ARMY. The word army, like many other military terms, has come to us from the French. They write it armee, " the armed," the " men in arms," which is pre cisely what the English word army means. An army is ill defined by Locke to be a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. There are various definitions given by writers on the Law of Nations.
The word army is not used to designate a simple regiment or battalion, or any small body of armed men. An army is a large body of troops distributed in divi sions and regiments, each under its own commander, and having officers of various descriptions to attend to all that is neces sary to make the troops effective when in action. The whole body is under the di rection of some one commander, who is called the commander-in-chief, the ge neral, and sometimes the generalissimo, that is, the chief among the generals.
The whole military force of a nation constitutes its army, and it is usual to timate the comparative strength of nations by the number of well-appointed men which they are able to bring into the field. In another sense, an army is a detachment from the whole collected force ; a number of regiments sent forth on a particular under the command, of some one person who is the general for that especial purpose. Instances of this latter sense of the word occur in the expressions "Army of Italy," "the Army of Spain," &c., as formed by Napoleon. Such a de tachment may be a large or a small army ; and should it return with its ranks greatly thinned and without many of its officers, It would still be an army, if the distribu tion into divisions and regiments re mained, though actually consisting of not more than a single regiment with its full complement of men and officers. In this state it is sometimes not unaptly called the skeleton of an army.
An army is the great instrument in the hands of the governments of modern Eu rope, by which, in the last extremity, they enforce obedience to the laws at home, and respect from other powers who show a disposition to do them wrong. When the efforts of the ministers of peace and justice at home are inadequate to enforce submission to the laws :—when the corre spondence of cabinets and the conferences of ambassadors fail in composing disputes which arise among nations, the army is that power which is used to maintain order at home and rights abroad.
The legitimate purposes for which an army is maintained are essential to the well-being of a state, and every nation that has attained any high degree of civi lization, has always maintained such a force, at least for protection and defence. But to have an army always appointed and always ready for the field can only be effected when the various other offices in a great community are properly distri buted and filled. No better proof can be afforded of the high civilization of Egypt and other countries in early times than the well-appointed and powerful armies which they were able to bring into the field. This was effected in Egypt by having a particular caste or class of sol diers, corresponding pretty nearly to the Kshatriyas of India. (Herodotus, ii. 164, &c.) The armies of the Greeks, especially in the post-Alexandrine period, those of Carthage under the command of Han nibal, and the armies of Rome in the best days of the Republic and the Empire, were not inferior to any of modern times in numbers, appointments, discipline, or the military skill of their commanders. It is not, however, to them that we are to trace the origin or the history of our mo dern armies.
An army, meaning by that term a body of men distinct from the rest of the nation, constantly armed and disciplined, was unknown in the early periods of the English and the other modern European nations. The whole male population was the army ; that is, every person learned the use of arms, was ready to defend him self, his family, and his possessions ; and in time of common danger, to go out to war under the command of some one chief chosen from among the heads of the tribes. Such were the vast armies which pre sented themselves from time to time on the Roman frontier, or contended against Comer when he was endeavouring to sub jugate Gaul ; and such was the power which, on so short a warning, was arrayed against him on the British coast under the command of Cassibelaunns, when he made that descent from which neither honour accraed to the Roman arms nor benefit to the Roman state. In all these nations the warlike spirit was kept up by the sense of danger, not so much from foreign invaders, as from neighbouring and kin dred tribes.