ARMY 



381 



ARMY 



Battalion 



Battalion 



Battery Battery Battery 



C Such number of guns and howitzer batteries ) 

 J as the President may direct. j 



A battery in the field artillery contains 126 men (which may be increased in the discretion of 

 tho President by 64 men), 162 horses, 4 guns; in the horse artillery 171 men, 235 horses, 4 guns; 

 in mountain artillery 166 men, 4 guns. 



Officers. Army officers are of two types, 

 commanding (line) officers and staff officers. 

 The latter are the assistants to the commander 

 of a regiment or any larger unit. 



In the United States the President is com- 

 mander-in-chief of the armed forces. There 

 are several grades of general officers, namely, 

 generals, lieutenant-generals, major-generals, 

 brigadier-generals and the various members of 

 the General Staff, such as the quartermaster- 

 general, the adjutant-general and the paymas- 

 ter-general. In times of peace the grades of 

 general and lieutenant-general are often allowed 

 to lapse. In war time a general would prob- 

 ably command an army, a lieutenant-general 

 an army corps, a major-general a division and 

 a brigadier-general a brigade. In Great Britain 

 the highest officer is the field-marshal. 



The commander of a regiment is a colonel. 

 In the United States a battalion is under the 

 charge of a major; in Great Britain, where the 

 battalion contains twice as many companies, 

 it is assigned to a lieutenant-colonel. A cap- 

 tain commands a company, assisted by two 



lieutenants. A squadron of cavalry is given to 

 a major and a troop to a captain. A battery 

 is a captain's command in the United States 

 army, a major's in the' British. The lieutenant- 

 colonel in the United States army is merely an 

 assistant to the colonel ; in the British, he prac- 

 tically replaces the latter in the handling of 

 matters of detail. 



Corporals march in the ranks with the pri- 

 vates. Sergeants are posted as guides and in 

 the line of file closers in rear of the company. 

 The first-sergeant has special duties, as have 

 also the mess-sergeant and supply-sergeant. 

 The color-sergeants, battalion and regimental 

 sergeants-major are members of the regimental 

 headquarters company. A lance-corporal is a 

 corporal whose appointment is not yet made 

 permanent. 



An adjutant (which in Latin means one who 

 aids) is an assistant to the commander of a 

 regiment, and usually holds the rank of cap- 

 tain or lieutenant. An aid or aid-dc-camp is 

 a general's assistant, and he may have the 

 rank of lieutenant or colonel. L.B.G. 



Armies of the World 



United States. The United States army has 

 always been small, in comparison with Euro- 

 pean armies, and military service has, except 

 i In ring the War of Secession, been entirely vol- 

 untary and based on the principle that "one 

 volunteer is worth three pressed men." In 

 1790 the rank and file of the army consisted 

 216 men. In 1861, at the beginning of th. 

 War of Secession, it totaled about 15,000. Be- 

 tween 1861 and 1865, however, nearly 4,000,000 

 men were enrolled in the contending armies of 

 the North and South. These figures eclipsed 

 those relating to any previous war and opened 

 wide the eyes of the world to what could be 

 accomplished by a peace-loving nation without 

 a definite military system, if thrown into war. 

 During that war, however, the total of the 



authorized regular army never exceeded 40,000 

 men, the remainder being special volunteers 

 who returned to civil life as soon as their 

 services were no longer required. The max- 

 imum war strength of the United States army 

 in the Spanish- American War was 10,017 offi- 

 cers and 213,218 enlisted men, but of these only 

 63,000 formed the total of the authorized 

 regular army. 



Before the passage of the Chamberlain-Hay 

 Hill, approved by the President in June, 1916, 

 the regular army of the United States was less 

 than 100,000 men. Of these, two-thirds were 

 assigned to coast defenses, island possessions, 

 recruiting points and other permanent posts, so 

 that slightly more than 30,000 were mobile 

 troops. To them could have been added in 



