3 battalions of 4 companies each. The strength of batteries, troops and companies was increased, the maximum enlisted strength reached during 1898 being over 63,000. A volunteer army was also organized. Of this army, 3 regiments of engineer troops, 3 of cavalry and 10 of infantry were United States volunteers, all the officers being commissioned by the president. The other organizations came from the states, the officers being appointed by the respective governors. As fast as they were organized and filled up, they were mustered into the service of the United States. The total number furnished for the war with Spain was 10,017 officers and 213,218 enlisted men. All general and staff officers were appointed by the president. Three hundred and eighty-seven officers of the regular army received volunteer commissions. After the conclusion of hostilities with Spain, the mustering out of the volunteers was begun, and by June 1899 all the volunteers, except those in the Philippines, were out of the service. The latter, as well as those serving elsewhere, having enlisted only for the war, were brought home and mustered out as soon as practicable.
The act of the 2nd of March 1899 added 2 batteries to each regiment of artillery. On the 2nd of February 1901 Congress passed an important bill providing for the reorganization and augmentation (max. 100,000) of the regular army, and other measures followed in the next years. (See United States.)
Minor Armies
100. Dutch and Belgian Armies.—The military power of the “United Provinces” dates its rise from the middle of the 16th century, when, after a long and sanguinary struggle, they succeeded in emancipating themselves from the yoke of Spain; and in the following century it received considerable development in consequence of the wars they had to maintain against Louis XIV. In 1702 they had in their pay upwards of 100,000 men, including many English and Scottish regiments, besides 30,000 in the service of the Dutch East India Company. But the slaughter of Malplaquet deprived the republic of the flower of the army. Its part in the War of the Austrian Succession was far from being as creditable as its earlier deeds, a Prussian army overran Holland in 1787 almost without opposition, and at the beginning of the wars of the French Revolution the army had fallen to 36,000 men. In 1795 Holland was conquered by the French under Pichegru, and in the course of the changes which ensued the army was entirely reorganized, and under French direction bore its share in the great wars of the empire.
With the fall of Napoleon and the reconstitution of the Netherlands, the Dutch-Belgian army, formed of the troops of the now united countries, came into existence. The army fought at Waterloo, but was not destined to a long career, for the revolution of 1830 brought about the separation of Belgium. A Dutch garrison under Baron Chassé, a distinguished veteran of the Napoleonic wars, defended Antwerp against the French under Marshal Gérard, and the Netherlands have been engaged in many arduous colonial wars in the East Indies. The Belgian army similarly has contributed officers and non-commissioned officers to the service of the Congo Free State.
101. Swiss Army.—The inhabitants of Switzerland were always a hardy and independent race, but their high military reputation dates from the middle of the 15th century, when the comparatively ill-armed and untrained mountaineers signally defeated Charles the Bold of Burgundy and the flower of the chivalry of Europe in the battles of Granson, Morat and Nancy. The Swabian war, towards the end of that century, and the Milanese war, at the beginning of the following one, added to the fame of the Swiss infantry, and made it the model on which that arm was formed all over Europe. The wealthier countries vied with each other in hiring them as mercenaries, and the poor but warlike Swiss found the profession of arms a lucrative one.
A brief account of the Swiss mercenaries will be found earlier in this article. Their fall was due in the end to their own indiscipline in the first place, and the rise of the Spanish standing army and its musketeers in the second. Yet it does not seem that the military reputation of the Swiss was discredited, even by reverses such as Marignan. On the contrary, they continued all through the 17th and 18th centuries to furnish whole regiments for the service of other countries, notably of France, and individuals, like Jomini in a later age, followed the career of the soldier of fortune everywhere. The most notable incident in the later military history of the Swiss, the heroic faithfulness of Louis XVI.’s Swiss guard, is proverbial, and has been commemorated with just pride by their countrymen. The French Revolutionary armies overran Switzerland, as they did all the small neighbouring states, and during Napoleon’s career she had to submit to his rule, and furnish her contingent to his armies. On the fall of Napoleon she regained her independence, and returned to her old trade of furnishing soldiers to the sovereigns and powers of Europe. Charles X. of France had at one time as many as 17,000 Swiss in his pay; Naples and Rome had each four regiments. The recruiting for these foreign services was openly acknowledged and encouraged by the government. The young Swiss engaged usually for a period of four or six years; they were formed in separate regiments, officered by countrymen of their own, and received a higher rate of pay than the national regiments; and at the close of their engagement returned with their earnings to settle down on their paternal holdings. A series of revolutions, however, expelled them from France and Italy, and recently the advance of liberal ideas, and the creation of great national armies based on the principle of personal service, has destroyed their occupation. Switzerland is now remarkable in a military sense as being the only country that maintains no standing army (see Militia).
102. The Swedish Army can look back with pride to the days of Gustavus Adolphus and of Charles XII. The contributions made by it to the military science of the 17th century have been noticed above. The triumphs of the small and highly disciplined army of Charles were often such as to recall the similar victories of the Greeks under Alexander. The then nebulous armies of Russia and Poland resembled indeed the forces of Darius in the 4th century B.C., but Peter the Great succeeded at last in producing a true army, and the resistance of the Swedes collapsed under the weight of the vastly superior numbers then brought against them.
The Danish Army has a long and meritorious record of good service dating from the Thirty Years’ War.
103. The existing Army of Portugal dates from the Peninsular War, when a considerable force of Portuguese, at one time exceeding 60,000 men, was organized under Marshal Beresford. Trained and partly officered by English officers, it proved itself not unworthy of its allies, and bore its full share in the series of campaigns and battles by which the French were ultimately expelled from Spain. At the peace the army numbered about 50,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry, formed on the English model, and all in the highest state of efficiency. This force was reduced in 1821, under the new constitutional government, to about one-half.
104. The Rumanian, Bulgarian and Servian armies are the youngest in Europe. The conduct of the Rumanians before Plevna in 1877 earned for them the respect of soldiers of all countries. Servia and Bulgaria came to war in 1885, and the Bulgarian soldiers, under the most adverse conditions, achieved splendid victories under the leadership of their own officers. In the crisis following the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908–9), it seemed likely that the Servian forces might play an unexpectedly active part in war even with a strong power.
Bibliography.—Below are the titles of some of the more important works on the subject of armies. See also under biographical headings and articles dealing with the several arms, &c. A large proportion of the works mentioned below are concerned mainly with the development of strategy and tactics.
V. der Goltz, Das Volk in Waffen (1883, new ed., 1898, English translation, P. A. Ashworth, Nation in Arms, London, 1887, new ed., 1907, French, Nation armée, Paris, 1889); Jähns, Heeresverfassung und Völkerleben (Berlin, 1885); Berndt, Die Zahl im Kriege (Vienna, 1895); F. N. Maude, Evolution of Modern Strategy (1903), Voluntary versus Compulsory Service (1897), and War and the World’s Life (1907); Pierron, Méthodes de guerre, vol. i.; Jähns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften (an exhaustive bibliography, with critical notes); Troschke, Mil. Litteratur seit den Befreiungskriegen (Berlin, 1870); T. A. Dodge, Great Captains (Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Napoleon); Bronsart v. Schellendorf (Eng. trans., War Office, 1905) Duties of the General Staff; Favé, Histoire et tactique des trois armes (Liége, 1850); Maynert, Gesch. des Kriegswesens u. der Heeresverfassungen in Europa (Vienna, 1869); Jähns, Handbuch für eine Geschichte des Kriegswesens v. der Urzeit bis zur Renaissance (Leipzig, 1880); de la Barre Duparcq, Histoire de l’art de la guerre avant l’usage de poudre (Paris, 1860); Rüstow and Köchly, Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens (Aarau, 1852); Köchly and Rüstow, Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller (Leipzig, 1855); Förster, in Hermes, xii. (1877); D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander (London, 1897); Macdougall, Campaigns of Hannibal (London, 1858); Rüstow, Heerwesen, &c., Julius Cäsars (Nordhausen, 1855); Organ der M. Wissensch. Verein of 1877 (Vienna); Polybius literature of the 17th and 18th centuries; supplement to M.W.B., 1883; the works of Xenophon, Aelian, Arrian, Vegetius, Polybius, Caesar, &c. (see Köchly and Rüstow: a collection was made in the 15th century, under the title Veteres de re militari scriptores, 1487); Oman, A History of the Art of War: Middle Ages (London, 1898); Delpech, La Tactique au XIII e siècle (Paris, 1886); Kohler, Die Entwickelung des Kriegswesens v. 11. Jahrhdt. bis zu den Hussitenkriegen (Breslau, 1886–1893); Ricotti, Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura (Turin, 1846); Steger, Gesch. Francesco Sforzas und d. ital. Condottieri (Leipzig, 1865); J. A. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy and The Age of the Despots; A Brandenburg Mobilization of 1477 (German General Staff Monograph, No. 3); Palacky, “Kriegskunst der Böhmen,” Zeitschrift böhmisch. Museums (Prague, 1828); George, Battles of English History (London, 1895); Biottot, Les Grands inspirés devant la science: Jeanne d’Arc (Paris, 1907); V. Ellger, Kriegswesen, &c., der Eidgenossen, 14., 15., 16. Jahrhdt. (1873); de la Chauvelays, Les Armées de Charles le Téméraire (Paris, 1879); Guillaume, Hist. des bandes d’ordonnance dans les
