By Colonel A.M. Murray, C.B.
The article presented below originally appeared in The London Daily News of May 21, 1915.
The organization of the military forces of Italy is based upon the law of organization of 1887 and the recruiting law of 1888. Modifications have been made in these laws from time to time in regard to the strength of the annual contingent trained with the colors and the duration of the periods of training, but the original laws have not been altered in principle, and have now had time to completely materialize.
Every man in Italy is liable to military service for a period of nineteen years from the age of 20 to 39. All young men on reaching the age of 20, if passed medically fit for military service, are divided into three categories—first, those who are taken by lot for color service; second, those for whom there is no room with the colors, and, third, those who are exempted from military service for family reasons specified by law. Men placed in the first category serve for two years with the colors, after which they go to the active army reserve for six years. Men in the second category are sent at once into the active army reserve for the period of eight years, after which both they and the men in the first category are passed into the mobile militia reserve for four years, and subsequently into the territorial militia for seven years, making nineteen years altogether. The men in the third category pass all their nineteen years' obligatory period of military service in the territorial militia, receiving no training whatever till they are called up to their depots when mobilization is ordered. The following table shows the periods of service of the men according to the categories in which they are placed by the recruiting authorities. The figures are years:
| ACTIVE ARMY. | RESERVE ARMY. | ||||
| Categories. | With the Colors. | In the Reserve. | Mobile Militia. | Territorial Militia. | Tot. Yrs. |
| First. | 2 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 19 |
| Second. | — | 8 | 4 | 7 | 19 |
| Third. | — | — | — | 19 | 19 |
In the above table the mobile militia corresponds to the German Landwehr, and the territorial militia to the Landsturm.
After deducting emigrants, men put back for the following year, those who are medically unfit, and one-year volunteers, the average number of recruits placed each year in the first category is approximately 150,000, in the second category 36,000, and in the third category 28,000. All men in the first category are fully trained, while those in the second category, who correspond to the German Ersatz Reserve, are only partially trained, being called up at the discretion of the War Minister for one or more periods of training not exceeding twelve months altogether during their eight years' service.
Last year's returns, which were published in the Italian press, gave the approximate war strength of the army as under:
| Officers | 41,692 |
| Active army (with colors) | 289,910 |
| Reserve (including men of first and second categories) | 638,979 |
| Mobile militia | 299,596 |
| Territorial militia | 1,889,659 |
| Total war strength | 3,159,836 |
According to a calculation, which need not be given in detail here, the above number of total men available includes upward of 1,200,000 fully trained soldiers, who have been through the ranks, with perhaps another 800,000 partially trained men of the second category, the remaining million being completely untrained men, who have passed all their nineteen years of obligatory service in the third category.