Military district

“ Organization a. Territorial Ground forces are administered and controlled through two military districts -- Military District III Headquarters at Leipzig is responsible for all units in the southern half of East Germany, and Military District V Headquarters at Neubrandenburg is responsible for units in the northern half. Each military district has its own support and service units, including an artillery regiment, an anti-aircraft artillery regiment, a signal regiment, an anti-tank battalion, an engineer battalion, a motor transportation battalion, a chemical company, and service elements. ”

“ Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district. ”

“ Being good marksmen and inured to conflict with wild beasts and wilder [19] men, they formed among themselves companies of fighting men whose duty it was to disperse or destroy the savage Bushmen. These independent military organizations the government recognized and approved by appointing over them a field commander for each district and a subordinate called a field cornet for each subdivision of a district. ”

“ Every county, city, manor, town, precinct, and district within the colony was to be divided by a local committee into districts or beats, in such a manner that in each beat might be formed one military company, ordinarily to consist of eighty-three able-bodied men and officers, between the ages of sixteen and fifty—afterward sixty—years. Not less than five nor more than ten such companies were to form a regiment, and the regiments were to be organized into brigades. One brigade was to be formed of the militia of Dutchess and Westchester counties, commanded by a brigadier-general. ”

“ One young man is selected from each congressional district, on an average, once in about two years, the selection being made by the representative of the district; these young men are made warrant officers in the army, and sent to a military post for instruction; frequent and strict examinations are instituted to determine their capacity and fitness for military service; after a probation of a certain length of time, the best are selected for commission in the army, relative rank and appointments to corps being made strictly with reference to merit ”

“ That before the commissioners undertook to enforce the collection of the tax upon the lot in controversy, it had been determined by the executive that military authority had been established in the district, is plain enough. We know, historically, that the President had appointed a military governor of the entire State, and he was in active service as such. No other and civil authority existed. The commissioners themselves were executive officers, and their entering upon the duties of their office was an assumption that the military authority had been established throughout the district. ”

“ Each district shall contain a population, excluding nonresident military personnel, as nearly equal as practicable to the population of any other district. To the extent reasonable, each district shall contain contiguous territory, shall be compact and convenient, and shall be separated from adjoining districts by natural geographic barriers, artificial barriers, or political subdivision boundaries. The commission's plan shall not provide for a number of legislative districts different than that established by the legislature. ”

“ The military force of the District showed large on paper, but the actual force consisted of two or three companies tolerably well drilled. In this emergency Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) Charles P. Stone, a graduate from West Point, offered his services, which were accepted, and about January 1, 1861, he was mustered into the United States service {302}as colonel and inspector general of the militia of the District of Columbia, and assigned to the command of the District, with authority to organize volunteers. ”

“ Where a citizen who has not served in active service after registration for first-time military service meets the conditions for reserve service, he may as needed be registered for reserve service at a military service organ of the people's government of a county, autonomous county, city not divided into districts, or a municipal district. ”

“ Each one of the five district commanders, though not chosen by the people or responsible to them, exercises at this hour more executive power, military and civil, than the people have ever been willing to confer upon the head of the executive department, though chosen by and responsible to themselves. The remedy must come from the people themselves. They know what it is and how it is to be applied. At the present time they can not, according to the forms of the Constitution, repeal these laws; they can not remove or control this military despotism. ”

“ Practice, however, falls short of theory, and the dangers of drawing whole units from disaffected or unmilitary districts are often foreseen and discounted by distributing the recruits, non-regionally, amongst more or less distant regiments. ”

“ For example, schools, churches. temples, shrines, hospitals and private houses cannot be classed as military objectives, even under conditions of total war. If the concept of total war were to be taken to imply that everyone who is a national of a belligerent State is a combatant, and that all means of production are means of injuring the enemy, there would arise the necessity to destroy the whole population and all the property of the enemy, and it would be meaningless to distinguish between a military objective and a non-military objective. ”

“ For this purpose every Command-district must be embodied at least once a year for a week or a fortnight, and everything so practised as though the enemy were in the country. Every third year at least the Command-districts should be combined into armies of 80,000 or 100,000 men, and manoeuvred and practised accordingly against each other. ”

“ A city even with defence installations and armed forces cannot be said to be a defended city if it is far away from the battlefield and is not in immediate danger of occupation by the enemy. Since there is no military necessity for indiscriminate bombardment, only bombing of military objectives there is permissible. ”

“ For recruiting purposes for infantry of the line the country is divided into Regimental Districts, in which are located the depots of the regiment concerned: these depots are commanded by a senior officer of one of the battalions of the regiment with the necessary staff for training purposes. Recruits are usually first trained at the depot and later transferred to the battalion requiring them. The Regimental Districts are again combined into larger districts in which are situated the Record Offices dealing with the regiments of the district. ”

“ The brigade of an infantry sub-district comprises usually two line battalions, two militia battalions, the brigade depôt, rifle volunteer corps, and infantry of the army reserve. Of the line battalions one is generally at home and one abroad. In an artillery sub-district are comprised a proportion of the royal artillery and artillery of the militia, volunteers, and army reserve respectively. In like manner a cavalry sub-district includes the yeomanry and army reserve cavalry. ”

“ It shows how little is still generally known of what is going on in our very midst, and low disordered things really are, when I say that I only learned to-day that the whole city—in fact, every part of it—has been duly divided up some time ago by the Allied Commanders into districts—one district being assigned to every Power of importance that has brought up troops. ”

“ However, indiscriminate bombardment is permissible on grounds of military necessity against a city which resists an attempt at occupation by the enemy, since in that case an attack based on the distinction between military objectives and nonmilitary objectives is of little military effect and cannot achieve the intended purpose. ”

“ It is difficult to deny that the concept of a military objective, though prescribed by various expressions in these treaties, is not necessarily static in content but may change with time, and its scope tends to be enlarged under conditions of total war. ”

“ In a country in which universal service prevails, an army corps district is divided into divisional districts, these being made up of brigade and of regimental districts. Each of these units recruits, and is in peace usually stationed, in its own area; the artillery, cavalry and special arms are recruited for the corps throughout the whole allotted area, and stationed at various points within the same. ”

“ Each district is under the nominal leadership of the warrior chiefs and of the more influential men. In time of peace these districts are open to everybody, but in time of war--and wars were formerly very frequent--only persons of tried friendship are permitted to enter. ”

“ It seems that one faction of the Legislature occupied the temporary State-House; another had its headquarters over a prominent bar-room in Royal Street; and a large concourse of citizens had organized with military formalities and the avowed intention of dislodging the factional Legislature from the house; installing a Governor of their own choice; and subduing the police force of the city, now enrolled as a uniformed and fully-equipped battalion of infantry, with a battery of field-guns and a squadron of cavalry as assistants. ”

“ A line of troops and ready volunteers and others, numbering more than 4,000 [1] persons, was stretched across the midland and eastern districts, to advance in thin but regular array. These districts, though open and level in some parts, are, as a whole, woody and very hilly; and as unfavourable for military operations of any kind, unless perhaps defensive ones, as it is possible to imagine. ”

“ One camp lantern had been left for my use; by its nickering light I untied the documents left me by Arnold; and, sorting the papers, chose first my orders, reading the formal notice of my transfer from Morgan's Rifles to the militia; then the order detailing me to the Mohawk district, with headquarters at Varick Manor; and, finally, my commission on parchment, signed by Governor Clinton and by Philip Schuyler, Major-General Commanding the Department of the North. ”

“ The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act ‘for the reorganization of His Majesty’s military forces’ became law in 1907. Early in 1908 the West Riding Territorial Force Association was brought into being under the Act, and set to work in a practical way to raise, clothe, train and otherwise prepare its troops for the day of mobilization. ”

“ Lord Monck enclosed the heads of a plan for the reorganisation and increase of the active militia, based mainly on the voluntary principle, with rules for the erection of armouries, drill-sheds and rifle-ranges, and the appointment of brigade-majors and sergeants, &c., and other means of a perfect organisation. The scheme was to raise an active battalion for each territorial division of the country corresponding with the regimental district of the sedentary militia, to be increased in number as needed, each active battalion to be taken from the sub-division of the district. ”

“ In order to do this, let our mustering officers in New York and elsewhere be at, once instructed that whenever they muster into our service any number of volunteers, to at once make return to the War Department, both by telegraph and mail, the date of the muster, the number mustered, and the Congressional or enrolment district or districts, of their residences, giving the numbers separately for each district. Keep these returns diligently posted, and by them give full credit on the quotas, if possible, on the last day before the draft begins in any district. ”

“ The voters of a ward, the lowest political division in the country, elected their field-cornet more with a view of having him administer the laws in times of peace than with the idea of having him lead them into a battle, and in like manner the election of a commandant for a district, which generally consisted of five wards, was more of a victory for his popularity in peace than for his presumed bravery in war. ”

“ The district is known as the Warrior district, but their warriors are for their own defence and protection; they are noted for minding their own business, being peaceable when let alone, but very ugly when interfered with ”

“ Within the infantry and field artillery regiments, men from the combat arms were to handle all communications. The new division abandoned the train headquarters and military police organization, following the recommendation of the Superior Board, but retained a separate military police company. Given the many small separate companies in its structure (division headquarters, signal, tank, service, ordnance, and military police) , the division included a new organization, headquarters, special troops, to handle their administration and discipline. ”

“ Fresh units also of troops may be coming up to the front, whose arrival is of the last importance in the plans of the generalissimo, and a single broken viaduct may throw confusion into the whole design.
(p. 014) In a densely-populated and fruitful district the resulting failure of supply may be endured, but it is very different when in a poverty-stricken district the supply of a whole Army depends on perhaps a single line of railway. ”