Comparative Strength of Various Armies
(a) Compulsory Service (1906).
| France. | Germany. | Russia. | Austria- Hungary. | Italy. | |
| Annual Contingent for the Colours | 230,000 | 222,000 | 254,000 | 128,000 | 83,000 |
| Medically unfit and exempt | 90,000 | 127,000 | 120,000 | 57,000 | 110,000 |
| Excused from Service in Peace, able-bodied | · · | 291,000 | 606,000 | 285,000 | 122,000 |
| Total of Men becoming liable for service in 1907 | 320,000 | 540,000 | 980,000 | 470,000 | 315,000 |
| Total Permanent Armed Force in Peace | 610,000 (not includ- ding colonial troops) | 610,000 | 1,226,000 | 356,000 | 269,000 |
| First-Line Troops, war-strength (estimated) | 1,350,000 | 1,675,000 | 2,187,000 | 950,000 | 800,000 |
| Second-Line Troops, war-strength (estimated) | 3,000,000 | 2,275,000 | 1,429,000 | 1,450,000 | 1,150,000 |
| Numbers available in excess of these (estimated) | 450,000 | 3,950,000 | 9,384,000 | 5,000,000 | 1,200,000 |
| Total War Resources of all kinds | 4,800,000 | 7,900,000 | 13,000,000 | 7,400,000 | 3,150,000 |
| Annual Military Expenditure—total | £27,720,000 | £32,228,000 | £36,080,000 | £15,840,000 | £11,280,000 |
| Annual Military Expenditure—per head of population (approx.) | 13s. 9d. | 10s. 9d. | 5s. 3d. | 6s. 8d. | 6s. 5d. |
(b) Authorized Establishments and Approximate Military Resources of the British Empire (1906-1907).
| British Regular Army. | Reserves for Regular Army. | Auxiliary Forces. | Native Troops (Regular, Reserve, &c.). | Colonial Forces various. | Total. | |
| Great Britain | 117,000 | 120,000 | 500,000 | · · | · · | 737,000 |
| Channel Islands, Malta, Bermuda, Colonies and Dependencies | 65,000 | · · | 6,000 | · · | 30,000 | 101,000 |
| India | 75,000 | · · | 30,000 | 202,000 | · · | 307,000 |
| Canadian Forces | · · | · · | 46,000 | · · | 59,000 (reserves) | 105,000 |
| Australian Forces (including New Zealand) | · · | · · | 70,000 (appr.) | · · | · · | 70,000 |
| South African Forces | · · | · · | 20,000 (appr.) | · · | · · | 20,000 |
| Totals | 257,000 | 120,000 | 672,000 | 202,000 | 89,000 | 1,340,000 |
Note.—Ex-soldiers of regular and auxiliary forces, still fit for service, and estimated levées en masse, are not counted. Enlistment chiefly voluntary.
(c) The Regular Army of the United States has a maximum authorized establishment (1906) of 60,000 enlisted men; the Organized Militia was at the same date 110,000 strong. Voluntary enlistment throughout. (See [United States].) In 1906-1907 the total numbers available for a levée en masse were estimated at 13,000,000.
British Army
60. Prior to the Norman Conquest the armed force of England was essentially a national militia. Every freeman was bound to bear arms for the defence of the country, or for the maintenance of order. To give some organization and training to the levy, the several sheriffs had authority to call out the contingents of their shires for exercise. The “fyrd,” as the levy was named, was available for home service only, and could not be moved even from its county except in the case of emergency; and it was principally to repel oversea invasions that its services were required. Yet even in those days the necessity of some more permanent force was felt, and bodies of paid troops were maintained by the kings at their own cost. Thus Canute and his successors, and even some of the great earls kept up a household force (huscarles). The English army at Hastings consisted of the fyrd and the corps of huscarles.
The English had fought on foot; but the mailed horseman had now become the chief factor in war, and the Conqueror introduced into England the system of tenure by knight-service familiar in Normandy. This was based on the unit of the feudal host, the constabularia of ten knights, the Conqueror granting lands in return for finding one or more of these units (in the case of great barons) or some fraction of them (in the case of lesser tenants). The obligation was to provide knights to serve, with horse and arms, for forty days in each year at their own charges. This obligation could be handed on by sub-enfeoffment through a whole series of under-tenants. The system being based, not on the duty of personal service, but on the obligation to supply one or more knights (or it might be only the fraction of a knight), it was early found convenient to commute this for a money payment known as “scutage” (see [Knight Service] and [Scutage]). This money enabled the king to hire mercenaries, or pay such of the feudal troops as were willing to serve beyond the usual time. From time to time proclamations and statutes were issued reminding the holders of knights’ fees of their duties; but the immediate object was generally to raise money rather than to enforce personal service, which became more and more rare. The feudal system had not, however, abrogated the old Saxon levies, and from these arose two national institutions—the posse comitatus, liable to be called out by the sheriff to maintain the king’s peace, and later the militia (q.v.). The posse comitatus, or power of the county, included all males able to bear arms, peers and spiritual men excepted; and though primarily a police force it was also bound to assist in the defence of the country. This levy was organized by the Assize of Arms under Henry II. (1181), and subsequently under Edward I. (1285) by the so-called “Statute of Winchester,” which determined the numbers and description of weapons to be kept by each man according to his property, and also provided for their periodical inspection. The early Plantagenets made free use of mercenaries. But the weakness of the feudal system in England was preparing, through the 12th and 13th centuries, a nation in arms absolutely unique in the middle ages. The Scottish and Welsh wars were, of course, fought by the feudal levy, but this levy was far from being the mob of unwilling peasants usual abroad, and from the fyrd came the English archers, whose fame was established by Edward I.’s wars, and carried to the continent by Edward III. Edward III. realized that there was better material to be had in his own country than abroad, and the army with which he invaded France was an army of national mercenaries, or, more simply, of English soldiers. The army at Creçy was composed exclusively of English, Welsh and Irish. From the pay list of the army at the siege of Calais (1346) it appears that all ranks, from the prince of Wales downward, were paid, no attempt being made to force even the feudal nobles to serve abroad at their own expense. These armies were raised mainly by contracts entered into “with some knight or gentleman expert in war, and of great revenue and livelihood in the country, to serve the king in war with a number of men.” Copies of the indentures executed when Henry V. raised his army for the invasion of France in 1415 are in existence. Under these the contracting party agreed to serve the king abroad for one year, with a given number of men equipped according to agreement, and at a stipulated rate of pay. A certain sum was usually paid in advance, and in many cases the crown jewels and plate were given in pledge for the rest. The profession of arms seems to have been profitable. The pay of the soldier was high as compared with that of the ordinary labourer, and he had the prospect of a share of plunder in addition, so that it was not difficult to raise men where the commander had a good military reputation. Edward III. is said to have declined the services of numbers of foreign mercenaries who wished to enrol under him in his wars against France.
The funds for the payment of these armies were provided partly from the royal revenues, partly from the fines paid in lieu of military service, and other fines arbitrarily imposed, and partly by grants from parliament. As the soldier’s contract usually ended with the war, and the king had seldom funds to renew it even if he so wished, the armies disbanded of themselves at the close of each war. To secure the services of the soldier during his contract, acts were passed (18 Henry VI. c. 19; and 7 Henry VII. c. 1) inflicting penalties for desertion; and in Edward VI.’s reign an act “touching the true service of captains and soldiers” was passed, somewhat of the nature of a Mutiny Act.