OFFICERS. The employment of the word "officer" to denote a person holding a military or naval command as representative of the State, and not as deriving his authority from his own powers or privileges, marks an entire change in the character of the armed forces of civilized nations. Originally signifying an official, one who performs an assigned duty (Lat. officium), an agent, and in the i 5th century actually meaning the subordinate of such an official (even to-day a constable is so called), the word seems to have acquired a military significance late in the 16th century. (At sea the relatively clear partition of actual duties amongst the authorities of a ship brought about the adoption of the term "officer" somewhat earlier.) It was at this time that armies, though not yet "standing," came to be constituted almost exclusively of professional soldiers in the king's pay. Mercenaries, and great numbers of mercenaries, had always existed, and their captains were not feudal magnates. But the bond between mercenaries and their captains was entirely per sonal, and the bond between the captain and the sovereign was of the nature of a contract. The non-mercenary portion of the older armies was feudal in character. It was the lord and not a king's officer who commanded it, and he commanded in virtue of his rights, not of a warrant or commission.
European history in the late 15th century is the story of the victory of the Crown over the feudatories. The instrument of the Crown was its army, raised and commanded by its deputies. But these deputies were still largely soldiers of fortune and, in the higher ranks, feudal personages, who created the armies them selves by their personal influence with the would-be soldier or the unemployed professional fighting man. Thus the first system to replace the obsolete combination of feudalism and "free com panies" was what may be called the proprietary system. Under this the colonel was the proprietor of his regiment, the captain the proprietor of his company. The king accepted them as his officers, and armed them with authority to raise men, but they themselves raised the men as a rule from experienced soldiers who were in search of employment, although, like Falstaff, some captains and colonels "misused the King's press damnably." All alike were most rigorously watched lest by showing imaginary men on their pay-sheets they should make undue profits. A "muster" was the production of a number of living men on parade corresponding to the number shown on the pay-roll. An inspection was an inspection not so much of the efficiency as of the numbers and the accounts of units. A full account of these practices, which were neither more nor less prevalent in England than elsewhere, will be found in J. W. Fortescue's History of the British Army, vol. i. So faithfully was the custom observed of requiring the showing of a man for a man's pay, that the grant of a special allowance to officers administering companies was often made in the form of allowing them to show imaginary John Does and Richard Roes on the pay-sheets. The next step was taken when armies, instead of being raised for each campaign and from the qualified men who at each recruiting time offered themselves, became "standing" armies fed by untrained recruits.
During the late 17th and 18th centuries the Crown supplied the recruits, and also the money for maintaining the forces, but the colonels and captains retained in a more or less restricted degree their proprietorship.
Thus, the profits of military office without its earlier burdens were in time of peace considerable, and an officer's commission had therefore a "surrender value." The practice of buying and selling commissions was a natural consequence, and this con tinued long after the system of proprietary regiments and com panies had disappeared. In England "purchase" endured until 1873, nearly ioo years after it had ceased on the Continent of Europe and more than 5o after the clothing, feeding and pay ment of the soldiers had been taken out of the colonels' hands. The purchase system, it should be mentioned, did not affect artillery and engineer officers, either in England or in the rest of Europe. These officers, who were rather semi-civil than military officials until about 1715, executed an office rather than a com mand—superintended gun-making, built fortresses and so on. As late as 1780 the right of a general officer promoted from the Royal Artillery to command troops of other arms was challenged. In its original form, therefore, the proprietary system was a most serious bar to efficiency. So long as war was chronic, and self-trained recruits were forthcoming, it had been a good work ing method of devolving responsibility. But when drill and the handling of arms became more complicated, and, above all, when the supply of trained men died away, the State took recruiting out of the colonels' and captains' hands, and, as the individual officer had now nothing to offer the Crown but his own potential military capacity (part of which resided in his social status, but by no means all), the Crown was able to make him, in the full sense of the word, an officer of itself. This was most fully seen in the reorganization of the French army by Louis XIV. and Louvois. The colonelcies and captaincies of horse and foot re mained proprietary offices in the hands of the nobles but these offices were sinecures or almost sinecures. The colonels, in peace at any rate, were not expected to do regimental duty. They were at liberty to make such profits as they could make under a stringent inspection system. But they were expected to be the influential figure-heads of their regiments and to pay large sums for the privilege of being proprietors. This classification of officers into two bodies, the poorer, which did the whole of the work, and the richer, upon which the holding of a commission conferred an honour that birth or wealth did not confer, marks two very notable advances in the history of army organization, the professionalization of the officer and the creation of the prestige attaching to the holder of a commission because he holds it and not for any extraneous reason.