LAND AND WATER 
August 22, 1914 
kept of them, and examined to see wliicli of tliem are fit to 
Of those fit to bear arms the Government then takes a 
certain number, greater or less according to its financial resources, 
the task expected of its army, and the theory the pohticians 
and their advisers mav hold as to the length of training necessary 
to the making of a soldier and the number required to provide 
a first line. Thus, in France nearly all those called up and 
practically all those fit to bear arms are taken. In the German 
Empire a' much smaller proportion. The men so taken are put, 
as it is called, with the Odours. That is, are put into umform 
and into barracks to live for a certain time the life of a soldier, 
and to be trained in all the duties of a soldier and in the use of 
their weapons. This time varies from two to three years. 
Each yearly batch thus called up is designated by the name 
of the year in which it was called, and is called a Class. Thus 
when we talk of " The Class oj 1905 " we mean all those men who 
were called up for Service in 1905, whether they were taken for 
the Colours in that j'ear or not ; and these men reniain marked 
by that term throughout the whole of their connection with the 
Military organisation, that is, from the moment they are first 
examined till they are over forty years of age. If we hear that 
the Government has, in say, 1913, when they have long ceased to 
be with the Colours, " Called up the Class of 1905," it means that 
it has summoned back to the Army the suriivors who were first 
examined as to their fitness for ser\-ice in that j'car. 
A man having served his two or three years " With the 
Colours " passes some seven years or so in the " Reserve of the 
Active Army," the years immediately succeeding these he passes 
into the Territorial Army, and later again, before coming to his 
fortieth year, he passes into the Reserve of the Territorial Army. 
There are thus in every country where Conscription is 
instituted, four groups of men ; the first and youngest group 
in uniform and being trained as soldiers ; the next, the immediate 
Reserve coming up a few days at certain long intervals, to renew 
Iheir training ; the next oldest subject to very short periods of 
training but still in connection with the Army ; the fourth, no 
longer coming up for any training, but forming the last Resene of 
all. These four groups cover the trained male population 
between the ages of 20 or 21 and 42 or 45, and while tlicy 
are called by difierent names in different services, are everywhere 
arranged in these four sections and correspond roughly to these 
four groups of ages. 
A very important exception to this system must here be 
noticed because it will be of the greatest moment in the present 
war. 
In the German Service, only a certain proportion— far smaller 
than the French — of the young men are taken for the Acti\e 
Army. The Germans have a larger population than the French 
by more than fifty per cent., and they claim that in this fashion 
they can pick the best men, and yet have an Army equal to their 
neighbours. Meanwhile they put the rest into a special sort of 
Reserve, of which some are slightly trained and some are not 
trained at all. This Special Reserve (not to bo confounded 
with the Regidar Reserve of trained men, who have passed 
through the ranks), which is of course very large, is called up in 
time of War, incorporated with the trained men, and trusted 
thus to acquire a sufBcient military habit to be usable in the 
Front line before the war has long proceeded. 
With this system of a short-service active Army, backed by 
a much more numerous Reserve, consisting of men who have 
already passed through the ranks, which system is to be found in all 
modem countries (even in those which, Uke Britain, have not 
the institution of Conscription), necessarily goes the other modern 
feature called Mobilisation. 
It is evident, before a short-seryice modern Army can begin 
great operations in the field, the men actually with the Colours 
must be supplemented by a greater or lesser number of the 
Reserves, who are no less a part of the Army than those actually 
in uniform and in barracks. This process of bringing up the 
Re8er\'es, and so putting the Army upon a War footing is, with 
certain other activities involved, called by the general name of 
Mobilisation, which means the turning of the Army from an 
incomplete and, as it were, stationary condition, into a complete 
condition in which it is mobile; that is, loosed from all local 
ties and necessities which could hinder its action in war. 
When mobilisation is decreed, the Reserve men, who have 
left the Colours from one to twenty years ago, come up to be 
clothed and armed. They join certain centres of concentration 
until as many of them as the Government has chosen to call 
up are gathered together in places where they can be put into 
uniform, given their weapons, and drafted into the Corps ia 
which they belong. 
Every Conscript in a modem army has a booklet or papers 
describing the place, length, and character of his training, with 
notes on the way in which he served, his abilities, rank in t!;e 
ser\-ice, etc., and in particular a notification of the place to which 
he is to go when he i» mobilised and the exact day o?i which he is to 
reach it. 
It is clear that the'concentration of many hundred thousands 
of men occupied in their various civilian duties over the whole 
surface of a country could not be undertaken in one nor even in 
a few days. The carrying capacity of railways, the time taken 
to distribute the order, etc., the necessity of preventing confusion, 
and the further necessity of grouping men from smaller centres 
of concentration into larger ones, all take time. The soldier, 
therefore, who has passed into the Reser\-e, has marked upon his 
papers liis duty to present himself at such and such a place not 
necessarily on the first day of mobilisation but on the third, or 
fifth, or whatever day may be appointed. 
Further time is taken up in clothing and arming, in drafting, 
each into his own corps, the men called up, and in moving tha 
first troops towards the scene of action. 
Mobilisation is again lengthened by the concentration of 
stores, the liberation and movement of Reserve weapons, and a 
host of other operations. 
The consequence is that even with everything moving 
exactly to a scheduled time, the mobilisation of any great modern 
national army will always take a considerable number of days. 
In France and Germany it is not far short of a fortnight ; ia 
Russia it is certainly over three weeks. The amount of rolling 
stock available, the length and direction of railways, the distribu- 
tion of population, all enter into this calculation ; and if there 
is any considerable hitch or confusion that period might be very 
disastrously prolonged. 
It is this operation of mobilisation and the length of tima 
attached to it which explains not only the delay between the 
beginning of a state of war and the first decisive actions, but 
also much of the strategics of the campaign. 
For instance, in the present embarrassment of Germany the 
fact that Russia mobilises more slowlj' than France determines 
the whole of Germany's main plan. She must try to put France 
at least half out of action, to prevent the French Army at least 
from pressing her badly upon the West, before Russia comes into 
play on the East ; and that is why she mobilised secretly before 
anybody else, and why she made her great effort of the very first 
days of the war against the Belgian defences which block her 
easiest road for attacking the French forces. 
II.— THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH AN ARMY 
LIVES AND MOVES. 
An Army being of its nature a body of men compelled to 
live under highly artificial conditions, consuming all kinds of 
wealth and yet producing nothing, covering at any one time a 
comparatively small area, which could never produce even the 
food it requires, and being in many other ways restricted by its 
special formation and purpose, can only be moved from placo to 
place under certain peculiar conditions, and according to certain 
peculiar rules. 
The body of knowledge and practice concerning these rules 
and conditions is (together with the art of bringing it against the 
enemy in the best posture) called Strategy. The word Strategy 
simply means " the conduct of an Army." 
It is clear that, even in its simplest state such a body of men 
will require accumulations of food especially designed to maintain 
it in being. Under modern conditions it will require accumu- 
lations of many other things beside food. Modern missile 
weapons (the rifle and the gun) cannot be used, save with special 
missiles designed for each particiUar type of weapon. A modern 
Army is further a mass of machines (guns, rifles, telegraphic 
and telephonic apparatus, aeroplanes, dirigibles, etc.) all of which 
will be in constant need of repair and maintenance. 
More than any older and similar force, it will require repeated 
supplies of clothing, horses, medicine, accoutrement. Of all 
these things, great stores must be got together; the stock of 
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