The organization of armies in the ancient world, or in Asia in more recent times, must be regarded as beyond the scope of this work. The history of Organization will be taken up at the time when the use of firearms had begun to revolutionize fighting, and transform the feudal levies of the Middle Ages into regular armies.
Modern organization dates from the close of the Feudal Epoch in the fifteenth century, after which wars were waged less for national purposes than for the furtherance of dynastic or State interests, and were no longer carried on by the levy of the nation, but by mercenaries hired by the Monarch or the State.
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.
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.
The Colonel practically owned the Regiment he raised, and especially the first Company of it, from which he derived his emoluments. It thus became a practice for men of position to raise Regiments, first of Horse—then the nobler Arm—and later of Foot also. Such noblemen were often too busy, or too grand, to attend personally to their Regiment, and soon became mere absentees. Their Command was then gradually transferred to their locum tenens, the lieu-tenant of the Colonel, so called because the Command of the Company, or Troop, of which the Colonel was nominally the Captain, always devolved on his Lieutenant. Thus the officer styled the Lieutenant-Colonel began to act as Commander of the Regiment, as he is to this day in England.
The origin of the modern organization of Regiments of Horse and Foot can be traced in most of its details to that of the German Landsknecht Infantry and Reiter Cavalry in Germany towards the end of the fifteenth century. The organization of both was nearly identical, being no doubt adapted from the Swiss, and the Italian Condottieri, or the English Free Companies, typical fourteenth-century mercenaries.
The Regiment was raised as follows: A leader of distinction, the Colonel, selected his Captains; the latter raised the Troops or Companies to form the Regiment, by enlisting recruits in their districts with beat of drum and proclamation, exactly as in England for centuries later. The Captain of Horse was called Rittmeister (Reiter meister, or master of Reiters), and the Captain of Foot, Hauptmann (Head-man), as they are in Germany to this day.
The Colonel chose his locum tenens, or Lieutenant, as did also each Captain. A Fähnrich (Flagbearer) was appointed to each Troop or Company, that his flag might present a conspicuous rallying point. To the Flagbearer was attached a Trumpeter in each Troop of Horse, or a Fifer and Drummer in each Company of Foot, so that the men could rally to the flag by sound, as well as by sight, in the confusion of battle. The flag of the Horse was triangular or hornshaped, whence it was called in French a Cornette, while that of the Foot was square, and termed the Enseigne (Latin Insignium). Hence the officers who carried the flags were later designated Cornets and Ensigns, in Cavalry and Infantry Regiments respectively. These titles for the junior Lieutenants who carried the flags survived in England till late in the nineteenth century, and it seems a pity to have replaced so picturesque and concise a designation of rank by the cumbrous and un-English term Second Lieutenant.
There were thus, in each Troop or Company, three Officers, the Captain, the Lieutenant, and the Ensign, the same found in the subsequent organization of all armies.
Besides these three officers, each Troop of Reiters had a Wachmeister, and each Company of Landsknechts a Feldwebel, terms still retained in Germany with the meaning of Sergeant. This officer was of great importance in the unit, as he was charged with its drills in peace, and with its manœuvres in battle, when the other officers were in front fighting, and could not watch the men. As the Sergeant had to give orders in action, he became also responsible for Orders at all times, so that he was virtually a kind of Adjutant to the unit. In battle the Infantry Sergeant had to run up and down the Company to supervise its movements; he, therefore, could not well be encumbered with the long pike, but retained the earlier halberd, which survived as the special arm of the Sergeant of Infantry in England down to 1829.
There was similarly in the Regiment a corresponding officer, the Sergeant-Major, later styled simply the Major, as he still is. He was practically a Staff Officer, or Adjutant, to the Colonel, exactly as the Sergeant was to the Captain. He issued the Colonel’s orders to the Sergeants, and was responsible for the drill of the Regiment, and its manœuvres in battle. He was therefore mounted, even in the Infantry Regiment, like our Adjutant to-day, in order that he might move rapidly up and down the Regiment, to superintend its movements and give orders to the Sergeants of the various Companies.
There was also in the Reiters a Quarter-Master, the Fourier (as the French still style him), with a subordinate (now the Quarter-Master-Sergeant). His duties were to provide quarters, and, as the men had to be fed in these quarters, he became charged in addition with subsistence, exactly as is our Quarter-Master to-day. In old times the Quarter-Master was also responsible for reconnaissance, which was no doubt due to the fact that, having to precede the troops on the march, so as to provide quarters for them that evening, it fell to him to decide on the correct route, and he had, therefore, to reconnoitre to the front. What are now the Staff duties of reconnaissance and directing marches became thus associated with the Quarter-Master of each unit, and afterwards with the corresponding officer, the Quarter-Master-General of the whole army. Therefore, down to a few years ago, the Q.M.G. was charged with all Staff work connected with marches, routes, reconnaissance, and information—a curious survival through four centuries of the organization of the Reiters.
As regards subordinates, or, as we should now say, non-commissioned officers, there was a File-Master (Rottmeister) at the head of each file, for the Troop or Company was drawn up in very deep formation. This specially selected soldier was called Capo di Squadra (Head of the Squad) in Italian, a reminiscence of the early formation of the smallest fighting body (our Squad) in a square (Squadra). From Capo di Squadra came the French Caporal (which we have rendered Corporal, by false derivation from corporalis, corpus, body), who is still the Squad leader. The fact that they originally stood in the ranks at the head of the files accounts for the inclusion of Corporals, but not Sergeants, in the expression Rank and File, for the Sergeants were out of the ranks, superintending the men, as they are to-day.
The organization of a Regiment of Reiters or of Landsknechts, as described above, became by the end of the sixteenth century general in all armies, and has, in essentials, survived in modern Regimental organization. The Regiment bore the name of the man who raised it or succeeded to its command, down into the nineteenth century, although Numbers began to replace personal Names as titles of Regiments, during the eighteenth. The Regiment, whether of Cavalry or Infantry, was rather the administrative than the tactical unit on the battlefield, and formed, as to-day, the permanent organization through which the men received their pay, clothing, and subsistence. Hence arose the strong and lasting regimental traditions and esprit-de-corps, which survive in the older armies to-day.
The first country to possess a formidable Standing Army was Spain, in the sixteenth century, and her example was soon followed by France, the Empire, and the Netherlands, and in the next century by Sweden, England, and Prussia.
The most important developments in war organization were due to great military reformers, whose armies became the model of their day to all other countries. These were Maurice of Nassau, who led the Dutch in their terrible struggle with Spain towards the close of the sixteenth century, and Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who a few years later formed the famous army which carried all before it during the Thirty Years’ War. The improvements introduced by these great soldiers will be described in the following chapters, which deal with the evolution of the organization of each Arm separately.