ARMIES (Fr. armee, through Med. Lat. armata, an armed force, seen in Sp. Armada, properly fem. of Latin p. p. annatus, from arm are, to arm). Armed forces, organized tin der a regular system, for purposes of defense. The term 'army' may describe the military strength of the nation of which the force is a part. or by which it is employed; but it may also be used to de scribe an army which is only a part of the mili tary forces of the country to which it belongs; as, for instance, the United States Army in Cuba or the Philippine Islands. The fundamental prin ciple of combat is the same, whether between two individuals or two nations, and out of that prin ciple has developed the art and science of war. From the earliest times when men first joined with one another for warlike purposes, there hare been changes and developments in meth ods of association, discoveries in the realm of strategy and the application of tactics, as well as a constantly increasing number of inventions of weapons, mechanical devices, and other engines of destruction. In a primitive state of society the army as such does not exist, and the fighting force is co-equal with the group, the tribe or the nation. Military service is not only a duty but a privilege, and the right of carrying arms is one of the great distinctions between the freeman and the slave. Citizenship and warriorsbip as a rule go together; and among the early Germans the attainment of a youth's majority and his ad mission to a share of political rights was marked by an elaborate ceremony of assumption of arms, which with time passed into the chivalric ritual of admission to knighthood. The closest iden
tification of army and nation is perhaps to be found among nomad tribes, where from time to time the shifting of the entire population is neces sitated by failing of pasture. Such a migration, peaceful when unresisted, assumes the character of a hostile invasion when the desired territory is in the possession of a tribe strong enough to attempt resistance. Thus, too. in the great migrations preceding and succeeding the fall of the West Roman Empire, the Germanic warriors, marching from their old homes in the north to the conquest of a new home within the Empire, and accompanied by their wives, their children and their household goods, offered a complete example of army and nation as one. With the establishment of permanent states the differen tiation between citizen and warrior begins, and this development is greatly hastened by the growth of industry; for if the farmer finds it a hardship to be summoned from the plow to the field of battle, the burden falls still heavier on the industrial laborer, with whom the condi tions of production are such as to require con stant application. The process thus begun continues until in countries like Great Britain or the United States, where military service is on a contractual basis, the total separation of warrior and citizen is attained. These considera tions must be borne in mind in discussing the history of the evolution of the army. Begin ning with the earliest organized armies of which there is record, below will be found an historical outline of this development.