There is compulsory training in both the reserve and the territorial militia, ranging from two weeks to six weeks. In organization each division of the army consists of 2 brigades composed of 2 regiments, comprising 3 battalions, together with a regiment of field artillery, with 5 batteries. The division has a war strength of 14,156 officers and men and 30 guns. The cavalry division comprises 2 brigades of 4 regiments and 2 horse batteries. Each army corps has two divisions in which are included a regiment of field artillery, 3 heavy batteries, a regiment of cavalry and one of light infantry.
There is available for army service the military police, known as the Carabinieri, besides the aeronautical corps, with half a dozen or more companies, 30 aeroplanes and a dozen airships. There are also the frontier troops organized for defense of the mountains, and which troops waged heroic and picturesque warfare in the mountain passes. There are in these troops 8 regiments of Alpine infantry, comprising 26 battalions, and 2 regiments of 36 mountain batteries.
The army strength approximates 2,600,000, made up of 700,000 active army, 400,000 mobile militia, which is the second line of defense, and the territorial militia, about 1,500,000. The infantry is armed with a magazine rifle of 6.5 millimeters caliber known as the Mannlicher Carcano, but up to the beginning of the war the territorials used a different type.
GREAT BRITAIN'S ARMY.
The military establishment of Great Britain consists of the Regular army and the Territorial army, aside from the Indian army and the local forces in the various colonies. These armies are recruited from youth between the ages of 18 and 25 years, who are recruited by voluntary enlistment. The enlistment period is for 12 years, although it can be prolonged under certain circumstances to 21 years.
Three to nine years is the period with the colors, and the remainder of the enlistment is with the Army Reserve. Many men elect to serve seven years with the colors and five with the reserve. Recruits are subjected to five months' training, and each year are called out for six weeks, supplemented by six days' musketry practice for the infantry.
The Home army consists of 9,740 officers and 172,610 men, the Army Reserve of 147,000 and the Special Reserve of 80,120, and the Territorial army of 313,485, a total of 724,955 men. Raised to war strength, these forces would number 29,330 officers, 772,000 men and 2,072 guns, the batteries being of six guns, except the heavy batteries and those of the Territorial army, which have four. During the Boer War England put more than 1,000,000 men in the field.
The United Kingdom is divided into seven "commands," and the London district, all of which include from two to three territorial divisions, and one to four territorial cavalry brigades, in addition to detachments of varying size from the Regular army. Two nearly full divisions are stationed at Aldershot and in Ireland, one complete division in the Southern and one in the Eastern "command." There are also six aeroplane squadrons, each with 18 aeroplanes.
The Lee-Enfield rifle, caliber .303, is the arm of the infantry and cavalry. In the Regular army the field artillery has an 18-pounder Armstrong gun, the horse artillery a 13-pounder, the field howitzers are 40-pounders, and the heavy batteries are armed with 60-pounders.
The Territorial army was organized along the lines of the American militia, and could scarcely be expected to distinguish itself when pitted against the German regulars.