Conscription

CONSCRIPTION. Compulsion as applied to military recruit ment should not be confused with conscription, which entails not only the natural obligation of every able-bodied man to defend his hearth, home and country against foreign aggression, but the establishment of a standing army of short service men entirely at the call of the government of the land. Whilst in all such mili tary organizations as the Greek and Roman city militias and the Saxon fyrd compulsion was by natural right and tradition, in most of the great modern armies it is by law, and in such as do not enforce conscription by the inducement of pay, or the avoidance of starvation. We thus obtain two main systems of recruitment, the compulsory and the voluntary; both are professional, the latter in that its men undergo a prolonged training, and the former in that its instructional cadre and its corps of officers are permanent, whilst the bulk of its men serve but for one, two, or three years. Conscription in its modern sense dates from the French Revolu tion, and was exactly adapted to the environment of its times, namely equality of service, liberty of popular opinion backed by force, and the fraternity of all classes of society; such were theo retically the governing ideals of this period. To understand its influence on the history of the 19th and loth centuries, and to trace its future demands a brief survey of military development preceding the date of its initiation, namely 1798.

Early History of Military Development.

The principle that every able-bodied man should assist in the defence of the community to which he belongs held good in fact as long as agri cultural instruments could be effectively used as military weapons, though naturally weapons of the chase—bow, spear and long knife—were preferred. It was the manufacture of armour, a purely military invention, which introduced the professional sol dier, and since that early date, lost in the dawn of human history, each purely military invention has had a marked influence on the militarization of civil life. If the invention was costly, or difficult to come by, armies became small and aristocratic, as was the case during the middle ages when armour was of predominant military importance; if cheap and easy, then large and democratic, as after the advent of gunpowder. When trade began to become more profitable than plunder, that is after the crusades, occupations began to become specialized, wealth was accumulated and forti fications became a necessary safeguard to wealth, trade and com merce. Fortifications demanded permanent garrisons, and as it was uncongenial and beneath the dignity of a military aristocracy, or a rich burgher community, to man and protect castle or city walls, hired soldiery came into existence, and in time specialized into two classes : the defenders and attackers of fortresses. It is in these troops, rather than in the feudal levy, that the origin of present day standing armies must be sought. As fire arms were introduced, organization and training became more compli cated, and in the 16th century we find Machiavelli and Maurice of Nassau suggesting the idea of universal service. At this period it was reckoned that 5,000 disciplined Spanish troops were more than a match for four times their number of Burghers, but except for Spain, enriched by the gold and silver of the New World, nations were too poor to maintain large professional armies, and continued to depend on citizen militia forces and the hire of mercenaries.

With the close of the Wars of Religion in 1648, conflicts be tween nations centred more and more round dynastic questions, the object being territorial acquisition, and as such was useless without revenue and inhabitants to pay it, as Clausewitz says: "The principle of moderation was introduced into the conduct of hostilities altogether foreign to their nature." Plunder and pillage were forbidden, with the result that the profession of the soldier became less and less remunerative, and armies more and more de pendent on the lower strata of society—those men who were lacking in spirit and intelligence, and unsuited to earn a livelihood in civil employment. Thus it happened that immediately preced ing the outbreak of the French Revolution, except for a few corps d'elites, the human quality of all armies throughout Europe "reached the very nadir of degradation." It was time for some thing new.

The Birth of Conscription.

The general upheaval which followed the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 swept away the old royal army of France, and simultaneously initiated the prob lem of national defence. The theory of equality logically led to the demand for universal service, and as the majority of the people are naturally adverse to risking their skins, universal serv ice was tantamount to compulsory enlistment. The proposal ac cepted was a threefold one, namely, voluntary enlistment for the line, all unmarried citizens between 18 and 4o years of age to con stitute the militia, and the rest of the male population to form the National Guards for home defence. The last mentioned cate gory proved popular, and 2,571,000 names were inscribed, but only 6o out of the 169 battalions of volunteers it was hoped to raise were obtained. The result was so disappointing that on July 11, 1792 a decree was passed according to which every able-bodied man was to consider himself liable for active service, it being left to the communes to select those who were to proceed to the front. The means of enforcing this law were so imperfect that not more than 30,00o men reached the field armies, and only remained with them for a few months. To fill the ever increasing gaps in the ranks, on Feb. 20, 1793 the Convention decreed a compulsory levy of 500,00o men, which was so unpopular that thousands de serted their homes, and Vendee rose in revolt. At length in August Carnot succeeded in introducing a workable scheme which limited liability to service to men between 18 and 25. This was accepted by the people, because the class called upon was not politically strong enough to resist coercion, and by Jan. 1, 1794 no less than 770,000 men were under arms.

The successes of Bonaparte in Italy, which brought wealth and glory to France, as well as the consolidation of political power and the revival of trade, brought to the notice of political economists the loss of productive energy in compelling highly skilled• civil workers to enlist whilst those in the ranks were willing to renew their contract. This consideration coupled with the fact that by the summer of 1798 a renewal of the war with Austria was inevit able, General Jourdan proposed a system of conscription which became law on the 19th Fructidor (Sept. 4) that year. "The young men in each Department were to be registered in five classes, the first consisting of those between twenty and twenty one, and so on in an ascending scale of age to the last class, those between twenty-four and twenty-five. The conscripts each year were to be drawn from the first class, each subsequent class to be called out only in case the first did not furnish a sufficient num ber." Such were the main clauses of this law which not only ren dered the Napoleonic conquests possible, but which were destined to influence the subsequent course of European history in a man ner quite unrealized by its initiators.

Conscription Under Napoleon.

Though under the Direc tory this law proved worse than a failure, only 37,00o conscripts being obtained out of the required 200,00o, when once Bonaparte seized the reins of power he forged out of it his tremendous armies. At Schonbrunn, in 1805, he said to Metternich: "I can use up 25,00o men a month"—such was the pivotal argument in his theory and practice of "absolute warfare"—the nation was but a vast manufactory of cannon-fodder. In i800, France provided him with 30,00o men; 6o,000 in 1801; 6o,000 in 1802; 6o,000 in 1803; 6o,000 in 1804; 210,000 in 1805; 8o,000 in 1806; 8o,000 in 1807; 240,000 in 1808; 76,000 in 1809; i6o,000 in 181o; 120,000 in 1811; 237,000 in 1812; and 1,140,000 in 1813—a total of 2,613,000. These figures are not only interesting in themselves, but are indicative of the whole course of European warfare, and its nature, from 1800 to the present day. The cheapness of the musket as a weapon coupled with the democratic spirit of the age threw nations back to the primitive idea of military power, namely, the nation in arms. The theory that "God marches with the big gest battalions" coloured the entire strategy and tactics of the wars of the 19th century, whether in Europe, Asia or America, and formed the crucial military problem of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, and the World War of 1914-18. This theory sprang full-armed from out the head of the French Revolution, and it is of interest to trace its influence on the national life and military art of its greatest exponent during the last 130 years of its existence.

The Influence of Conscription on Prussia.—Napoleon's conquests brought with them the French law of conscription which was immediately enforced. Prussia pursued this idea to its logical conclusion, and in 1808 "definitely affirmed the principle of uni versal service without distinction of class, or right of exemption by purchase." After Tilsit her enthusiasm was checked by the Emperor, but only temporarily so, for she returned to it in full force once her adversary was crushed. From 1815 onwards, as one writer aptly expresses it : "Army expenditure became the fly wheel which steadied her disorganized finance." The nationaliza tion of the Prussian army not only stimulated trade, for it had to be fed, clothed and equipped, but consolidated the nation which, since the peace of Westphalia, had been groping in the dark toward the realization of Wallenstein's dream of a united Ger manic Empire. Compulsory service brought all classes and ranks into close intercourse. The army became the national university in which was cultivated a common spirit. The better class recruits, consciously, or unconsciously, instructed their social inferiors, and in the exercise of these functions mutually added to each other's character and sympathies. The intelligence of the men reacted on their officers who were compelled to keep pace with the general intellectual movement. As the duration of service was limited to three years, the regimental officers had to become in every way instructors of their men, with the result that a magnificent corps of officers was created. During the 5o years following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the Prussian military machine separated the wheat from the chaff, yearly turning out as it did an increasing number of men whose physical and moral training were vastly superior to the unconscripted man of the classes from whom they had sprung. This system of national reconstruction through uni versal service reached the apex of its perfection in the sixties and swept all before it in the victories of 1866 and 187o.

The Causes of Decline.

Perfection in war as in peace is the herald of death. Prussia's greatness grew out of Jourdan's law of conscription, and the results of this law reached their zenith at Sedan. Since 187o a new social environment has been created which has vastly influenced the organisation of armies. First, the general introduction of compulsory education, has largely replaced the educative value of compulsory service. Secondly, the enor mous advances in science and industrial production, with their consequents—luxury, wealth and intellectual pursuits—have changed the character of nations, and have replaced agriculture by manufacture as the key industry of civilised countries. Thirdly, a still more important consequent was and still is the change in the power and nature of weapons themselves.

From 187o onwards the value of conscription, both as a national stimulant and a means of military recruitment, began to sag. The pay of the conscript was negligible, and, as luxuries increased, it had to be supplemented by small paternal and maternal allow ances, unless the soldier was of the type who could cheerfully tolerate acute discomfort and the normal lack of art in military cooking. The best men refused to re-engage and returned to civil life, consequently inferior soldiers had to be promoted to non commissioned rank, and when invested with authority frequently abused it ; this tended by degrees to make conscription unpopular. Industrialization was at first followed by a vast increase in the population, and as years followed, more and more did it become impossible to absorb the ever-increasing numbers of men of mili tary age. In all conscript armies this led to a host of exemptions, which though in theory strictly regulated, in practice resulted in many abuses, the richer classes of men of military age normally being able to avoid service, or if conscripted to carry out their duties on easier terms. In spite of these disabilities, which became apparent before the i9th century reached its close, all great nations, other than Great Britain and America, placed their faith in conscription, and still fervently believed with Napoleon and Clausewitz that God marches with the biggest battalions, and that, consequently, numbers of men are the deciding factor in war.

The World War of 1914-1918.

The World War of 1914 1918 was fought out on this assumption at terrific cost. Amongst the combatants conscription became universal, Great Britain and America being compelled to adopt it. In all some so millions of men were conscripted, and the total casualties in killed alone has been reckoned at more than io millions. What the war cost directly and indirectly it is impossible to calculate. Throughout its entire duration the Central Powers were outnumbered, yet it was only after over four years' incessant struggle that the Allies were able to enforce an armistice on Germany. The "big bat talions" had grotesquely failed as an instrument whereby econom ical victory could be gained. There was no Sadowa and no Sedan, in place battles such as Verdun, the Somme and Ypres (1917) were fought to mutual destruction. As the war proceeded it became more and more apparent that, as in 1798, it was nothing less than a national, let alone military crime to conscript all classes of men as if they were one class and of equal value, and to fill the trenches, which were little more than altars of human sacrifice to a discredited god, with highly skilled mechanics, miners and professional men. Throughout the war it was scarcely realised by any of the General Staffs that the one great tactical problem was not to increase fighting man power, but as far as it was pos sible to eliminate the fighting man, the human slop-butt, and replace him by a mechanic. In spite of tank attacks, air attacks, naval attrition and chemical attacks, it was not realised that weapons give blows and men receive them, and that the main problem in tactics is how to give blows without receiving them, and not a mere mathematical question of human tonnage. It was not grasped that quality and not quantity was the problem, and so little was this realised that, in 1919, Germany was denied the power to maintain a conscript army, and was compelled to estab lish a voluntary one, that is to rely on quality, whilst her most powerful land enemy—France—adhered to bulk numbers.

The Future.

To those who can read the past and follow present tendencies, the future development of recruitment is clear and certain. Conscription is the military expression of an agricul tural democracy, and when nations cease to depend on agriculture as their staple industry it rapidly becomes a burden. An industrial democracy lives in a totally different world. As military power was once based on the numbers of sturdy yeomen and peasants who could be impressed or enlisted, to-day it depends on the numbers of skilled mechanics, not only to manufacture war ma chines but to fight them. The advent of the motor-driven battle vehicle has reintroduced armour as an essential in tactical organi sation. Another armoured age faces the great armies of the world, an age of costly machines in place of cheap muskets, and the ten dency is, consequently, one towards small armies in which quality will replace the quantity theory of the present cannon fodder masses. None but industrial powers are likely to wage great wars with any hope of success, for in spite of all opposition, petrol power is transforming armies as surely as steam-power trans formed navies from 186o onwards; the result must be the same. Whilst I oo years ago any merchantman could be converted into a warship at a few days' notice, to-day not all the merchantmen in the world could fight, on equal terms, a single Dreadnought.

The theory of conscription has run its course, and is to-day growing out of date. A few years hence no conscript army will be able to face an organised attack by armed motor cars, let alone by tanks and kindred weapons. It will have its use solely as an army of occupation, a force of men which will occupy a conquered area but not conquer it. The fighting armies of the future will be voluntary, highly Professional and highly paid, consequently, com paratively small; this is the whole tendency of present day military evolution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Henri d'Orleans, Duc d'Aumale, Les Institutions Bibliography.--Henri d'Orleans, Duc d'Aumale, Les Institutions militaires de la France (1867. Trans. by Capt. Ashe, etc., 1869) ; C. F. M. Rousset, Les Volontaires .1791-1794 (1870) ; J. Michelet, Les Soldats de la Revolution (1878) ; L. Jablonski, L'Armee francaise a travers les ages, 5 vol. (1881-94) ; C. von der Goltz, Das Volk in W a ff en (1883. Trans. by P. A. Ashworth as A Nation in Arms, new ed. 1906, popular ed., 1914) ; F. N. Maude, Voluntary versus Compulsory Service (1891) , and War and the World's Life (1907) ; A. von Boguslawski, Die Landwehr von 1813 bis r893 (1893) ; E. d'Hauterive, L'Armee sous la Revolution (1894) ; V. Chareton, Comment la Prusse a prepare sa revanche '8°6-1813 (1903). See also The Cambridge Modern History, vols. 8 and 9 (19o4-06). (J. F. C. F.) Revolution and War of 1812.—During the Revolution and the War of 1812 the volunteer system failed to procure the men required for military purposes. To stimulate voluntary enlist ments bounties, consisting of gifts of money, land, and clothing, were granted to recruits. Massachusetts and Virginia resorted to conscription in 1777. On February 6, 1778, two-thirds of the authorized Continental Army being unrecruited, Congress recom mended that the other colonies follow the example set by Massa chusetts and Virginia. Washington, himself, wrote to the presi dent of the Continental Congress in 1778, "I believe our greatest and only aid will be derived from drafting, which I trust may be done by the United States." The aid extended by France averted the necessity for conscription. During the latter part of the War of 1812, when volunteers failed to fill the depleted ranks of the Army, Congress considered several methods of conscription, but peace prevented definite action.

Civil War.

The volipteer system which enthusiastically filled the Union ranks in 1861 practically collapsed in 1862 after the president had issued a call for 3oo,000 additional volunteers. In the summer of 1862, the States attempted conscription, but with out success. The Federal Government was then f orced to accept the necessity of a Federal draft, an obligation the Confederacy had already been driven to assume nearly one year before. On March 3, 1863, the Enrollment Act was passed, boldly declar ing the liability to military service in the national forces of all males, except certain exempted persons, between the ages of 20 and 45. The law imposed upon the citizen a direct and personal obligation to the nation.

Unfortunately, the principle of universal liability of all citi zens to perf orm military service was not carried to its logical con clusion; the law was weakened by provisions authorizing the pay ment of bounties and the hiring of substitutes. The calls for men were apportione among the States. If not filled by volunteers before a certain date, the deficit had to be supplied by conscrip tion. In order o avoid conscription, each State, and the sub divisions thereof entered upon a race for volunteers. Larger and larger became the bounties. Wealthy communities reached into the poorer districts and bought up the necessary manpower. The result was inevitable. Riots broke out especially in New York city and order was restored only by the arrival of troops with drawn from the front. The Confederate conscription law was enacted in April, 1862. Its purpose was to insure the retention of the men already in the service as well as to obtain others. In its administration emerged the modern theory that the industrial organization behind the line was quite as important as the mili tary organization. This theory was not successfully applied be cause the army officers by whom the act was administered lost sight of every consideration except the single one of procuring soldiers.

World War.

In 1917 the Administration decided to rely upon conscription for the recruitment of the army. In urging the passage of the bill, known as the Selective Service Act, the secre tary of war stated "This is no time to tolerate uncertainty in the raising and the maintenance of the large numbers of men which the present emergency is likely to require nor uncertainty in the methods to be adopted for the establishment of an adequate effi cient military service. The bill makes certain the raising and maintenance of the required forces with the utmost expedition. It establishes the principle that all arms-bearing citizens owe to the nation the duty of defending it. It selects only those who, by reason of their age and physical capacity, are best fitted to receive the training and withstand the actual hardship of campaign, and who, happily, can be taken with least disturbance of normal eco nomic and industrial conditions." The law was unequivocal in its terms. It vested the president with plenary power of prescrib ing regulations which should strike a balance between industrial, agricultural, and economic need, of the nation on the one hand and the military need on the other, and which should summon men for service in the place in which it should best suit the com mon good to call them. The regulations for the Administration of the law were written so as to avoid the mistakes made in the execution of conscription in the Civil War.

The governors of States, the mayors of cities, and the officials of counties were called upon to lend their aid in the accomplish ment of registration which began on June 5, 1917. Over ro,000,000 men, between the ages of 21 and 3o years, were enrolled in a single day. Later the age limits were changed to 18 to 45 years, and the number enrolled was increased to 24,000,000. With the registration completed, it became necessary to provide a system of local selection boards and to prescribe their procedure in hear ing and resolving claims for exemption. The life histories and the most intimate relations of the enrolled men were carefully ex amined and their future status fixed. Questionnaires, which elicited detailed information, and physical examinations formed the basis of classification. The available manpower was grouped into four classes in the inverse order of its industrial importance; a fifth group contained those exempted from all liability under the terms of the Selective Service Law. The first class constituted the reservoir of manpower, the drain of which for military duty would least disturb the domestic and economic life of the nation. The other classes contained the men whose domestic and indus trial relations were such that their call to the colours should be deferred as long as the exigencies of the military situation would permit. In order to determine the order in which men were to be called to the colours, a great central lottery was established in Washington. 2,8io,296 men were inducted into the service through selective service, while approximately 2,000,000 addi tional men, anticipating their call, voluntarily enlisted in the Army and Navy.

The task of selective service did not stop with the raising of armies; rather it became more intricate and more highly diffi cult. The classification scheme sorted out from the 24,000,000 registrants and placed in the Army those whose withdrawal from domestic and industrial connections would create the least dis turbing effect upon the current of national life. But the remainder far outnumbered those who went to the fighting forces. The efforts of the residue, the deferred classes, which formed the great army behind the lines, had to be directed so that they could con tribute most effectively to the fighting forces. How to mould this vast group of manpower, how to weave its energies into the general pattern of national effectiveness, attaining a maximum of war-time production and a minimum of peace-time disturbance— these were the problems, herculean in magnitude, yet susceptible of only the most delicate treatment, to which the selective service organization had to address itself. From the war-time standpoint, occupations may be roughly placed in three groups: (I) Those enterprises, such as shipbuilding and the manufacture of muni tions; (2) Those enterprises contributing to the general good, without which the normal life of the nation would be seriously affected and the continuance of which must be fostered to render a return to peace-time conditions easy; (3) The non-productive employments. The ultimate aim of the system was to eliminate useful manpower in the third group, to comb the second to the minimum consistent with the preservation of the framework of normality and to fill the first to the utmost possible limits. The whole scheme may be envisioned as an instantaneous destruction of the third group, a gradual compression of the second and a constant expansion of the first.

The Future.

The value of the conscription method over the volunteer method was so clearly demonstrated in the World War that there should be no question as to the choice, provided large armies are required. The volunteer system always constitutes a serious drain upon essential war industries; large numbers of men whose energies may be of infinitely more value in the industrial world than on the battlefield will abandon their productive labours. The modern conscription method inventories the nation's manpower. By means of it, the most available men may be drawn at such times and in such numbers as required for use in the fighting forces with the least possible disturbance of the economic structure of the country.

In war, as in the industrial world, a modern machine, operated by a few men under favourable conditions, may be capable of greater execution than a much larger number of men unaided by the machine. However, war machines now have physical, tactical and strategical limitations which prevent universal use of them. Mechanical fighting elements of this kind must always manoeuvre above ground. A gun can always be found to destroy the heaviest armour. Immobilized, such elements are quite vulnerable. Re placement is slow and costly. Above all, they alone cannot hold conquered ground. This can be done only by men, usually in large numbers. A completely mechanized fighting force, there fore, has distinct limitations as to the terrain on which it can be employed and as to time and manner of its employment. It is essentially an element of offense. The use of modern war machines will not materially reduce the size of armies in future wars of great magnitude and conscription will be as necessary as it has been in the past.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-E. H.

Crowder, Report of the Provost Marshal Bibliography.-E. H. Crowder, Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War (1918, 1919), The Spirit of Selective Service (192o) ; Emory Upton, The Military Police of the United States (1917) . (E. H. CR.)