This process originated in Italy, where the rivalry of the trading republics caused them to engage Swiss, English, and other mercenaries to fight their neighbours. Hence we find that military organization in its modern form originated in Italy, and that in consequence most military terms are derived from Italian, as may be seen in such words as infantry, cavalry, colonel, squadron, battalion, regiment. This nomenclature was definitely adopted by the French after their invasion of Italy in 1496, and, through French, has passed into universal use. Thus, by 1524, we find Colonel used in France, whence it reached England in the time of Elizabeth, along with Regiment, Cavalry, and Infantry.
Permanent regular forces are first found in France near the end of the fifteenth century, when the King raised Companies of men-at-arms (gens d’armes) or armoured horsemen, and of foot archers and halberdiers, of whom his Scottish Guards were the finest type. Up to that time the “Lance”—that is, the fully armoured knight with his retinue of a squire, a page, and three or four mounted men—formed the principal element of every military force. A number of such independent Lances, jealous of each other, and untrained to act together, could not be organized in the modern sense. Besides these mounted men, there was usually a mass of men on foot unarmoured and ill-armed, undisciplined and untrained. In feudal times it was only the English archers, the Genoese crossbowmen, and the Swiss halberdiers who had the discipline and training to make them of any account as Infantry.
The word company in its military sense denoted originally the gathering of feudal retainers who followed their lord to the wars; it then came to mean the band who obeyed a Captain (caput, head), some noted leader among the mercenaries from whom regular armies sprang. The word company is derived from the Old French compainie, the Latin companion-em (companion), from cum-pane (with bread), implying an intimate association of men in one mess.
The Company of Horse was soon differentiated from that of Foot, by being called a Troop—a word of uncertain origin, by some connected with turba (a crowd), by others with the root of the Teutonic treiben (drive), and akin to a drove.
The strength of a Company was at first indefinite, and amounted to some hundreds of men, but it was gradually made smaller, so as to be more flexible and mobile. The practice of the most successful leaders finally reduced it to a definite body of about a hundred men, which it was found was the largest number which could with certainty be reached by the voice, and commanded by one man, in battle.
This strength of one hundred men was that of a Company of the Scottish Guards in France, and is found in England in the troops and companies of the army of Henry VIII.; it is still that of our Companies to-day.
The assemblage of a number of Companies and Troops made up the Army (from the French Armée, Italian Armata, or armed host). Its Commander (Old French Commandaire, Late Latin Commandator, a word which occurs in English in the fourteenth century) was styled the King’s Constable (Comes Stabuli, or Master of the Horse), a dignity as old as the early Frankish Kings. His Second-in-Command was the Marshal (Old French Mareschal, Late Latin Mariscalcus, from Teutonic mara, horse, and skalk, servant). Down to our day the title of the highest military rank in France has always been Maréchal de France. But there was also a Maréchal de Camp of lower rank, only immediately senior to a Colonel, so that the Germans made a mistake when, in the eighteenth century, they translated the latter, and not the former, title, and called their highest rank of Officer Feld-Marschal, which we have adopted as Field-Marshal. The difference between the two titles may be exemplified by Marshal Belleisle’s remark on Montcalm’s exploit at Ticonderoga: “If it were possible for the King to make a Maréchal de Camp a Maréchal de France, he would do it for Montcalm.”
The term Constable for the Supreme Commander soon dropped out, and was replaced by Marshal, and later by Captain-General, which lasted down to Marlborough’s time. The word Commander-in-Chief, which does not occur in English till the middle of the seventeenth century, came into use as the official title early in the eighteenth.
The Regiment
It had become usual by the sixteenth century to raise soldiers by larger bodies than the Company or Troop, and these were called Regiments, from being under the regiment, or rule, of one man. This officer was called the Oberst, or uppermost man, in Germany, but in other countries the Colonel. This word comes from the Italian Colonello (little column), which perhaps meant the leading Company, or that of the Colonel. In Spanish it is Coronel, which seems to have given rise to our pronunciation of the word.