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 the 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 continued long after the system of proprietary regiments and companies had disappeared. In England “purchase” endured until 1873, nearly a hundred years after it had ceased on the continent of Europe and more than fifty after the clothing, feeding and payment 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 command—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 working 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 remained 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.
The distinction between working and quasi-honorary officers was much older, of course, than Louvois’s reorganization. Moreover it extended to the highest ranks. About 1600 the “general” of a European army[1] was always a king, prince or nobleman. The lieutenant-general, by custom the commander of the cavalry, was also, as a rule, a noble, in virtue of his command of the aristocratic arm. But the commander of the foot, the “sergeant-major-general” or “major-general,” was invariably a professional soldier. It was his duty to draw up the army (not merely the foot) for battle, and in other respects to act as chief of staff to the general. In the infantry regiment, the “sergeant-major” or “major” was second-in-command and adjutant combined. Often, if not always, he was promoted from amongst the lieutenants and not the (proprietary) captains. The lieutenants were the backbone of the army.
Seventy years later, on the organization of the first great standing army by Louvois, the “proprietors,” as mentioned above, were reduced to a minimum both in numbers and in military importance. The word “major” in its various meanings had come, in the French service, to imply staff functions. Thus the sergeant-major of infantry became the “adjudant-major.” The sergeant-major-general, as commander of the foot, had disappeared and given place to numerous lieutenant-generals and “brigadiers,” but as chief of the staff he survived for two hundred years. As late as 1870 the chief of staff of a French army bore the title of “the major-general.”
Moreover a new title had come into prominence, that of “marshal” or “field marshal.” This marks one of the most important points in the evolution of the military officer, his classification by rank and not by the actual command he holds. In the 16th century an officer was a lieutenant of, not in, a particular regiment, and the higher officers were general, lieutenant-general and major-general of a particular army. When their army was disbanded they had no command and possessed therefore no rank—except of course when, as was usually the case, they were colonels of permanent regiments or governors of fortresses. Thus in the British army it was not until late in the i8th century that general officers received any pay as such. The introduction of a distinctively military rank[2] of “marshal” or “field marshal,” which took place in France and the empire in the first years of the 17th century, meant the establishment of a list of general officers, and the list spread downwards through the various regimental ranks, in proportion as the close proprietary system broke up, until it became the general army list of an army of to-day. At first field marshals were merely officers of high rank and experience, eligible for appointment to the offices of general, lieutenant-general, &c., in a particular army. On an army being formed, the list of field marshals was drawn upon, and the necessary number appointed. Thus an army of Gustavus Adolphus’s time often included 6 or 8 field marshals as subordinate general officers. But soon armies grew larger, more mobile and more flexible and more general officers were needed. Thus fresh grades of general arose. The next rank below that of marshal, in France, was that of lieutenant-general, which had formerly implied the second-in-command of an army, and a little further back in history the king’s lieutenant-general or military viceroy.[3] Below the lieutenant-general was the maréchal de camp, the heir of the sergeant-major-general. In the imperial service the ranks were field marshal and lieutenant field marshal (both of which survive to the present day) and major-general. A further grade of general officer was created by Louis XIV., that of brigadier, and this completes the process of evolution, for the regimental system had already provided the lower titles.
The ranks of a modern army, with slight variations in title, are therefore as follows:
(a) Field marshal: in Germany, Generalfeldmarschall; in Spain “captain-general”; in France (though the rank is in abeyance) “marshal.” The marshals of France, however, were neither so few in number nor so restricted to the highest commands as are marshals elsewhere. In Germany a new rank, “colonel-general”
- ↑ Except in the Italian republics.
- ↑ The title was, of course, far older.
- ↑ In England, until after Marlborough’s death, rank followed command and not vice versa. The first field marshals were the duke of Argyll and the earl of Cadogan. Marlborough’s title, or rather office, was that of captain-general.
