet
finds himself environed (its hopes, its fears, its aspirations and its
failures)--such questionings, in short, as were for ever Vexing Arnold's
soul--it would be in "The Scholar Gypsy," a poem in which the poet tries
to throw himself into the mood of a "Romany Rye." The great attraction
of the gypsies to Englishmen of a certain temperament is that they alone
seem to feel the joyous acceptance of life which is supposed to be
specially Greek. Hence it would have been but reasonable to look, if
anywhere, for the expression of Arnold's Greek temper in a poem which
sets out to describe the feelings of the student who, according to
Glanville's story, left Oxford to wander over England with the Romanies.
But instead of this we got the old fretting about the unsatisfactoriness
of modern civilization. Glanville's Oxford student, whose story is
glanced at now and again in the poem, flits about in the scenery like a
cloud-shadow on the grass; but the way in which Arnold contrives to
avoid giving us the faintest idea either dramatic or pictorial of the
student about whom he talks so much, and the gypsies with whom the
student lived, is one of the most singular feats in poetry. The
reflections which come to a young Oxonian lying on the grass and longing
to escape life's fitful fever without shuffling off this mortal coil,
are, no doubt, beautiful reflections beautifully expressed, but the
temper they show is the very opposite of the Greek. To say this is not
in the least to disparage Arnold. "A man is more like the age in which
he lives," says the Chinese aphorism, "than he is like his own father
and mother," and Arnold's polemical writings alone are sufficient to
show that the waters of life he drank were from fountains distilled,
seven times distilled, at the topmost slope of 19th-century
civilization. Mr George Meredith's "Old Chartist" exhibits far more of
the temper of acceptance than does any poem by Matthew Arnold.
His most famous critical dictum is that poetry is a "criticism of
life." What he seems to have meant is that poetry is the crowning fruit
of a criticism of life; that just as the poet's metrical effects are and
must be the result of a thousand semiconscious generalizations upon the
laws of cause and effect in metric art, so the beautiful things he says
about life and the beautiful pictures he paints of life are the result
of his generalizations upon life as he passes through it, and
consequently that the value of his poetry consists in the beauty and the
truth of his generalizations. But this is saying no more than is said in
the line--
"Rien n'est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable"--
or in the still more famous lines--
"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
To suppose that Arnold confounded the poet with the writer of _pensees_
would be absurd. Yet having decided that poetry consists of
generalizations on human life, in reading poetry he kept on the watch
for those generalizations, and at last seemed to think that the less and
not the more they are hidden behind the dramatic action, and the more
unmistakably they are intruded as generalizations, the better. For
instance, in one of his essays he quotes those lines from the "Chanson
de Roland" of Turoldus, where Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself
down under a pine-tree with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy,
and begins to "call many things to remembrance; all the lands which his
valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his lineage, and
Charlemagne, his liege lord, who nourished him"--
"De plusurs choses a remembrer li prist,
De tames teres cume li bers cunquist,
De dulce France, des humes de sun ligu,
De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit."
"That," says Arnold, "is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable
poetic quality of its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is
sufficient for it." Then he contrasts it with a famous passage in
Homer--that same passage which is quoted in the article POETRY, for the
very opposite purpose to that of Arnold's, quoted indeed to show how the
epic poet, leaving the dramatic action to act as chorus, weakens the
[Greek: apatae] of the picture--the passage in the _Iliad_ (iii 243-244)
where the poet, after Helen's pathetic mention of her brother's comments
on the causes of their absence, "criticizes life" and generalizes upon
the impotence of human intelligence, the impotence even of human love,
to pierce the darkness in which the web of human fate is woven. He
appends Dr Hawtrey's translation:--
[Greek: Os phato roys d ede katechen physizoos aia
en Lakedaimoni authi, phile en patridi gaie.]
"So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing
There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaemon."
"We are here," says Arnold, "in another world, another order of poetry
altogether; here is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M.
Vitel gives to the _Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any
meaning, if our judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap
that supreme praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior." He
does not see that the two passages cannot properly be compared at all.
In the one case the poet gives us a dramatic picture; in the other; a
comment on a dramatic picture.
Perhaps, indeed, the place Arnold held and still holds as a critic is
due more to his exquisite felicity in expressing his views than to the
penetration of his criticism. Nothing can exceed the easy grace of his
prose at the best. It is conversational and yet absolutely exact in the
structure of the sentences; and in spite of every vagary, his
distinguishing note is urbanity. Keen-edged as his satire could be, his
writing for the most part is as urbane as Addison's own. His influence
on contemporary criticism and contemporary ideals was considerable, and
generally wholesome. His insistence on the necessity of looking at "the
thing in itself," and the need for acquainting oneself with "the best
that has been thought and said in the world," gave a new stimulus alike
to originality and industry in criticism; and in his own selection of
subjects--such as _Joubert_, or the _de Guerins_--he opened a new world
to a larger class of the better sort of readers, exercising in this
respect an awakening influence in his own time akin to that of Walter
Pater a few years afterwards. The comparison with Pater might indeed be
pressed further, and yet too far. Both were essentially products of
Oxford. But Arnold, whose description of that "home of lost causes, and
forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties," is in
itself almost a poem, had a classical austerity in his style that
savoured more intimately of Oxford tradition, and an ethical earnestness
even in his most flippant moments which kept him notably aloof from the
more sensuous school of aesthetics.
The first collected edition of Arnold's poems was published in 1869 in
two volumes, the first consisting of _Narrative and Elegiac Poems_,
and the second of _Dramatic and Lyric Poems_. Other editions appeared
in 1877, 1881; a library edition (3 vols., 1885); a one-volume reprint
of the poems printed in the library edition with one or two additions
(1890). Publications by Matthew Arnold not mentioned in the foregoing
article include: _England and the Italian Question_ (1859), a
pamphlet; _A French Eton; or, Middle Class Education and the State_
(1864); _Higher Schools and Universities in Germany_ (1874), a partial
reprint from _Schools and Universities on the Continent_ (1868); _A
Bible Reading for Schools; The Great Prophecy of Israel's
Restoration_, an arrangement of _Isaiah_, chs. xl.-lxvi. (1872),
republished with additions and varying titles in 1875 and 1883; an
edition of the _Six Chief Lives from Johnson's Lives of the Poets_
(1878); editions of the _Poems of Wordsworth_ (1879), and the _Poetry
of Byron_ (1881), for the Golden Treasury Series, with prefatory
essays reprinted in the second series of _Essays in Criticism_; an
edition of _Letters, Speeches and Tracts on Irish Affairs by Edmund
Burke_ (1881); and many contributions to periodical literature. _The
Letters of Matthew Arnold_ (1848-1888) were collected and arranged by
George W.E. Russell in 1895, reprinted 1901. _Matthew Arnold's Note
Books, with a Preface by the Hon. Mrs Wodehouse_, appeared in 1902. A
complete and uniform edition of _The Works of Matthew Arnold_ (15
vols., 1904-1905) includes the letters as edited by Mr Russell. Vol.
iii. contains a complete bibliography of his works, many of the early
editions of which are very valuable, by Mr T.B. Smart, who published a
separate bibliography in 1892. A valuable note on the rather
complicated subject of Arnold's bibliography is given by Mr H. Buxton
Forman in Arnold's _Poems, Narrative, Elegiac and Lyric_ (Temple
Classics, 1900).
It was Arnold's expressed desire that his biography should not be
written, and before his letters were published they underwent
considerable editing at the hands of his family. There are, however,
monographs on Matthew Arnold (1899) in _Modern English Writers_ by
Prof. Saintsbury, and by Mr H.W. Paul (1902), in the English Men of
Letters Series. These two works are supplemented by Mr G.W.E. Russell,
who, as the editor of Arnold's letters, is in a sense the official
biographer, in _Matthew Arnold_ (1904, Literary Lives Series). There
are also studies of Arnold in Mr J.M. Robertson's _Modern Humanists_
(1891), and in W.H. Hudson's _Studies in Interpretation_ (1896), in
Sir J.G. Fitch's _Thomas and Matthew Arnold_ (1897), and a review of
some of the works above mentioned in the _Quarterly_ for January 1905
by T.H. Warren. (T. W.-D.; J. G. F.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] These essays were edited in 1905 with an introduction by W.H.D.
Rouse.
ARNOLD, SAMUEL (1740-1802), English composer, was born at London on the
both of August 1740. He received a thorough musical education at the
Chapel Royal, and when little more than twenty years of age was
appointed composer at Covent Garden theatre. Here, in 1765, he produced
his popular opera, _The Maid of the Mill_, many of the songs in which
were selected from the works of Italian composers. In 1776 he
transferred his services to the Haymarket theatre. In 1783 he was made
composer to George III. Between 1765 and 1802 he wrote as many as
forty-three operas, after-pieces and pantomimes, of which the best were
_The Maid of the Mill_, _Rosamond_, _Inkle and Yarico_, _The Battle of
Hexham_, _The Mountaineers_. His oratorios included _The Cure of Saul_
(1767), _Abimelech_ (1768), _The Resurrection_ (1773), _The Prodigal
Son_ (1777) and _Elisha_ (1795). In 1783 he became organist to the
Chapel Royal. In 1786 he began an edition of Handel's works, which
extended to 40 volumes, but was never completed. In 1793 he became
organist of Westminster Abbey, where he was buried after his death on
the 22nd of October 1802. Arnold is chiefly remembered now for the
publication of his _Cathedral Music, being a collection in score of the
most valuable and useful compositions for that service by the several
English masters of the last 200 years_ (1790).
ARNOLD, THOMAS (1705-1842), English clergyman and headmaster of Rugby
school, was born at West Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, on the 13th of
June 1795. He was the son of William and Martha Arnold, the former of
whom occupied the situation of collector of customs at Cowes. His
father died suddenly of spasm in the heart in 1801, and his early
education was confided by his mother to her sister, Miss Delafield. From
her tuition he passed to that of Dr Griffiths, at Warminster, in
Wiltshire, in 1803; and in 1807 he was removed to Winchester, where he
remained until 1811, having entered as a commoner, and afterwards become
a scholar of the college. In after life he retained a lively feeling of
interest in Winchester school, and remembered with admiration and profit
the regulative tact of Dr Goddard and the preceptorial ability of Dr
Gabell, who were successively head-masters during his stay there.
From Winchester he removed to Oxford in 1811, where he became a scholar
at Corpus Christi College; in 1815 he was elected fellow of Oriel
College, and there he continued to reside until 1819. This interval was
diligently devoted to the pursuit of classical and historical studies,
to preparing himself for ordination, and to searching investigations,
under the stimulus of continued discussion with a band of talented and
congenial associates, of the profoundest questions in theology,
ecclesiastical polity and social philosophy. The authors he most
carefully studied at this period were Thucydides and Aristotle, and for
their writings he formed an attachment which remained to the close of
his life, and exerted a powerful influence upon his mode of thought and
opinions, as well as upon his literary occupations in subsequent years.
Herodotus also came in for a considerable share of his regard, but more,
apparently, for recreation than for work. Accustomed freely and
fearlessly to investigate whatever came before him, and swayed by a
scrupulous dread of insincerity, he was doomed to long and anxious
hesitation concerning some of the fundamental points of theology before
arriving at a firm conviction of the truth of Christianity. Once
satisfied, however, his faith remained clear and firm; and thenceforward
his life became that of a supremely _religious_ man.
To the name of Christ he was prepared to "surrender his whole soul," and
to render before it "obedience, reverence without measure, intense
humility, most unreserved adoration" (_Serm. ns._ vol. iv. p. 210). He
did not often talk about religion; he had not much of the accredited
phraseology of piety even when he discoursed on spiritual topics; but
more than most men he was directed by religious principle and feeling in
all his conduct. He left Oxford in 1819, and settled at Laleham, near
Staines, where he took pupils for the university. His spare time was
devoted to the prosecution of studies in philology and history, more
particularly to the study of Thucydides, and of the new light which had
been cast upon Roman history and upon historical method in general by
the researches of Niebuhr. He was also occasionally engaged in
preaching, and it was whilst here that he published the first volume of
his sermons. Shortly after he settled at Laleham, he married Mary,
youngest daughter of the Rev. John Penrose, rector of Fledborough,
Nottinghamshire. After nine years spent at Laleham he was induced to
offer himself as a candidate for the vacant head-mastership of Rugby;
and though he entered somewhat late upon the contest, and though none of
the electors was personally known to him, he was elected in December
1827. In June 1828 he received priest's orders; in April end November of
the same year he took his degrees of B.D. and D.D., and in August
entered on his new office.
In one of the testimonials which accompanied his application to the
trustees of Rugby, the writer stated it as his conviction that "if Mr
Arnold were elected, he would change the face of education all through
the public schools of England." This somewhat hazardous pledge was nobly
redeemed. Under Arnold's superintendence the school became not merely a
place where a certain amount of classical or general learning was to be
obtained, but a sphere of intellectual, moral and religious discipline,
where healthy characters were formed, and men were trained for the
duties, and struggles and responsibilities of life. His energies were
chiefly devoted to the business of the school; but he found time also
for much literary work, as well as for an extensive correspondence. Five
volumes of sermons, an edition of Thucydides, with English notes and
dissertations, a History of Rome in three vols. 8vo, beside numerous
articles in reviews, journals, newspapers and encyclopaedias, are extant
to attest the untiring activity of his mind, and his patient diligence
during this period. His interest also in public matters was incessant,
especially ecclesiastical questions, and such as bore upon the social
welfare and moral improvement of the masses.
In 1841, after fourteen years at Rugby, Dr Arnold was appointed by Lord
Melbourne, then prime minister, to the chair of modern history at
Oxford. On the 2nd of December 1841 he delivered his inaugural lecture.
Seven other lectures were delivered during the first three weeks of the
Lent term of 1842. When the midsummer vacation arrived, he was preparing
to set out with his family to Fox How in Westmoreland, where he had
purchased some property and built a house. But he was suddenly attacked
by angina pectoris, and died on Sunday, the 12th of June 1842. His
remains were interred on the following Friday in the chancel of Rugby
chapel, immediately under the communion table.
The great peculiarity and charm of Dr Arnold's nature seemed to lie in
the supremacy of the moral and the spiritual element over his whole
being. He was not a notable scholar, and he had not much of what is
usually called tact in his dealings either with the juvenile or the
adult mind. What gave him his power, and secured for him so deeply the
respect and veneration of his pupils and acquaintances, was the
intensely religious character of his whole life. He seemed ever to act
from a severe and lofty estimate of duty. To be just, honest and
truthful, he ever held to be the first aim of his being.
His _Life_ was written by Dean Stanley (1845).
ARNOTT, NEIL (1788-1874), Scottish physician, was born at Arbroath on
the 15th of May 1788. He studied medicine first at Aberdeen, and
subsequently in London under Sir Everard Home (1756-1832), through whom
he obtained, while yet in his nineteenth year, the appointment of full
surgeon to an East Indiaman. After making two voyages to China he
settled in 1811 to practise in London, and speedily acquired high
reputation in his profession. Within a few years he was made physician
to the French and Spanish embassies, and in 1837 he became a physician
extraordinary to the queen. From his earliest youth Arnott had an
intense love of natural philosophy, and to this was added an
inventiveness which served him in good stead in his profession and
yielded the "Arnott water-bed," the "Arnott ventilator," the "Arnott
stove," &c. He was the author of several works bearing on physical
science or its applications, the most important being his _Elements of
Physics_ (1827), which went through six editions in his lifetime. In
1838 he published a treatise on _Warming and Ventilating_, and, in 1855,
one on the _Smokeless Fireplace_. He was a strong advocate of
scientific, as opposed to purely classical, education; and he manifested
his interest in natural philosophy by the gift of L2000 to each of the
four universities of Scotland and to the university of London, to
promote its study in the experimental and practical form. He died in
London on the 2nd of March 1874.
ARNOULD-PLESSY, JEANNE SYLVANIE (1819-1897), French actress, was born in
Metz on the 7th of September 1819, the daughter of a local actor named
Plessy. She was a pupil of Samson at the Conservatoire in 1829, and made
her _debut_ as Emma at the Comedie Francaise in 1834 in Alexandre
Duval's _La Fille d'honneur_. She had an immense success, and Mlle Mars,
to whom the public already compared her, took her up. Until 1845 she had
prominent parts in all the plays, new and old, at the Theatre Francais,
when suddenly at the height of her success, she left Paris and went to
London, marrying the dramatic author, J.F. Arnould (d. 1854), a man much
older than herself. The Comedie Francaise, after having tried in vain to
bring her back, brought a suit against her, and obtained heavy damages.
In the meantime Madame Arnould-Plessy accepted an engagement at the
French theatre at St Petersburg, where she played for nine years. In
1855 she returned to Paris and was re-admitted to the Comedie Francaise,
as _pensionnaire_ with an engagement for eight years. This second part
of her career was even more brilliant than the first. She revived some
of her old roles, but began to abandon the _jeunes premieres_ for the
"lead," in which she had a success unequalled since the retirement of
Mlle Mars. Her later triumphs were especially associated with new plays
by Emile Augier, _Le Fils de Giboyer_ and _Maitre Guerin_. Her last
appearance was in Edouard Cadol's _La Grand-maman_; she retired in 1876,
and died in 1897.
ARNSBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia,
romantically situated on an eminence almost surrounded by the river
Ruhr, 44 m. S.E. of Munster and 58 m. E.N.E. of Dusseldorf by rail. Pop.
(1900) 8490. It is the seat of the provincial authorities, and has three
churches, a court of appeal, a Roman Catholic gymnasium, which was
formerly the Benedictine abbey of Weddinghausen, a library, a normal
school and a chamber of commerce. Weaving, brewing and distilling are
carried on, and there are manufactories of white lead, shot and paper,
works for the production of railway plant, and saw-mills. Near the town
are the ruins of the castle of the counts of Arnsberg, the last of whom,
Gottfried, sold his countship, in 1368, to the archbishop of Cologne.
The countship was incorporated by the archbishops in their duchy of
Westphalia, which in 1802 was assigned to Hesse-Darmstadt and in 1815 to
Prussia. The town, which had received its first charter in 1237 and
later joined the Hanseatic League, became the capital of the duchy.
ARNSTADT, a town in the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen,
Germany, on the river Gera, 11 m. S. of Erfurt, with which it is
connected by rail. Pop. (1900) 14,413. There are five churches, four
Protestant and one Catholic. The Evangelical Liebfrauenkirche, a
Romanesque building (mainly 12th-century), has two octagonal towers and
a 10th-century porch. The palace contains collections of pictures and
porcelain, and attached to it is a magnificent tower, all that remains
of the castle built in 1560. The town hall dates from 1561. The
industries of Arnstadt include iron and other metal founding, the
manufacture of leather, cloth, tobacco, weighing-machines, paper,
playing-cards, chairs, gloves, shoes, iron safes, and beer, and
market-gardening and trade in grain and wood are carried on. There are
copper-mines in the neighbourhood, as well as tepid saline springs, the
waters of which are used for bathing, and are much frequented in summer.
Arnstadt dates back to the 8th century. It was bought in 1306 by the
counts of Schwarzburg, who lived here till 1716.
ARNSWALDE, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, in a marshy
district between four lakes, 20 m. S.W. of Stargard and on the main line
between that place and Posen. Besides the Gothic church there are no
noteworthy public buildings. Its industries include iron founding,
machinery, and manufactures of cloth, matches and starch. Pop. (1900)
8665.
ARNULF (c. 850-899), Roman emperor, illegitimate son of Carloman, king
of Bavaria and Italy, was made margrave of Carinthia about 876, and on
his father's death in 880 his dignity and possessions were confirmed by
the new king of the east Franks, Louis III. The failure of legitimate
male issue of the later Carolingians gave Arnulf a more important
position than otherwise he would have occupied; but he did homage to the
emperor Charles the Fat in 882, and spent the next few years in constant
warfare with the Slavs and the Northmen. In 887, however, Arnulf
identified himself with the disgust felt by the Bavarians and others at
the incapacity of Charles the Fat. Gathering a large army, he marched to
Tribur; Charles abdicated and the Germans recognized Arnulf as their
king, a proceeding which L. von Ranke describes as "the first
independent action of the German secular world." Arnulf's real authority
did not extend far beyond the confines of Bavaria, and he contented
himself with a nominal recognition of his supremacy by the kings who
sprang up in various parts of the Empire. Having made peace with the
Moravians, he gained a great and splendid victory over the Northmen near
Louvain in October 891, and in spite of some opposition succeeded in
establishing his illegitimate son, Zwentibold, as king of the district
afterwards called Lorraine. Invited by Pope Formosus to deliver him from
the power of Guido III., duke of Spoleto, who had been crowned emperor,
Arnulf went to Italy in 894, but after storming Bergamo and receiving
the homage of some of the nobles at Pavia, he was compelled by
desertions from his army to return. The restoration of peace with the
Moravians and the death of Guido prepared the way for a more successful
expedition in 895 when Rome was stormed by his troops; and Arnulf was
crowned emperor by Formosus in February 896. He then set out to
establish his authority in Spoleto, but on the way was seized with
paralysis. He returned to Bavaria, where he died on the 8th of December
899, and was buried at Regensburg. He left, by his wife Ota, a son Louis
surnamed the Child. Arnulf possessed the qualities of a soldier, and was
a loyal supporter of the church.
See "Annales Fuldenses" in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica.
Scriptores_, Band i. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826); E. Dummler,
_Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reichs_ (Leipzig, 1887-1888); M.J.L. de
Gagern, _Arnulfi imperatoris vita_ (Bonn, 1837); E. Dummler, _De
Arnulfo Francorum rege_ (Berlin, 1852); W.B. Wenck, _Die Erhebung
Arnulfs und der Zerfall des karolingischen Reiches_ (Leipzig, 1852);
O. Dietrich, _Beitrage zur Geschichte Arnolfs von Karnthen und Ludwigs
des Kindes_ (Berlin, 1890); E. Muhlbacher, _Die Regesten des
Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern_ (Innsbruck, 1881).
AROIDEAE (Arum family), a large and wide-spread botanical order of
Monocotyledons containing about 1000 species in 105 genera. It is
generally distributed in temperate and tropical regions, but especially
developed in warm countries. The common British representative of the
order, _Arum maculatum_ (cuckoo-pint, lords and ladies, or wake robin),
gives a meagre idea of its development. The plants are generally
herbaceous, often, however, reaching a gigantic size, but are sometimes
shrubby, as in _Pothos_, a genus of shrubby climbing plants, chiefly
Malayan. _Monstera_ is a tropical American genus of climbing shrubs,
with large often much-perforated leaves; the fruiting spikes of a
Mexican species, _M. deliciosa_, are eaten. The roots of the climbing
species are of interest in their adaptation to the mode of life of the
plant. For instance, some species of _Philodendron_ have a growth like
that of ivy, with feeding roots penetrating the soil and clasping roots
which fix the plant to its support. In other species of the genus the
seed germinates on a branch, and the seedling produces clasping roots,
and roots which grow downwards hanging like stout cords, and ultimately
reaching the ground. The leaves, which show great variety in size and
form, are generally broad and net-veined, but in sweet-flag (_Acorus
Calamus_) are long and narrow with parallel veins. In _Arum_ the blade
is simple, as also in the so-called arum-lily (_Richardia_), a South
African species common in Britain as a greenhouse plant, and in
_Caladium_, a tropical South American genus, and _Alocasia_ (tropical
Asia), species of which are favourite warm-greenhouse plants on account
of their variegated leaves. In other genera the leaves are much divided
and sometimes very large; those of _Dracontium_ (tropical America) may
be 15 ft. high, with a long stem-like stalk and a much-branched
spreading blade. The East Indian genus _Amorphophallus_ has a similar
habit. A good series of tropical aroids is to be seen in the aroid house
at Kew. The so-called water cabbage (_Pistia Stratiotes_) is a floating
plant widely distributed in the tropics, and consisting of rosettes of
broadish leaves several inches across and a tuft of roots hanging in the
water.
[Illustration: _Arum maculatum_, Cuckoo-pint.
1. Leaves and inflorescence.
2. Underground root-stock.
3. Lower part of spathe cut open.
4. Spike of fruits. Showing in succession (from below) female flowers,
male flowers, and sterile flowers forming a ring of hairs borne on the
spadix.]
The small flowers are densely crowded on thick fleshy spikes, which are
associated with, and often more or less enveloped by, a large leaf
(bract), the so-called spathe, which, as in cuckoo-pint, where it is
green in colour, _Richardia_, where it is white, creamy or yellow,
_Anthurium_, where it is a brilliant scarlet, is often the most striking
feature of the plant. The details of the structure of the flower show a
wide variation; the flowers are often extremely simple, sometimes as in
_Arum_, reduced to a single stamen or pistil. The fruit is a berry--the
scarlet berries of the cuckoo-pint are familiar objects in the hedges in
late summer. The plants generally contain an acrid poisonous juice. The
underground stems (rhizomes or tubers) are rich in starch; from that of
_Arum maculatum_ Portland arrowroot was formerly extensively prepared by
pounding with water and then straining; the starch was deposited from
the strained liquid.
The order is represented in Britain by _Arum maculatum_, a low
herbaceous plant common in woods and hedgerows in England, but probably
not wild in Scotland. It grows from a whitish root-stock which sends up
in the spring a few long-stalked, arrow-shaped leaves of a polished
green, often marked with dark blotches. These are followed by the
inflorescence, a fleshy spadix bearing in the lower part numerous
closely crowded simple unisexual flowers and continued above into a
purplish or yellowish appendage; the spadix is enveloped by a leafy
spathe, constricted in the lower part to form a chamber, in which are
the flowers. The mouth of this chamber is protected by a ring of hairs
pointing downwards, which allow the entrance but prevent the escape of
small flies; after fertilization of the pistils the hairs wither. The
insects visit the plant in large numbers, attracted by the foetid smell,
and act as carriers of the pollen from one spathe to another. As the
fruit ripens the spathe withers, and the brilliant red berries are
exposed.
The sweet-flag _Acorus Calamus_ (q.v.), which occurs apparently wild in
England in ditches, ponds, &c., is supposed to have been introduced.
AROLSEN, a town of Germany, capital of the principality of Waldeck, 25
m. N.W. of Cassel, with which it is connected by rail via Warburg. Pop.
3000. It lies in a pleasant undulating country at an elevation of 900
ft. above the sea. The Evangelical parish church contains some fine
statues by Christian Rauch, and the palace (built 1710-1720), in
addition to a valuable library of 30,000 vols., a collection of coins
and pictures, among the latter several by Angelica Kauffmann. Arolsen is
the birthplace of the sculptor C. Rauch and of the painters Wilhelm and
Friedrich Kaulbach.
ARONA, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Novara, on the W.
bank of Lake Maggiore, 3 m. from its S. extremity, 23 m. N. of Novara,
and 42 m. N.W. of Milan by rail. Pop. (1901) 4700. It is a railway
centre of some importance on the Simplon line, and is also the southern
terminus of the steamers which ply on Lake Maggiore. The church of S.
Maria contains a fine altar-piece by Gaudenzio Ferrari. On a hill to the
north of the town stands a colossal bronze statue of S. Carlo Borromeo
(born here in 1538), erected in 1697. The pedestal, of red granite, is
42 ft. high, and the statue 70 ft. high; the latter is hollow, and can
be ascended from within.
ARPEGGIO (from Ital. _arpeggiare_, to play upon the harp), in music, the
notes of a chord, played in rapid succession as on a harp, and not
together.
ARPI (Gr. [Greek: Hargorippa]), an ancient city of Apulia, 20 m. W. of
the sea coast, and 5 m. N. of the modern Foggia. The legend attributes
its foundation to Diomedes, and the figure of a horse, which appears on
its coins, shows the importance of horse-breeding in early times in the
district. Its territory extended to the sea, and Strabo says that from
the extent of the city walls one could gather that it had once been one
of the greatest cities of Italy. As a protection against the Samnites
Arpi became an ally of Rome, and remained faithful until after the
battle of Cannae, but Fabius captured it in 213 B.C., and it never
recovered its former importance. It lay on a by-road from Luceria to
Sipontum. No Roman inscriptions have, indeed, been found here, and
remains of antiquity are scanty. Foggia is its medieval representative.
(T. As.)
ARPINO (anc. _Arpinum_), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of
Caserta, 1475 ft. above sea-level; 12 m. by rail N.W. of Roccasecca, a
station on the railway from Naples to Rome. Pop. (1901) 10,607. Arpino
occupies the lower part of the site of the ancient Volscian town of
Arpinum, which was finally taken from the Samnites by the Romans in 305
B.C. It became a _civitas sine suffragio_, but received full privileges
(_civitas cum suffragio_) in 188 B.C. with Formiae and Fundi; it was
governed as a _praefectura_ until the Social War, and then became a
_municipium_. The ancient polygonal walls, which are still finely
preserved, are among the best in Italy. They are built of blocks of
pudding-stone, originally well jointed, but now much weathered. They
stand free in places to a height of 11 ft., and are about 7 ft. wide at
the top. A single line of wall, with medieval round towers at intervals,
runs on the north side from the present town to Civitavecchia (2055
ft.), on the site of the ancient citadel. Here is the Porta dell' Arco,
a gate of the old wall, with an aperture 15 ft. high, formed by the
gradual inclination of the two sides towards one another. Below Arpino,
in the valley of the Liris, between the two arms of its tributary the
Fibrenus, and 3/4 m. north of Isola del Liri, lies the church of S.
Domenico, which marks the site of the villa in which Cicero was born and
frequently resided. Near it is an ancient bridge, of a road which
crossed the Liris to Cereatae (modern Casamari). The painter Giuseppe
Cesari (1560-1640), more often known as the Cavaliere d' Arpino, was
also born here.
See O.E. Schmidt, _Arpinum, eine topographisch-historische Skizze_
(Meissen, 1900). (T. As.)
ARQUA PETRARCA, a village of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Padua, 3
m. to the S.W. of Battaglia. Pop. (1901) 1573. It is chiefly famous as
the place where Petrarch lived his last few years and died in 1374. His
house still exists, and his tomb, a sarcophagus supported by four short
columns of red marble, stands in front of the church. Near Arqua, on the
banks of the small Lago della Costa, is the site of a prehistoric lake
village, excavations in which have produced interesting results.
See A. Moschetti and F. Cordenone in _Bollettino del Museo Civico di
Padova_, iv. (1901), 102 seq.
ARQUEBUS (also called harquebus, hackbut, &c.), a firearm of the 16th
century, the immediate predecessor of the musket. The word itself is
certainly to be derived from the German Hakenbuhse (mod. Hakenbuchse,
cf. Eng. _hackbut_ and _hackbush_), "hook gun." The "hook" is often
supposed to refer to the bent shape of the butt, which differentiated it
from the straight-stocked hand gun, but it has also been suggested that
the original arquebus had a metal hook near the muzzle, which was used
to grip the wall (or other fixed object) so as to steady the aim and
take up the force of recoil, that from this the name _Hakenbuhse_
spread till it became the generic name for small arms, and that the
original form of the weapon then took the name of _arquebus a croc_. The
French form _arquebuse_ and Italian _arcobugio_, _archibugio_, often and
wrongly supposed to indicate the hackbut's affinity with the crossbow
("hollow bow" or "mouthed bow"), are popular corruptions, the Italian
being apparently the earlier of the two and supplanting the first and
purest French form _haquebut_. Previous to the French wars in Italy,
hand-gun men and even arbalisters seem to have been called arquebusiers,
but in the course of these wars the arquebus or hackbut came into
prominence as a distinct type of weapon. The Spanish arquebusiers, who
used it with the greatest effect in the Italian wars, notably at Bicocca
(1522) and Pavia (1525), are the originators of modern infantry fire
action. Filippo Strozzi made many improvements in the arquebus about
1530, and his weapons were effective up to four and five hundred paces.
He also standardized the calibres of the arquebuses of the French army,
and from this characteristic feature of the improved weapon arose the
English term "caliver." In the latter part of the 16th century (c. 1570)
the arquebus began to be displaced by the musket.
ARQUES-LA-BATAILLE, a village of France, in the department of
Seine-Inferieure, 4 m. S.E. of Dieppe by the Western railway. Pop.
(1906) 1250. Arques is situated near the confluence of the rivers
Varenne and Bethune; the forest of Arques stretches to the north-east.
The interest of the place centres in the castle dominating the town,
which was built in the 11th century by William of Arques; his nephew,
William the Conqueror, regarding it as a menace to his own power,
besieged and occupied it. After frequently changing hands, it came into
the possession of the English, who were expelled in 1449 after an
occupation of thirty years. In 1589 its cannon decided the battle of
Arques in favour of Henry IV. Since 1869 the castle has been state
property. The first line of fortification was the work of Francis I.;
the second line and the donjon date back to the 11th century. The church
of Arques, a building of the 16th century, preserves a fine stone rood
screen, statuary, stained glass and other relics of the Renaissance
period.
ARRACK, RACK or RAK, a generic name applied to a variety of spirituous
liquors distilled in the Far East. According to some authorities the
word is derived from the Arabic _arak_ (perspiration), but according to
others (see Morewood's _History of Inebriating Liquors_, 1834, p. 140)
it is derived from the _areca-nut_, a material from which a variety of
arrack was long manufactured, and is of Indian origin. The liquor to
which this or a similar name is applied is (or was, since the
introduction of European spirits and methods of manufacture is gradually
causing the native spirit industries on the old lines to decay)
manufactured in India, Ceylon, Siam, Java, Batavia, China, Corea, &c.,
and its manufacture still constitutes a considerable industry. The term
arrack as designating a distilled liquor does not, however, appear to
have been confined to the Far East, as, in Timkowski's _Travels_, it is
stated that a spirit distilled from koumiss (q.v.) by the Tatars,
Mongols and presumably the Caucasian races generally, is called _arrack,
araka or ariki_. In Ceylon arrack is distilled chiefly from palm toddy,
which is the fermented juice drawn from the unexpanded flower-spathes of
various palms, such as the Palmyra palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_) and
the cocoa palm (_Cocos nucifera_). At the beginning of the 19th century
the arrack industry of Ceylon was of considerable dimensions, whole
woods being set apart for no other purpose than that of procuring toddy,
and the distillation of the spirit took place at every village round the
coast. The land rents in 1831 included a sum of L35,573 on the cocoa-nut
trees, and the duties on the manufacture and retail of the spirit
amounted to over L30,000. On the Indian continent arrack is made from
palm toddy, rice and the refuse of the sugar refineries, but mainly from
the flowers of the muohwa or mahua tree (_Bassia latifolia_). The mahua
flowers are very rich in sugar, and may, according to H.H. Mann, contain
as much as 58% of fermentable sugar, calculated on the total solids.
Even at the present day the process of manufacture is very primitive,
the fermentation as a rule being carried on in so concentrated a liquid
that complete fermentation rarely takes place. According to Mann, the
total sugar in the liquor ready for fermentation may reach 20%. The
ferment employed (it is so impure that it can scarcely be called yeast)
is obtained from a previous fermentation, and, as the latter is never
vigorous, it is not surprising that the resulting spirit contains,
compared with the more scientifically prepared European spirits, a very
high proportion of by-products (acid, fusel oil, &c.). The injurious
nature of these native spirits has long been known and has been
frequently set down to the admixture of drugs, such as hemp (_ganga_),
but a recent investigation of this question appears to show that this is
not generally the case. The chemical constitution of these liquors alone
affords sufficient proof of their inferior and probably injurious
character.
See H.H. Mann, _The Analyst_ (1904).
ARRAH, a town of British India, headquarters of Shahabad district, in
the Patna division of Bengal, situated on a navigable canal connecting
the river Sone with the Ganges. It is a station on the East Indian
railway, 368 m. from Calcutta. In 1901 the population was 40,170. Arrah
is famous for an incident in the Mutiny, when a dozen Englishmen, with
50 Sikhs, defended an ordinary house against 2000 Sepoys and a multitude
of armed insurgents, perhaps four times that number. A British regiment,
despatched to their assistance from Dinapur, was disastrously repulsed;
but they were ultimately relieved, after eight days' continuous
fighting, by a small force under Major (afterwards Sir Vincent) Eyre.
ARRAIGNMENT (from Lat. _ad_, to, and _rationare_, to reason, call to
account), a law term, properly denoting the calling of a person to
answer in form of law upon an indictment. After a true bill has been
found against a prisoner by the grand jury, he is called by name to the
bar, the indictment is read over to him, and he is asked whether he be
guilty or not of the offence charged. This is the arraignment. Formerly,
it was usual to require the prisoner to hold up his hand, in order to
identify him the more completely, but this practice is now obsolete, as
well as that of asking him how he will be tried. His plea in answer to
the charge is then entered, or a plea of not guilty is entered for him
if he stands mute of malice and refuses to plead, If a person is mute by
the visitation of God (i.e. deaf and dumb), it will be no bar to an
arraignment if intelligence can be conveyed to him by signs or symbols.
If he pleads guilty, sentence may be passed forthwith; if he pleads not
guilty, he is then given in charge to a jury of twelve men to inquire
into the truth of the indictment. He may also plead in abatement, or to
the jurisdiction, or demur on a point of law. Several defendants, except
those entitled to the privilege of peerage, charged on the same
indictment, are arraigned together.
In Scots law the term for arraignment is _calling the diet_.
The _Clerk of Arraigns_ is a subordinate officer attached to assize
courts and to the Old Bailey. He is appointed by the clerk of assize
(see ASSIZE) and acts as his deputy. He assists at the arraignment of
prisoners, and puts the formal questions to the jury when delivering
their verdict.
ARRAN, EARLS OF. The extinct Scottish title of the earls of Arran (not
to be confused with the modern Irish earls of Arran--from the Arran or
Aran Islands, Galway--a title created in 1762) was borne by some famous
characters in Scottish history. Except the first earl, Thomas Boyd (see
ARRAN), and James Stewart, all the holders of this title were members of
the Hamilton family.
JAMES HAMILTON, 1st earl of Arran of the new creation (c. 1475-1529),
son of James, 1st Lord Hamilton, and of Mary Stewart, daughter of James
II. of Scotland, was born about 1475, and succeeded in 1479 to his
father's titles and estates. In 1489 he was made sheriff of Lanark, was
appointed a privy councillor to James IV., and in 1503 negotiated in
England the marriage between the king and Margaret Tudor. Hamilton
excelled in the knightly exercises of the day, and the same year on the
11th of August, after distinguishing himself in a famous tournament, he
was created earl and justiciary of Arran. In 1504 as lieutenant-general
of the realm he was employed in reducing the Hebrides, and about the
same time in an expedition with 10,000 men in aid of John, king of
Denmark. In 1507 he was sent ambassador to France, and on his return
through England was seized and imprisoned by Henry VII. After the
accession of Henry VIII., Arran, in 1509, signed the treaty of peace
between the two countries, and later, when hostilities began, was given
command of a great fleet equipped for the aid of France in 1513. The
expedition proved a failure, Arran wasting time by a useless attack on
Carrickfergus, lingering for months on the Scottish coast, and returning
with a mere remnant of his fleet, the larger ships having probably been
purchased by the French government. During his absence the battle of
Flodden had been lost, and Arran found his rival Angus, who enjoyed
Henry's support, married to the queen dowager and in control of the
government. Arran naturally turned to the French party and supported the
regency of the duke of Albany. Later, however, becoming impatient of the
latter's monopoly of power, he entered into various plots against him,
and on Albany's departure in 1517 he was chosen president of the council
of regency and provost of Edinburgh. The same year he led an expedition
to the border to punish the murderers of the French knight La Bastie. In
September, however, after a temporary absence with the young king, the
gates of Edinburgh were shut against him by the Douglases, and on the
30th of April 1520 the fierce fight of "Cleanse the Causeway" took place
in the streets between the two factions, in which the Hamiltons were
worsted. The quarrel, however, between Angus and his wife, the
queen-mother, with whom Arran now allied himself, gave the latter
another opportunity of regaining power, which he held from 1522, after
Albany's return to France, till 1524, when he was forced to include
Angus in the government. In 1526, on the refusal of the latter to give
up his control of the king on the expiry of his term of office, Arran
took up arms, but retreated before Angus's forces, and having made terms
with him, supported him in his close custody of the king, in September
defeating the earl of Lennox, who was marching to Edinburgh to liberate
James. On the proscription of Angus and the Douglases, Arran joined the
king at Stirling. He died in 1529. His eldest son James succeeded him.
JAMES HAMILTON, 2nd earl of Arran and duke of Chatelherault (c.
1515-1575), accompanied James V. in 1536 to France, and on the latter's
death in 1542 was, in consequence of his position as next successor to
the throne after the infant Mary, proclaimed protector of the realm and
heir-presumptive of the crown, in 1543. He was a zealous supporter of
the reformation, authorized the translation and reading of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and at first supported the English
policy in opposition to Cardinal Beaton, whom he arrested on the 27th of
January 1543, arranging the treaty with England and the marriage of Mary
with Prince Edward in July, and being offered by Henry the hand of the
princess Elizabeth for his son. But on the 3rd of September he suddenly
joined the French party, met Beaton at Stirling, and abjured his
religion for Roman Catholicism. On the 13th of January 1544, with Angus,
Lennox and others, he signed a bond repudiating the English alliance. In
1544 an attempt was made to transfer the regency from him to Mary of
Lorraine, but Arran fortified Edinburgh and her forces retired; in March
1545 a truce was arranged by which each had a share in the government.
Meanwhile, immediately on the repudiation of the treaty, war had broken
out with England, and Arran was unable either to maintain order within
the realm or defend it from outside aggression, the Scots being defeated
at Pinkie on the 10th of September 1547. He reluctantly agreed in July
1548 to the marriage of the dauphin with Mary, whom he had designed for
his son, to the appeal for French aid, and to the removal of Mary for
security to France, and on the 5th of February 1549 was created duke of
Chatelherault in Poitou, his eldest son James being henceforth commonly
styled earl of Arran. In June 1548 he had also been made a knight of the
order of St Michael in France. On the 12th of April 1554 he abdicated in
favour of the queen-mother, whose government he supported till after the
capture of Edinburgh in October 1559 by the lords of the congregation,
when he declared himself on their side and took the Covenant. The same
month he was one of the council of the Protestant lords, joined them in
suspending Mary of Lorraine from the regency, and was made provisionally
one of the governors of the kingdom. In order to discredit him with the
English government a letter was forged by his enemies, in which Arran
declared his allegiance to Francis II., but the plot was exposed. On the
27th of February 1560 he agreed to the treaty of Berwick with Elizabeth,
which placed Scotland under her protection. The death the same year of
Francis II. renewed his hopes of a union between his son and Mary, but
disappointment drove him into an attitude of hostility to the court. In
1562 he was accused by his son, probably already insane, of plots
against Mary's person, and he was obliged to give up Dumbarton Castle.
Lennox claimed precedence over Arran in the succession to the throne, on
the plea of the latter's supposed illegitimacy, and his restoration to
favour in 1564, together with the project of Mary's marriage with
Darnley, still further embittered Arran; he refused to appear at court,
was declared a traitor, and fled to England, where on his consent to go
into exile for five years he received a pardon from Mary. In 1566 he
went to France, where he made vain attempts to regain his confiscated
duchy. After the murder of Darnley in 1567 he was nominated by Mary on
her abdication one of the regents, and he returned to Scotland in 1569
as a strong supporter of her cause. In March in an assembly of nobles
called by Murray, he acknowledged James as king, but on the 5th of April
he was arrested for not fulfilling the compact, and continued in
confinement till April 1570. After Murray's assassination in January
1570, the regency in July was given to Lennox, and in June 1571 Arran
assembled a parliament, when it was declared that Mary's abdication was
obtained by fear, and the king's coronation was annulled. On the 28th of
August he was declared a traitor and "forfeited," but he continued to
support Mary's hopeless cause and to appeal for help to France and
Spain, in spite of the pillage of his houses and estates, till February
1573, when he acknowledged James's authority and laid down his arms. He
died on the 22nd of January 1575. He was by general consent a weak,
fickle man, whose birth alone called him to high office. He married
Margaret, daughter of James Douglas, 3rd earl of Morton, and had,
besides several daughters, four sons: James, who succeeded him as 3rd
earl of Arran, John, 1st marquess of Hamilton, David, and Claud, Lord
Paisley, ancestor of the dukes of Abercorn.
JAMES HAMILTON, 3rd earl (c. 1537-1609), was styled earl of Arran after
the creation of his father as duke of Chatelherault in 1549; the latter
title did not descend to him, having been resumed by the French crown.
His father's ambition destined him for the hand of Mary queen of Scots,
and his union with the princess Elizabeth was proposed by Henry VIII. as
the price of his father's adherence to the English interest. He was
early involved in the political troubles in which Scotland was then
immersed. In 1546 he was seized as a hostage at St Andrews by the
murderers of Cardinal Beaton and released in 1547. In 1550 he went to
France, was given the command of the Scots guards, and in 1557
distinguished himself in the defence of St Quentin. He became a strong
adherent of the reformed doctrine. His arrest was ordered by Henry II.
in 1559, Mary (probably in consequence of his projected union with
Elizabeth which would have raised the Hamiltons higher than the Stuarts)
declaring her wish that he should be "used as an arrant traitor." He,
however, escaped to Geneva and then to England, and had an interview
with Elizabeth in August. He returned to Scotland in September, where he
supported his father's adherence to the lords of the Congregation
against Mary of Lorraine, upheld the alliance with Elizabeth, and became
one of the leaders of the Protestant party in the subsequent fighting,
in particular organizing, together with Lord James Stuart (afterwards
earl of Murray), in 1560, a stubborn resistance to the French at Dysart,
and saving Fife. In November 1559 he had declined Bothwell's challenge
to single combat. Subsequently he signed the treaty of Berwick, became
one of the lords of the Congregation, and was appointed a visitor for
the destruction of the religious houses. The same year proposals were
again made for his marriage with Elizabeth, which were rejected by the
latter in 1561; and subsequently after the death of Francis II. (in
December 1560), he became, with the strong support of the Protestants
and Hamiltons, a suitor for Mary, also without success. He was chosen a
member of her council on her arrival in Scotland in 1561, but took up a
hostile attitude to the court in consequence of the practice of the
Roman Catholic religion. He now showed marked signs of insanity, and was
confined in Edinburgh Castle, where he remained till May 1566. He had
then lost the power of speech, and from 1568 he lived in retirement with
his mother at Craignethan Castle, while his estates were administered by
his brother John, afterwards 1st marquess of Hamilton. In 1579, at the
time of the fresh prosecution of the Hamiltons, when the helpless Arran
was also included in the attainder of his brothers and his titles
forfeited, the castle was besieged on the pretence of delivering him
from unlawful confinement, and Arran and his mother were brought to
Linlithgow, while the charge of his estates was taken over by the
government. In 1580 James Stewart (see below) was appointed his
guardian, and in 1581 acquired the earldom; but his title and estates
were restored after Stewart's disgrace in 1586, when the forfeiture was
repealed. Arran died unmarried in March 1609, the title devolving on his
nephew James, 2nd marquess of Hamilton.
JAMES STEWART (d. 1595), the rival earl of Arran above referred to, was
the son of Andrew Stewart, 2nd Lord Ochiltree. He served in his youth
with the Dutch forces in Holland against the Spanish, and returned to
Scotland in 1579. He immediately became a favourite of the young king,
and in 1580 was made gentleman of the bedchamber and tutor of his
cousin, the 3rd earl of Arran. The same year he was the principal
accuser of the earl of Morton, and in 1581 was rewarded for having
accomplished the latter's destruction by being appointed a member of the
privy council, and by the grant the same year, to the prejudice of his
ward, of the earldom of Arran and the Hamilton estates, on the pretence
that the children of his grandmother's father, the 1st earl of Arran, by
his third wife, from whom sprang the succeeding earls of Arran, were
illegitimate. He claimed the position of second person in the kingdom as
nearest to the king by descent. The same year he married Elizabeth,
daughter of John Stewart, earl of Atholl, and wife of the earl of March,
after both had been compelled to undergo the discipline of the kirk on
account of previous illicit intercourse. He became the rival of Lennox
for the chief power in the kingdom, but both were deprived of office by
the raid of Ruthven on the 22nd of August 1582, and Arran was imprisoned
till September under the charge of the earl of Gowrie. In 1583, however,
he assembled a force of 12,000 men against the new government; the
Protestant lords escaped over the border, and Arran, returning to power,
was made governor of Stirling Castle and in 1584 lord chancellor. The
same year Gowrie was captured through Arran's treachery and executed
after the failure of the plot of the Protestant lords against the
latter's government. He now obtained the governorship of Edinburgh
Castle and was made provost of the city and lieutenant-general of the
king's forces. Arran induced the English government to refrain from
aiding the banished lords, and further secured his power by the
forfeitures of his opponents. His tyranny and insolence, however,
stirred up a multitude of enemies and caused his rapid fall from power.
His agent in England, Patrick, Master of Gray, was secretly conspiring
against him at Elizabeth's court. On account of the murder of Lord
Russell on the border in July 1585, of which he was accused by
Elizabeth, he was imprisoned at the castle of St Andrews, and
subsequently the banished lords with Elizabeth's support entered
Scotland, seized the government and proclaimed Arran a traitor. He fled
in November, and from this time his movements are furtive and uncertain.
In 1586 he was ordered to leave the country, but it is doubtful whether
he ever quitted Scotland. He contrived secretly to maintain friendly
communications with James, and in 1592 returned to Edinburgh, and
endeavoured unsuccessfully to get reinstated in the court and kirk.
Subsequently he is reported as making a voyage to Spain, probably in
connexion with James's intrigues with that country. His unscrupulous and
adventurous career was finally terminated towards the close of 1595 by
his assassination near Symontown in Lanarkshire at the hands of Sir
James Douglas (nephew of his victim the earl of Morton), who carried his
head in triumph on the point of a spear through the country, while his
body was left a prey to the dogs and swine. He had three sons, the
eldest of whom became Lord Ochiltree.
ARRAN, the largest island of the county of Bute, Scotland, at the mouth
of the Firth of Clyde. Its greatest length, from the Cock of Arran to
Bennan Head, is about 20 m., and the greatest breadth--from Drumadoon
Point to King's Cross Point--is 11 m. Its area is 105,814 acres or 165
sq. m. In 1891 its population was 4824, in 1901, 4819 (or 29 persons to
the sq. m.). In 1901 there were 1900 persons who spoke English and
Gaelic and nine Gaelic only. There is daily winter communication with
Brodick and Lamlash by steamer from Ardrossan, and in summer by many
steamers which call not only at these piers, but at Corrie, Whiting Bay
and Loch Ranza.
The chief mountains are in the north. The highest is Goatfell (2866 ft.,
the name said to be a corruption of the Gaelic _Goadh Bhein_, "mountain
of the winds"). Others are Caistel Abhail (2735 ft., "peaks of the
castles"), Beinn Tarsuinn (2706 ft.), Cir Mhor (2618 ft.) and Beinn Nuis
(2597 ft.). In the south Tighvein (1497 ft.) and Cnoc Dubh (1385 ft.)
are the most important. Owing to the mountainous character of the
island, glens are numerous. Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox are remarkable for
their wild beauty, and among others are Iorsa, Catacol, Chalmadale,
Cloy, Shant, Shurig, Tuie, Clachan, Monamore, Ashdale (with two
cascades) and Scorrodale. Excepting Loch Tanna, the inland lakes are
small. Loch Ranza, an arm of the sea, is one of the most beautiful in
Scotland. The streams, or "waters" as they are called, are nearly all
hill burns, affording good fishing.
The oldest rocks, consisting of slate, mica-schists and grits, which
have been correlated with the metamorphic series of the eastern
Highlands, form an incomplete ring round the granite in the north of the
island and occupy the whole of the west coast from Loch Ranza south to
Dougrie. On the east side in North Glen Sannox Burn, they are associated
with cherts, grits and dark schists with pillowy lavas, tuffs and
agglomerates which, on lithological grounds, have been regarded as
probably of the same age as the Arenig cherts and volcanic rocks in the
south of Scotland. The Lower Old Red Sandstone strata are separated from
the foregoing series by a fault and forma curving belt extending from
Corloch on the east coast south by Brodick Castle to Dougrie on the west
shore. Consisting of red sandstones, mudstones and conglomerates, they
are inclined at high angles usually away from the granite massif and the
encircling metamorphic rocks. They are associated with a thin band of
lava visible on the west side of the island near Auchencar and traceable
inland to Garbh Thorr. The Upper Old Red Sandstone, composed of red
sandstone and conglomerates, is only sparingly developed. The strata
occur on the east shore between the Fallen Rocks and Corrie, and they
appear along a narrow strip to the east and south of the lower division
of the system, between Sannox Bay and Dougrie. On the north side of
North Glen Sannox they rest unconformably on the Lower Old Red rocks.
Contemporaneous lavas, highly decomposed, are intercalated with this
division on the north side of North Glen Sannox where the band is highly
faulted. The Carboniferous rocks of Arran include representatives of the
Calciferous Sandstone, the three subdivisions of the Carboniferous
Limestone series, and to a small extent the Coal Measures, and are
confined to the north part of the island. They appear on the east coast
between the Fallen Rocks and the Cock of Arran, where they form a strip
about a quarter of a mile broad, bounded on the west by a fault. Here
there is an ascending sequence from the Calciferous Sandstone, through
the Carboniferous Limestone with thin coals formerly worked, to the Coal
Measures, the strata being inclined at high angles to the north. On the
south side of a well-marked anticline in the Upper Old Red Sandstone at
North Sannox, the Carboniferous strata reappear on the coast with a
south dip showing a similar ascending sequence for about half a mile.
The lower limestones are well seen at Corrie, but the thin coals are not
there represented. From Corrie they can be traced southwards and inland
to near the head of Ben Lister Glen. The small development of Upper
Carboniferous strata, visible on the shore south of Corrie and in Ben
Lister Glen, consists of sandstones, red and mottled clays and purple
shales, which yield plant-remains of Upper Carboniferous facies. These
may represent partly the Millstone Grit and partly the Coal Measures.
Contemporaneous volcanic rocks, belonging to three stages of the
Carboniferous formation, occur in Arran. The lowest group is on the
horizon of the Calciferous Sandstone series, being visible at Corrie
where it underlies the Corrie limestone, and is traceable southwards
beyond Brodick. The second is represented by a thin lava, associated
with the Upper Limestone group of the Carboniferous Limestone series,
and the highest is found in Ben Lister Glen intercalated with the Upper
Carboniferous strata, and may be the equivalent of the volcanic series
which, in Ayrshire, occupies the position of the Millstone Grit. The
Triassic rocks are arranged in two groups, a lower, composed of
conglomerates and sandstones, and an upper one consisting of red and
mottled shales and marls with thin sandstones and nodular limestones. In
the extreme north at the Cock of Arran, there is a small development of
these beds; they also occupy the whole of the east coast south of
Corrie, and they spread over the south part of the island south of a
line between Brodick Bay and Machrie Bay on the west. At Corrie and the
Cock of Arran they rest on Upper Carboniferous strata; in Ben Lister
Glen, on the lower limestone group of the Carboniferous Limestone
series; and on the west coast they repose on the Old Red Sandstone.
There is, therefore, a clear discordance between the Trias and all older
strata in Arran. The former extension of Rhaetic, Liassic and Cretaceous
formations in the island is indicated by the presence of fragments of
these strata in a large volcanic vent on the plateau, on the south side
of the road leading from Brodick to Shiskine. The fossils from the
Rhaetic beds belong to the _Avicula contorta_ zone, those from the Lias
to the _Ammonites angulatus_ zone, while the blocks of limestone with
chert contain _Inoceramus_, Cretaceous foraminifera and other organisms.
The materials yielding these fossils are embedded in a course volcanic
agglomerate which gives rise to crags and is pierced by acid and basic
igneous rocks. One of the striking features in the geology of Arran is
the remarkable series of intrusive igneous rocks of Tertiary age which
occupy nearly one-half of the area and form the wildest and grandest
scenery in the island. Of these the most important is the great oval
mass of granite in the North, composed of two varieties; one,
coarse-grained and older, forms the outside rim, while the fine-grained
and newer type occurs in the interior. Another granite area appears on
the south side of the road between Brodick and Shiskine, where it is
associated with granophyre and quartz-diorite and traverses the volcanic
vent of post-Cretaceous or Tertiary age already described. In the south
of the island there are sills and dykes of felsite, quartz-porphyry,
rhyolite, trachyte and pitchstone. The felsite sheets are well
represented in Holy Island. It is worthy of note that the dykes and
sheets of felsite are seldom pierced by the basalt dykes and are
probably about the most recent of the intrusive rocks. The best example
of the basic sills forms the Clauchland Hills and runs out to sea at
Clauchland Point. Finally the basic dykes of dolerite, basalt and
augite-andesite are abundant and traverse the various sedimentary
formations and the granite.
The chief crops are oats and potatoes. Cattle and sheep are raised in
considerable numbers. The game, which is abundant, consisting of
blackcock and grouse, is strictly preserved. A few red deer still occur
in the wilder hilly district. The fisheries are of some value. Loch
Ranza being an important station.
Standing stones, cairns and other memorials of a remote antiquity occur
near Tormore, on Machrie Bay, Lamlash, and other places. The Norse
raiders found a home in Arran for a long period until the defeat of
Haakon V. at Largs (1263) compelled them to retire. The chief name in
the island's history is that of Robert Bruce, who found shelter in the
King's Caves on the western coast. One was reputed to be his kitchen,
another his cellar, a third his stable, while the hill above was styled
the King's Hill. From a point still known as King's Cross he crossed
over to Carrick, in answer to the signal which warned him that the
moment for the supreme effort for his country was come. In Glen Cloy the
ruins of a fort bear the name of Bruce's Castle, in which his men lay
concealed, and on the southern arm of Loch Ranza stands a picturesque
ruined castle which is said to have been his hunting-seat. Kildonan
Castle, near the south-easternmost point, is a fine ruin of the 14th
century, once a royal stronghold. The island gave the title of earl to
Thomas Boyd, who married the elder sister of James III., a step so
unpopular with his peers that he had to fly the country, and the title
soon afterwards passed to the Hamiltons. Brodick Castle, the ancestral
seat of the dukes of Hamilton, is a splendid mansion on the northern
shore of Brodick Bay.
Brodick is the chief village in Arran, but most of the dwelling-houses
have been built at Invercloy, close to the pier. Three m. south (by
road) is Lamlash, on a fine bay so completely sheltered by Holy Island
as to form an excellent harbour for ships of all sizes. Four m. to the
north lies the village of Corrie which takes its name from a rugged
hollow in the hill of Am Binnein (2172 ft.) which overshadows it. Daniel
Macmillan (1813-1857), the founder of the publishing firm of Macmillan &
Co., was a native of Corrie.
About a mile and a half east of Lamlash village lies Holy Island, which
forms a natural breakwater to the bay. It is 1-3/4 m. long, nearly 3/4
m. wide, and its finely-marked basaltic cone rises to a height of 1030
ft. The island takes its name from the fact that St Molios, a disciple
of St Columba, founded a church near the north-western point. In the
saint's cave on the shore may be seen the rocky shelf on which he made
his bed, but his remains were interred in the hamlet of Clachan, some 2
m. from Blackwaterfoot. Off the south-eastern coast, 3/4 m. from Port
Dearg, lies the pear-shaped isle of Pladda, which serves as the
telegraph station from which the arrival of vessels in the Clyde is
notified to Glasgow and Greenock.
ARRANT (a variant of "errant," from Lat. _errare_, to wander), a word at
first used in its original meaning of wandering, as in "knight-errant,"
thus an arrant or itinerant preacher, an arrant thief, one outlawed and
wandering at large; the meaning easily passed to that of self-declared,
notorious, and by the middle of the 16th century was confined, as an
intensive adjective, to words of opprobrium and abuse, an arrant coward
meaning thus a self-declared, downright coward.
ARRAS, a city of northern France, chief town of the department of
Pas-de-Calais, 38 m. N.N.E. of Amiens on the Northern railway between
that city and Lille. Pop (1906) 20,738. Arras is situated in a fertile
plain on the right and southern bank of the Scarpe, at its junction with
the Crinchon which skirts the town on the south and east. Of the
fortifications erected by Vauban in the 17th century, only a gateway and
the partially dismantled citadel, nicknamed _la Belle Inutile_, are
left. The most interesting quarter lies in the east of the town, where
the lofty houses which border the spacious squares known as the Grande
and the Petite Place are in the Flemish style. They are built with their
upper storeys projecting over the footway and supported on columns so as
to form arcades; beneath these are deep cellars extending under the
squares themselves. The celebrated hotel de ville of the 16th century
overlooks the Petite Place; its belfry, which contains a fine peal of
bells, rises to a height of 240 ft. The decoration is in the richest
Gothic style, and is especially admirable in the case of the windows. Of
the numerous ecclesiastical buildings the cathedral, a church of the
18th century possessing some good pictures, is the most important. It
occupies the site of the church of the abbey of St Vaast, the buildings
of which adjoin it and contain the bishop's palace, the ecclesiastical
seminary, a museum of antiquities, paintings and sculptures, and a rich
library.
Arras is the seat of a prefect and of a bishop. It has tribunals of
first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the
Bank of France, a communal college, training colleges, and a school of
military engineering. Its industrial establishments include oil-works,
dye-works and breweries, and manufactories of hosiery, railings and
other iron-work, and of oil-cake. For the tapestry manufacture formerly
flourishing at Arras see TAPESTRY. It has a very important market for
cereals and oleaginous grains. The trade of the town is facilitated by
the canalization of the Scarpe, the basin of which forms the port.
Before the opening of the Christian era Arras was known as _Nemetacum_,
or _Nemetocenna_, and was the chief town of the Atrebates, from which
the word Arras is derived. Passing under the rule of the Romans, it
became a place of some importance, and traces of the Roman occupation
have been found. In 407 it was destroyed by the Vandals, and having been
partially rebuilt, came into the hands of the Franks. Christianity was
introduced by St Vedast (Vaast), who founded a bishopric at Arras about
500. This was soon transferred to Cambrai, but brought back to its
original seat about 1100. As the chief town of the province of Artois,
Arras passed to Baldwin I., count of Flanders, in 863, and about 880 was
ravaged by the Normans. During this troubled period it retained some
vestiges of its former trade, and the woollen manufacture was
established here at an early date. Early in the 12th century a commune
was established here, but the earliest known charter only dates from
about 1180; owing to the importance of Arras, this soon became a model
for many neighbouring communes. At this time the city appears to have
been divided into two parts, one dependent upon the bishop, and the
other upon the count. When Philip Augustus, king of France, married
Isabella, niece of Philip, count of Flanders, Arras came under the rule
of the French king, who confirmed its privileges in 1194. As part of
Artois it came in 1237 to Robert, son of Louis VIII., king of France,
and in 1384 to Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who promised to
respect its privileges. Anxious to recover the city for France, Louis
XI. placed a garrison therein after the death of Charles the Bold, duke
of Burgundy, in 1477. This was driven out by the inhabitants, and Louis
then stormed Arras, razed the walls, deported the citizens, whose places
were taken by Frenchmen, and changed the name to _Franchise_. The
successor of Louis, Charles VIII., restored the city to its former name
and position, and as part of the inheritance of Mary, daughter and
heiress of Charles the Bold, it was contended for by the French king,
and his rival, the German king, Maximilian I. The peace of Senlis in
1493 gave Arras to Maximilian, and in spite of attacks by the French, it
remained under the rule of the Habsburgs until 1640. Taken in this year
by the French, this capture was ratified by the peace of the Pyrenees in
1659, and henceforward it remained part of France. It suffered severely
during the French Revolution, especially from Joseph Lebon, who, like
the brothers Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre, was a native of the
town. Owing to its position and importance, Arras has been the scene of
various treaties. In 1414 the peace between the Armagnacs and the
Burgundians was made here, and in 1435 a congress met here to make peace
between the English and their Burgundian allies on the one side, and the
French on the other, and after the English representatives had
withdrawn, a treaty was signed on the 20th of September between France
and Burgundy. In 1482 Louis XI. made a treaty here with the estates and
towns of Flanders about the inheritance of Mary of Burgundy, wife of the
German king Maximilian I.
See E. Lecesne, _Histoire d'Arras jusqu'en 1789_ (Arras, 1880); _Arras
sous la Revolution_ (Arras, 1882-1883).
ARRAY (from the O. Fr. _areyer_, Med. Lat. _arredare_, to get ready), an
orderly arrangement, particularly the drawing up of an army in position
of battle. From the 13th century onwards in England "Commissions of
Array" issued from the king for the levy of military forces (see
MILITIA). In English law the term is used for the setting in order, name
by name, of the panel of a jury, which may be challenged as a whole, "to
the array," or individually, "to the polls."
ARRENOTOKOUS, ARRENOTOKY (from Gr. [Greek: arraen], male, and [Greek:
tokos] from [Greek: tiktein], to beget), biological terms proposed by
Leuckart and Eduard von Siebold to denote those parthenogenetic females
which produce male young, while "thelytokous" and "thelytoky" would
denote their producing female young.
ARREST (Fr. _arrester, arreter_, to stop or stay), the restraint of a
man's person, for the purpose of compelling him to be obedient to the
law. It is defined to be the execution of the command of some court of
record or officer of justice.
Arrests in England are either in civil or in criminal cases.
I. _In Civil Cases._--The arrest must be by virtue of a precept or order
out of some court, and must be effected by corporal seizing or touching
the defendant's body, or as directed by the writ, _capias et attachias_,
take and catch hold of. And if the defendant make his escape it is a
_rescous_, or rescue, and attachment may be had against him, and the
bailiff may then justify the breaking open of the house in which he is,
to carry him away.
_Arrests on mesne process_ (see PROCESS), before judgment obtained, were
abolished by the Debtors Act 1869, s. 6; an exception, however, is made
in cases in which the plaintiff proves, at any time before final
judgment, by evidence on oath to the satisfaction of a judge of one of
the superior courts, that he has a good cause of action to the amount of
L50, that the defendant is about to quit the country, and that his
absence will materially prejudice the plaintiff in prosecuting his
action. In such cases an order for arrest may be obtained till security
to the amount of the claim be found.
Formerly a judgment creditor might arrest his debtor under a writ of
_capias ad satisfaciendum_, but since 1869 imprisonment for debt has
been abolished in England, except in certain cases, and in these the
period of detention must not exceed one year.
The following persons are privileged from arrest, viz., 1st, members of
the royal family and the ordinary servants of the king or queen regnant,
chaplains, lords of the bedchamber, &c. This privilege does not extend
to servants of a consort queen or dowager. 2nd, peers of the realm,
peeresses by birth, creation or marriage, Scottish and Irish peers and
peeresses. 3rd, members of the House of Commons during the session of
parliament, and for a convenient time (forty days) before and after it.
Members of Convocation appear to have the same privilege. 4th, foreign
ambassadors and their "domestics and domestic servants." Temporary
privilege from arrest in civil process is enjoyed by barristers
travelling on circuit, by parties, witnesses or attorneys connected with
a cause, and by clergymen whilst performing divine service.
The arrest of any privileged person is irregular _ab initio_, and the
party may be discharged on motion. The only exception is as to
indictable crimes, such as treason, felony and breach of the peace.
There are no longer any places where persons are privileged from arrest,
such as the Mint, Savoy, Whitefriars, &c., on the ground of their being
ancient palaces.
Except in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace, an arrest
cannot be made on a Sunday, and if made it is void (Sunday Observance
Act 1677); but it may be made in the night as well as in the day.
II. _In Criminal Cases._--All persons whatsoever are, without
distinction, equally liable to this arrest, and any man may arrest
without warrant or precept, and outer doors may be broken open for that
purpose. The arrest may be made,--1st, by warrant; 2nd, by an officer
without warrant; 3rd, by a private person without warrant; or, 4th, by a
hue and cry.
1. Warrants are ordinarily granted by justices of the peace on
information or complaint in writing and upon oath, and they must be
indorsed when it is intended they should be executed in another county
by a magistrate of that county (see Indictable Offences Act 1848). A
warrant issued by a metropolitan police magistrate can be executed
anywhere by a metropolitan police officer. Warrants are also granted in
cases of treason or other offence affecting the government by the privy
council, or one of the secretaries of state, and also by the chief or
other justice of the court of king's bench (_bench-warrant_) in cases of
felony, misdemeanour or indictment found, or criminal information
granted in that court. Every warrant ought to specify the offence
charged, the authority under which the arrest is to be made, the person
who is to execute it and the person who is to be arrested. A warrant
remains in force till executed or discharged by order of a court. An
officer may break open doors in order to execute a warrant in cases of
treason, felony or indictable offences, provided that, on demand,
admittance cannot otherwise be obtained. (See WARRANT.)
2. The officers who may arrest without warrant are,--justices of the
peace, for felony or breach of the peace committed in their presence;
the sheriff and the coroner in their county, for felony; constables, for
treason, felony or breach of the peace committed in their view,--and
within the metropolitan police district they have even larger powers
(Metropolitan Police Acts 1829-1895).
3. A private person is bound to arrest for a felony committed in his
presence, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. By the Prevention of
Offences Act 1851, a private person is allowed to arrest any one whom he
finds committing an indictable offence by night, and under the Malicious
Damage Act 1861, any person committing an offence against that act may
be arrested without warrant by the owner of the property damaged, or his
servants, or persons authorized by him. So, too, by the Coinage Offences