ARMY

ARMY (from Fr. armee, Lat. arinata),- 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 I 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,

Charles Francis Atkinson
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition Volume II pgs 592-625

GENERAL HISTORY -

1. Early Armies

—It is only with the evolution of the speedily 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 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 (ôirXLr~), 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 over whelming 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'élite 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 (6.-y~j.~a), a body of heavy cavalry composed of chosen Macedonians, the line cavalry of Macedonia (~raIpot) 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 Mace donian 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 re sembled 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 Tuiius 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 (equitcs) 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, hut 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, § 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 programe 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 régime 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 Foederali 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 the 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 (burgs) 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 huscaries (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 caries, and the contingents of the fyrd under the local the gns; 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 equaled up to the most modern times. The foederati disappeared after the time of Justinian, and by AD. óoo 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 meitier 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 f or 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 milte 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 pikemen. The greatest importance i 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 t5th 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 practiced 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 occasicn (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'ar gent, 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” (Fähnlein) 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 comets. The Reiter tactics of the pistol were followed by the latter, the former consisted of pikes, halberds 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 Banér, 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.