MILITARY AND NAVAL ORGANISATION. 



'HOUGH we are very far from maintaining 

 with Hobbes, that, in a state of nature, every 



lan instinctively wages war against his neighbour, 

 is clear, from a study of the remains left by 



rimeval man, in the shape of rude weapons, &c. 



lat the Golden Age of peace lies far beyond the 

 dawn of history, far beyond the still grayer dawn of 

 even prehistoric antiquity. The desire on the part 

 of people who have much to get more, and to get it 

 by taking it from those that are weaker than them- 

 selves ; and the equally strong desire on the part 

 of those who have little of this world's goods, to 

 augment their possessions by despoiling their 

 richer neighbours, at all times in the history of 

 mankind have impelled nations as well as individ- 

 uals to wage wars, offensive and defensive, against 

 each other. In later times, wars have arisen from 

 other causes than mere lust of material conquest. 

 We have had wars for ideas ; and of all wars, 

 the most sanguinary are those waged on behalf 

 of certain social and religious ideas. The wars 

 of the old French Republic of the Communists 

 at Paris and Carthagena, but ended the other 

 day and of the Crusades, are specimens of politi- 

 cal, social, and religious conflicts. Such wars are 

 not always pure evils. They are often to society 

 what surgical operations are to the human body, 

 painful but powerful remedies for cankering malig- 

 nant disease remedies which act by removing the 

 old corrupt growths, and enabling more healthy 

 forms of organisation to take their place. In this 

 light, the wars of the French Revolution, which 

 stamped out the frivolous feudalism and effete 

 civilisation of the i8th century, in spite of all the 

 blood and treasure they cost, are not altogether to 

 be regretted by us at least, who breathe so freely 

 in the purer, clearer, political atmosphere of the 

 igth century. 



In the early stages of a nation, when few have 

 settled occupations, and war is a matter of muscle 

 and courage, rather than of discipline and science, 

 the armed force naturally consists of all able- 

 bodied men. As civilisation advances, and the 

 division of labour becomes more distinct, the 

 duties of war are delegated to a portion only of 

 the community ; at first, taken from other occupa- 

 tions merely when actual warfare requires it ; ulti- 

 mately, as the lines between different pursuits 

 become more marked, and each advances to a 

 science, detached altogether from the businesses 

 of peace, and devoted wholly to war or prepara- 

 tion for it. These stages are represented, the first 

 by a militia, which follows soon after the settle- 

 ment in a fixed place of a wandering nation ; the 

 second, by a standing army, which only appears 

 at an advanced period in a nation's life. In 

 modern times, offensive war is by all civilised 

 nations intrusted to the standing army; but for 

 defensive purposes the older forms still exist, and 

 form the military ' Reserves.' 

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The tendency of modern civilisation is to 

 substitute armed nations, as in Switzerland, and 

 partially in Germany, for standing armies, such 

 as those of France and Russia. An armed 

 nation will only engage in a popular war, and 

 such an army is not likely to let itself be 

 made the passive instrument of tyranny in the 

 hands of a sovereign. In a national army, the 

 occupation of a soldier may not be an ignoble 

 one. He is not a mere mercenary who makes war 

 for money and loot. He gives up remunerative 

 civil employment, in order to help to protect 

 the community in its peaceful pursuits, and 

 it is but just he should be paid a little more 

 than will keep body and soul together by the 

 people he protects. His pay is but a fraction 

 of the premium due for the insurance of the 

 national life every state effects when it establishes 

 and maintains a national army. A soldier of 

 such an army is not a professional man-slayer. 

 He kills because he is commanded to make war, 

 and the end can only be attained by violence ; but 

 he prefers to gain victory without slaughter : on 

 the other hand, he is ready to lay down his life 

 rather than let the enemy overcome the policy of 

 his country. 



BRITISH MILITARY SYSTEM. 



In Saxon England the war-force was a militia 

 of a local character, each shire, hundred, and 

 tithing being bound to furnish its quota of armed 

 men for the king's service on occasion of national 

 emergency. The strength of this force lay in its 

 admirable archers. Under the Normans the array 

 took a more feudal form, each baron or knight 

 appearing in the field, at the call of his suzerain, 

 with his armed retainers. At this period the 

 strength was principally in the knights and men- 

 at-arms, who, encased in armour, took little heed 

 of the undisciplined footmen, who as spearmen, 

 billmen, and slingers constituted a rabble infantry. 

 Under the Plantagenets, the races had become 

 sufficiently assimilated for the monarchs to gladly 

 add bodies of Saxon archers to their armies. 

 Henry V. appears to have had an army in 

 the modern sense, paid by the crown, and but 

 little dependent on the feudatories. The Wars 

 of the Roses put an end to feudal musters, and 

 thenceforth the wars of England were waged by 

 royal armies. These, however, were not standing 

 armies, for each was disbanded when the occa- 

 sion ceased for which it had been raised. The 

 jealousy of standing armies manifested by the 

 people, finds legal expression in the ' Bill of 

 Rights' of 1690, which declares that 'the raising 

 or keeping of a standing army in time of peace, 

 unless it be with the consent of parliament, is 

 against law ; ' and the Act, annually passed, for 

 bringing into force the Army Discipline and 



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