THE STORY
OF
THE BRITISH ARMY
CHAPTER I
THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE—TO 1100
All nations have passed, more or less, through the same stages in the up-growth of that military system which is as essential to the political security of the mass as the formation of a police force is necessary for the protection of the individual in civil life. From the outset, the history of human existence has been one of combat.
First, in the earliest of primeval days, archaic man had to contend with mammoth, cave bear, and all the host of extinct mammals primarily for food, and then for safety when the need for clearing them away became more and more apparent as population increased. With this increase in numbers grew also the instinctive hostility between man and man. The desire for conquest is one of his strongest attributes. The stronger has always tried to make the weaker subservient; and as time went on, that desire was accentuated by the wish to possess the women or slaves—the terms were then synonymous—of the weaker family.
It was no mere poetic statement, therefore, that the head of a patriarchal household felt safe with a body of stalwart sons, and was not afraid “to speak with his enemy in the gate.” That old-world text tells volumes, behind which lie sinister pages and details of family feud and rapine.
But families segregated together and became tribes; these in their turn formed clans under a general head, and this led to the further development of inter-tribal and clannish contest, of which the greater wars of the present time are the natural outcome.
Still, throughout all this pre-historic or semi-historic time, there was no organisation of what is called an army. Every able-bodied male was bound to join in the defence of his poor village or district, or, on the other hand, to acquiesce in the general desire of a more courageous or dominant group, and share in the attack on, and despoiling of, some other group weaker or richer than itself. A king of men, a stronger soul, a man with more ambition or more boundless energy than his compeers, carried his fellows, by the divine right of leadership, to war. Except as a consequence of his greater bravery, he stood in no one place higher than those he led. The fighting was individual. There were no tactics; there was no systematic military organisation. All fought singly, with a view to the common end of success.
It was only when the character of arms themselves advanced, as civilisation and greater inter-dependence of peoples increased, as communication from point to point improved, rendering combined operations possible, that systematic war began. Even then, there was much of the personal element in the matter. The known chief planted his standard, and round it gathered, at first, a mass of subordinate units, led by their chosen sub-chiefs. But even this was the beginning of greater things. Organisation, on which the real art of war depends, had arisen. The chief now directed subordinate commanders, and command became subdivided. He no longer led only; he directed, in addition to infusing courage into his men by his personal bravery.