Private (armed forces)

“ Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civil members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany. ”

“ But more and deeper than this, seldom is felt, except for purposes of instruction, the hand of outward authority. The commandant and his assistants, the "tactical officers," are 'seldom in evidence; for almost all purposes of organization, drill and restraint within regulation limits, the method is self-acting, largely automatic; from the room and tent orderlies to the adjutant and captains, the corps of cadets governs itself.
And this government is not of force, as the idea of compulsion is ordinarily understood. The real governing power is that most potent of moral forces—public opinion. ”

“ The chief part of the armed forces of the belligerents are their regular armies and navies. What kinds of forces constitute a regular army and a regular navy is not for International Law to determine, but a matter of Municipal Law exclusively. Whether or not so-called Militia and Volunteer corps belong to armies rests entirely with the Municipal Law of the belligerents. ”

“ Wherever we turn our eyes to the wide sphere of modern warfare, we encounter the necessity of independent action—by the private soldier in the thick of the battle, or the lonely patrol in the midst of the enemy's country, as much as by the leader of an army, who handles huge hosts. ”

“ The obligations and duties of the Guard in time of war should be carefully defined, and a system established by law under which the method of procedure of raising volunteer forces should be prescribed in advance. ”

“ It sometimes happens during war that on the approach of the enemy a belligerent calls the whole population of the country to arms and thus makes them a part, although a more or less irregular part, of his armed forces. Provided they receive some organisation and comply with the laws and usages of war, the combatants who take part in such a levy en masse organised by the State enjoy the privileges due to members of armed forces. ”

“ Such small wealth of officers as we have—and I am quite prepared to believe that the officers we have are among the very best in the world—are scarcely enough to go round our present supply of private soldiers. And the best and most brilliant among this scanty supply are being drawn upon more and more for aerial work, and for all that increasing quantity of highly specialised services which are manifestly destined to be the real fighting forces of the future. We cannot spare the best of our officers for training conscripts ”

“ Whether or no we can see the wisdom, the necessity, of what He commands to be done, makes no difference. We are but privates in His Army; and a private has no business with an opinion of his own as to where he shall go or what he shall do in the time of war. ”

“ This independence of military authority, together with the principles of extreme democracy which America professes, accounts, I think, for the curious behaviour of the private soldiers, who are really quite different from any others I have seen anywhere else in the world, for they lounge about when addressing an officer, and speak to him as an equal; which looks more than odd to anyone not accustomed to such ways. Men who were here during the American War have told me most amusing stories of the discussions that used to go on between officers and privates on active service ”

“ While all admit the necessity, for the preservation of proper discipline, of having Rebel property for the use of the army taken formally under authorities duly constituted for the purpose, and not by indiscriminate license to the troops, none can be so blind as to fail to see the bent of the sympathies controlling the General in command. ”

“ The army must be the rallying point; the army must furnish example, must furnish instruction, must give us the principles on which that national system [Pg 267] of defence must be formed; and by which the voluntary forces of this country, though in a military view inferior to a regular army, would, fighting on their own soil, for everything dear to individuals and important to a State, be invincible.'
These quotations will, I think, give a general idea of the views which were uppermost in the mind of the Minister for War when he gave vitality to the principle of localisation. ”

“ And as a striking proof of the loyal and law-abiding spirit of the citizens, I may mention the fact, that all the government property above alluded to is defended by two soldiers, a corporal—who, by the way, has a wooden leg—and a high private. ”

“ Above all, the grand and only reliable security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting—the sympathy of the army with the people. The military are the part of every community in whom, from the nature of the case, the distinction between their fellow-countrymen and foreigners is the deepest and strongest. To the rest of the people foreigners are merely strangers; to the soldier, they are men against whom he may be called, at a week's notice, to fight for life or death. ”

“ The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion. It contends that it may now take one out of every twenty-five men, & any part or the whole of the rest, whenever its occasions require. Persons thus taken by force, & put into an army, may be compelled to serve there, during the war, or for life. They may be put on any service, at home or abroad, for defence or for invasion, accordingly to the will & pleasure of the Government. The power does not grow out of any invasion of the country, or even out of a state of war. ”

“ All the business of preparing for the military registration of 10,000,000 men, of providing quarters and instructors for nearly 50,000 prospective officers, for finding arms and equipment for millions of troops yet to be organized, of expanding the regular army to full war strength, of preparing and recruiting the National Guard for war was at hand. ”

“ If officers of the army or the navy should ever use their influence to bring on a war while peace might honorably be maintained, to furnish them opportunity for showing how brave and skilful they are, and to increase their chances of promotion, they would be just as unpatriotic—aye, just as criminal—as the members of a fire department would be who try to set a tenement house ablaze for the purpose of exhibiting their skill in handling an engine or their courage in scaling ladders, and of thus earning praise and advancement. ”

“ The valuable services constantly rendered by the Army and its inestimable importance as the nucleus around which the volunteer forces of the nation can promptly gather in the hour of danger, sufficiently attest the wisdom of maintaining a military peace establishment; but the theory of our system and the wise practice under it require that any proposed augmentation in time of peace be only commensurate with our extended limits and frontier relations. ”

“ Equality, however, resumed its sway at the end of each military campaign; each officer, on returning into private life, enjoyed only the rights common to all; and the colonel or starshine often made the ensuing campaign as a private soldier. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But is not a corps of one hundred thousand dependents upon government, actuated by one spirit, obeying one will, and aiming at one end, more dangerous and formidable than a standing army? The standing army is separated from the mass of society, stationed in barracks or military quarters, and operates by physical force. The official corps is distributed and ramified throughout the whole country, dwelling in every city, village, and hamlet, having daily intercourse with society, and operates on public opinion. ”

“ With an army in the field, certain persons, not soldiers, are also subject to the provisions of "Military Law," such as civilians serving with the force in an official capacity; persons accompanying the troops with special leave, such as newspaper correspondents and contractors; persons employed with the troops, such as transport drivers; other persons known as followers who accompany the troops either as sutlers or on business or pleasure with the permission of the commander. ”

“ It is evident, then, Sir, that the whole military power of the State is to be employed, if necessary, in dispossessing the custom-house officers, and in seizing and holding the goods, without paying the duties. ”

“ Compulsory military service was the best school for the physical and moral toughening of our people. It created for us free men who knew their own value. From these an excellent corps of noncommissioned officers was formed; from the latter, in turn, we drew our Government officials, the like of whom, in ability, incorruptibility and fidelity to duty no other nation on earth can show. ”

“ Discussions by officers and soldiers concerning public measures determined upon and declared by the Government, when carried at all beyond temperate and respectful expressions of opinion, tend greatly to impair and destroy the discipline and efficiency of troops, by substituting the spirit of political faction for that firm, steady, and earnest support of the authorities of the Government, which is the highest duty of the American soldier. ”

“ At the beginning we planned that a small body of volunteers should constitute our regular army; the balance, held as a reserve force or militia, remaining under control of the states. Militiamen and officers alike are generally untrained, the officers being popular fellows elected by their comrades and commissioned by the Government. ”

“ The officers and non-commissioned officers, on whom the responsibility of leadership rests, have that spur to maintain their equilibrium, but the private soldiers, who have themselves only to think of, are the most open to this devastating influence. ”

“ Every Frenchman, save in exceptions determined by the law, owes to his country his services in the army and in the National Guard. The privilege for every citizen to free himself from personal military service, shall be regulated by the law of recruitment. ”

“ That democratic spirit has therefore always demanded that the armed force should be composed principally of the militia, the citizen soldiery, or, in extraordinary emergencies, of volunteers called out from the ranks of the people, to serve as soldiers for certain well-defined and stated purposes, and then, those stated purposes being accomplished, to return to their civic pursuits. ”

“ This renders our small forces more readily effective for any service which they may be called upon to perform, increases the extent of the territory under protection without diminishing the security heretofore afforded to any locality, improves the discipline, training, and esprit de corps of the Army, besides considerably decreasing the cost of its maintenance. ”

“ I admit, in its fullest force, the strength of the maxim that the civil law should be superior to the military in time of peace; that the army should be at all times subject to the direct control of Congress; and I assert that, from the formation of our Government to the present day, the Regular Army has set the highest example of obedience to law and authority ”

“ Everything, my good friend, is under military control—the police, of course; the municipality, the hospitals, the schools, the Church—let alone factories and munition foundries. Every man who owns and controls any kind of armament works and who finds it difficult to cope with his men has, it seems, the right to apply to the War Office to send him as many representatives as he may deem expedient to help him keep his workers in order. ”

“ In one word, the soldier is in all respects under the government and protection of the same power to which he owes his duties and to which he renders his service, and his pay and treatment are regulated according to the requirements and interests of that service. ”

“ A large force of volunteer officers must be kept up in a time of peace,—which is contrary to the jurisprudence of all highly civilized nations,—or the volunteer officers must be mustered out, and thus leave an important arm of the war department without the necessary administrative government. ”

“ Other men may have publicity as individuals in a single newspaper or magazine, but the readers of a thousand newspapers take their news from Paris through him without knowing his name.
Oh, the magic of a military pass and the companionship of an officer in uniform! It separates you from the crowd of millions on the other side of the blank wall of military secrecy and takes you into the area of the millions in uniform; it wins a nod of consent from that middle-aged reservist on a road whose bayonet has the police power of millions of bayonets in support of its authority. ”

“ Our administrative organisation has been maintained. We have still our prefects and sub-prefects, our tribunals, justices of the peace, savings banks, postal services and schools, living in absolute independence in the midst of the British war machine.
Better still, our own military organisation still exists. In every part of our country occupied by the British our Army has its representatives, such as workers on the roads, Army Service Corps units, and military police.
All this crowd, civilians and soldiers alike, "carry on" without the smallest hitch or quarrel with our British guests. ”

“ This army has its well-defined code of laws and practice, and can adapt itself to the wants and necessities of a city, the country, the rivers, the sea, indeed to all parts of this land. It better subserves the interest and policy of the General Government, and the people here prefer it to any weak or servile combination that would at once, from force of habit, revive sad perpetuate local prejudices and passions. The people of this country have forfeited all right to a voice in the councils of the nation. ”