Armed forces

“ All the efficient parts of an army that may be brought into action are called effective, and generally consist of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, with their necessary appendages, such as hospital staff, wagon-train, etc. Effective forces of a country; all the disposable strength, vigor, and activity of any armed proportion of native or territorial population. The navy of a country must be looked upon as part of the effective force of the country, to which is added the marines.
Forcing. The operation of making a bullet take the grooves of a rifle. ”

“ The militarized security forces consists of the Frontier Command, the Alert Police, and the Security Guard Regiment. These forces are organized into military units, and they are trained for small-unit combat in addition to their specialized infantry functions. ”

“ To entitle troops to the special privileges attaching to belligerency, chapter i. provides that all regular, militia or volunteer forces shall alike be commanded by persons responsible for the acts of their men, that all such shall carry distinctive emblems, recognizable at a distance, that arms shall be carried openly and operations conducted in accordance with the usages of war observed among civilized mankind. ”

“ Within the military organization itself, we may note the increasing assimilation of the volunteer forces to the regular army, now going to the extent of a movement for making them available abroad, so that, instead of defensive action for which they were created, they can be used for offensive action ”

“ Never before in time of peace has our country maintained so large and effective a military force. as it now has. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Organized Reserves represent a strength of about 558,400 men. These forces are well trained, well equipped, and high in morale. ”

“ And having gone out against them, exertest thou to the utmost to obtain victory over them? And having conquered them, seekest thou to protect them with care? Are thy army consisting of four kinds of forces, viz., the regular troops, the allies, the mercenaries, and the irregulars, each furnished with the eight ingredients, viz., cars, elephants, horses, offices, infantry, camp-followers, spies possessing a thorough knowledge of the country, and ensigns led out against thy enemies after having been well trained by superior officers? ”

“ As they rose to their knees in the dust they saw men gathering—soldiers of all arms, infantry, dismounted cavalrymen, hospital guards, limping convalescents, officers armed' with rifles, waggon drivers, negroes. ”

“ In the general destruction of the bonds of discipline and duty holding together the companies, the battalions, the regiments, the brigades, and divisions of an armed host, this body of men put its pride in preserving some semblance of order and formation. The only stragglers were those who fell out to give up to the frost their exhausted souls. ”

“ Military Forces are of two distinct categories: Fighting Troops, which carry out the actual operations; Administrative Services, whose function is to provide the Fighting Troops with all that they require to keep up their strength and efficiency. ”

“ The law specifies that the total armed force shall include the regular army, volunteer army, officers' reserve corps, enlisted reserve corps, and the National Guard of the various States, subject to call for duty within the borders of the United States. ”

“ The general will acquaint himself with these details, and he will direct his operations according to the strength of his active and reserve forces, and to those of the enemy and their positions, taking advantage of every circumstance that may promise an advantageous attack, without running risks. ”

“ The Military Forces of the Great Powers have now grown so large that a further development of organization has become necessary. They are therefore divided in war into separate Armies. Army, in this new sense, does not mean, as it used to, the whole Force, for which, indeed, some other49 word than “Army” is urgently needed. An Army is simply the highest Unit in the organization of a great host in the field. ”

“ First and Second Lines.—The organization into arms and units is of course maintained in peace as well as for war. Military forces are further organized, in peace, into active and reserve troops, first and second lines, &c., according to the power possessed by the executive over the men. Broadly speaking, the latter fall into three classes, regulars, auxiliary forces and irregular troops. ”

“ Soldiers behind the firing line The industrial forces of the country, men and women alike, will be a great national, a great international, service army—a notable and honored host engaged in the service of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors of free men everywhere. ”

“ The forces entrusted to my command are designed to act in concert and upon a common principle, with the numerous armies and fleets which already display in every quarter of America, the power, the justice, and, when properly sought, the mercy of the King. ”

“ It may be of interest to glance at the strength of the Forces which the chief military nations will put into the field at the outbreak of war. The strength depends essentially on the number of organized Formations of Troops. ”

“ Call our wretched force an Army! Why, to quote a writer, whose letters have been published in our leading journal, "Nobody could tell the Secretary of State for War how a force of forty thousand men, if it had to be supplemented for defensive purposes by Volunteers, could be supplied with ammunition for six weeks." Call our force an Army! ”

“ It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. ”

“ This force was to consist of four hundred men from each of seven divisions, mounted, armed, and equipped as infantry or riflemen, and formed into companies according to law, thus making a force of 2,800 men. ”

“ The military organizations, such as companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps d'armée, are always kept up; the officers are ever ready, and in case of war it is only necessary to call in the men. ”

“ In some nations the method has been to trust for defence and security to what is called a Standing Army; a number of men paid by the public, to devote themselves wholly to the military profession; while the body of the people followed their peaceable employments, without paying any attention to the art of war. ”

“ THE BRITISH ARMY CHAPTER I
THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE—TO 1100 All nations have passed, more or less, through the same stages in the up-growth of that military system which is as essential to the political security of the mass as the formation of a police force is necessary for the protection of the individual in civil life. From the outset, the history of human existence has been one of combat. ”

“ I will fight the enemy, whatever their force may be, with whatever force I may have, and I believe that we shall beat them; but our triumph should be made decisive and complete. The soldiers of this army love their Government, and will fight well in its support. ”

“ It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a nation. ”

“ Base of Operations.—In military language represents the original line on which an offensive army forms, whether it be the frontier of a country, river, or safe position, whence it takes the field to invade an enemy’s country. ”

“ The Army may be regarded, in consequence of the small number of the rank and file in each company and regiment, as little more than a nucleus around which to rally the military force of the country in case of war, and yet its services in preserving the peace of the frontiers are of a most important nature. ”

“ When an army takes the field, every stronghold or fortress which supports its operations by affording a safe retreat to its depots, heavy artillery, magazines, hospitals, etc., is called a place of arms. In offensive operations, those lines are called places of arms, or parallels, which unite the different means of attack, secure the regular approaches, etc., and contain bodies of troops who either do duty in the trenches, protect the workmen, or are destined to make an impression upon the enemy’s outworks. ”

“ The United States Army, consisting of the Regular Army, National Guard, and Reserve Corps, with the addition of volunteers and the draftees of the National Army, underwent a transformation from a frontier constabulary and coastal defense force to a modern land warfare force. ”

“ In estimating our strength every enlisted man and every commissioned officer present is included, no matter how employed; in bands, sick in field hospitals, hospital attendants, company cooks and all. Operating in an enemy's country, and being supplied always from a distant base, large detachments had at all times to be sent from the front, not only to guard the base of supplies and the roads to it, but all the roads leading to our flanks and rear. ”

“ All other operations, such as relate to convoys, foraging-parties, skirmishes of advanced or rear guards, the attack of small posts, and any thing accomplished by a detachment or single division, may be regarded as details of war, and not included in the great operations. ”

“ The troops that have arrived here are in general fine-looking, able-bodied, active men, well equipped, and apparently ready and willing for the service in which they are engaged. Your cordial concurrence in the disposition to maintain the Government and resist aggression gives great satisfaction, and I am pleased to observe a letter from you in the Intelligencer of this morning. ”

“ The Army as organized must be the nucleus around which in every time of need the strength of your military power, the sure bulwark of your defense—a national militia—may be readily formed into a well-disciplined and efficient organization. ”

“ It is curious to see, therefore, how the first voluntary national army, long embodied, produced an antagonism, among the mass of the people, to standing armies altogether, a feeling which lasts even until now in theory, if not in fact. ”

“ From a captured officer of the German army comes a remarkable tribute to the fighting prowess of the First Division of the American troops, whose work will go down in history as among the most remarkable of the present war. ”

“ The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of corps and army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements of a great modern army with its own railroads, supplied directly by our own Service of Supply, The concentration for this operation, which was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most careful attention to every detail. ”

“ An army composed of men of property, who have been all their days inured to labour, will generally equal the best veteran troops, in point of strength of body and firmness of mind, and when fighting in defence of their religion, their estates, their liberty, and families, will have stronger motives to exert themselves, and may, if they have been properly disciplined, be not much inferior to them in the skill of arms. ”

“ We met officers in every branch of the service,—infantry, cavalry, artillery, flying corps, ordnance, army service, medical, engineers, construction, water transport, etc., and thereby obtained a splendid idea of what was going on, and how the various branches of the service worked together and viewed any given problem.
Some of these views were quite at variance with one another. For instance the artillery man looked upon the infantryman as the man who protected his guns and kept off the enemy while he killed them. ”

“ On the other hand, it develops in its owner that most priceless quality of the soldier, initiative. Some of the finest work in this War has been accomplished by small bodies of troops—particularly British and American—working forward [171] under a young officer, or a sergeant, or very often under no leader at all, to the capture of some vital point long after they have lost touch with the directing force behind. ”

“ The great improvements made in the art of war in modern times, in weapons, drill, discipline, etc., has made warfare more of a science and less of a trial of brute force than formerly, and hence the necessity for a body of trained officers capable of moving, directing, and bringing into effective operation all the appliances of war with which modern armies are furnished. ”

“ In measures relating to war, it is wisest, if you err at all, to err on the side of the largest force, and you will consequently put down your thirty-one thousand men at not more than an effective force in the field of about twenty-one thousand. This, with the four thousand now in service, will amount to twenty-five thousand effective men. The secretary of war has stated, in his report, that, for the single purpose of manning your forts and garrisons on the sea-board, twelve thousand and six hundred men are necessary. ”

“ Let us, for argument's sake, assume for a moment that we were to be invaded with an army of only a hundred thousand men, trained, equipped, and supplied with the supreme adequacy with which the troops of the other Great Powers are trained, equipped, and supplied. ”

“ HOW AN ARMY IS FORMED. The making of an army—that is what it means to turn men of peace to men of war, to fit the mechanic or the business man, the farmer or the miner, for a passage at arms with a foreign foe—has been for the present generation a matter of conjecture and of lessons drawn from previous passages in the nation's chronicles. ”