The field batteries are composed of 8 guns, the horse batteries of 6. The ordinary army corps is made up of 2 divisions, a howitzer division and one battalion of sappers, and has a fighting strength of approximately 32,000 men. The rifle brigades form separate organizations of 8 battalions with 3 batteries attached. The Cossacks, who hold their lands by military tenure, are liable to service for life, and provide their own equipment and horses. At 19 their training begins; at 21 they enter the active regiment of their district; at 25 they go into what is termed the "second category" regiment, and at 29 the "third category" regiment, followed by 5 years in the reserve. After 25 years of age, their training is 3 weeks yearly. In European Russia the field army consists of the Imperial Guard and Grenadier Corps, 27 line army corps and 20 cavalry divisions; in the Caucasus of 3 army corps and 4 cavalry divisions. The Asiatic army is composed of Russians with a few Turkoman irregular horse, and is mainly stationed in East Siberia. Since the Russian-Japanese war these forces have been increased and reorganized into a strong army which, at the outbreak, was capable of mobilizing, together with auxiliary troops, more than 200,000 men.
The small-arm of the infantry is the "3-line" rifle of the 1901 model. It has a magazine holding five cartridges, a caliber of .299 inches, a muzzle velocity of 2,035 foot seconds, and is sighted to 3,000 yards. The arm of the cavalry and Cossacks has a barrel 2-3/4 inches shorter, but uses the same ammunition, and is provided with a bayonet which no other mounted troops use. The field piece is a Krupp rapid-fire, shielded gun, of the 1902 model, with a muzzle velocity of 1,950 foot seconds, the shell weighing 13-1/2 pounds.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARIAN ARMY.
There are 472,716 men in the army of Austria-Hungary during times of peace, with a war strength of 1,360,000 soldiers. Military service is universal and compulsory, beginning at the age of 19 years, and ending at the age of 43 years. The term of service in the common or active arm of the service is for two years in the case of the infantry and three years in the cavalry and horse artillery.
There is a Landwehr, or first reserve, in which the term of service is 10 years in the infantry, and seven for the cavalry or horse artillery, which service is followed by that in the Landsturm, or second reserve, in which the soldier serves until his forty-second birthday. Hungary possesses a separate and distinct Landwehr and Landsturm, which constitute the Hungarian National army. There is also a supplementary reserve intended to maintain the units of the common army at full strength.
The Empire is divided into 16 army corps districts, each presumed to furnish a complete army corps of two divisions to the active army. Every infantry division is composed of two brigades of 8 battalions each, 1 artillery brigade and 10 batteries of six guns, a regiment of cavalry, and a rifle battalion. The army corps also contains a regiment of field artillery or howitzers, a pioneer battalion and a pontoon company, and numbers about 34,000 combatants.
There are 6 permanent cavalry divisions, each made up of 2 brigades—24 squadrons, 3 batteries of horse artillery and a machine-gun detachment numbering about 4,000 men. It is estimated that the war strength is, active army, 1,360,000; Austrian Landwehr, 240,000; Hungarian Landwehr, 220,000; Landsturm, 2,000,000 and reserve of 500,000, or a grand total of 4,300,000.
The infantry carries the Mannlicher magazine rifle, .315-caliber and a cavalry carbine of the same make. The field gun is a Krupp which uses a 14-1/2-pound shrapnel and the field howitzer is a 10.5 centimeter piece which fires a 30-pound shell. The Hungarian cavalry is accounted fine, but the main force is not regarded as efficient as the German or French.
THE ITALIAN ARMY.
The army of Italy on a peace footing is only about 250,860 men, exclusive of the troops in Africa, but the country is able to mobilize a large force, and some of its branches of service are the most efficient in the world. Service is compulsory and general, beginning at the age of 20 years. After two years in the standing army there are six years in the reserve, four years in what is known as the mobile militia and seven years in the territorial militia.