ARM'FELT, Charles Gustavus (1666-1736). A Swedish general, born in Ingermannland. After serving with distinction in the French armies he returned, in 1700, to his native country, and as commander of the Swedish troops in Finland fought valiantly against the Russians, whose superior strength, however, forced Armfelt to abandon the province in 1714. In 1718 he led a Swedish expedition into Norway, met with ill success, and on the retreat lost almost his entire army through starvation and disease. Subsequently he received his old post of Governor of Finland.
ARMFELT, Gustav Mauritz (1757-1814). A Swedish courtier whose public life was characterized by striking vicissitudes of fortune. He was born in the Government of Åbo. His loyalty to Gustavus III. gained him the favor and friendship of that monarch. Armfelt distinguished himself in the war between Sweden and Russia, and as military representative of Gustavus, had the honor of concluding a peace at Wärelä in August, 1790. By the will of Gustavus, who was assassinated in 1792, Armfelt was made Governor of Stockholm and a member of the council assigned to the regent, Charles, Duke of Sudermania. The Duke, however, could not brook the idea of a check being placed upon his liberty of action, and found means to destroy the will, the conditions of which he never intended to observe. Armfelt soon became conscious that his influence was rapidly disappearing. He was rarely permitted to see the young King; and at last, after a secret interview with the Crown Prince Gustavus, departed as ambassador to Naples in July, 1792. While in Italy he entered into correspondence with certain parties in Sweden for the purpose of overthrowing the regency, and inducing the States to proclaim Gustavus IV. of age. The correspondence was discovered. Armfelt fled to Poland and afterwards to Russia. He was condemned during his absence for high treason, and stripped of his goods and titles, while many of his friends were visited with torture and exile. In 1799 Gustavus IV. received the crown at the age of eighteen and Armfelt was restored to all his honors. In 1805 he was appointed Governor-General of Finland, in 1806 he commanded the Swedes in Pomerania, and in 1808 he commanded the Swedish army raised for the invasion of Norway; but his plans were so completely frustrated that he was compelled to witness the invasion of Sweden by the successful Norwegians, and was in consequence recalled and dismissed by the King. In the following year a revolution took place, Gustavus was deposed, the Duke of Sudermania elected in his place and Armfelt was appointed president of the Military Council. But shortly after he resigned and retired to Russia, where he lived during the remainder of his life in high honor. The title of count was conferred on him; he was made chancellor of the University of Åbo, president of the Board of Finnish Affairs, and member of the Russian Senate. He died at Tsarskoye-Selo. Consult Tegnér, Gustav Mauritz Armfelt (Stockholm, 1887).
ARM′GART. A dramatic poem by George Eliot, published in Macmillan's Magazine in July, 1871, and containing a female character of singular strength and fortitude, of the same name. Armgart refuses a splendid offer of marriage in order to pursue her ideal life as a great singer. Her voice fails, and she retires, broken-hearted, to teach music in a small village.
ARMIDA, är-mē′dȧ. A beautiful sorceress in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. She was employed by Satan to seduce Rinaldo and other Crusaders upon their arrival before the Holy City. Lured away by Armida to her pleasure-palace, Rinaldo for a time forgets his vows, but is released from the spell by a powerful talisman. He returns to the war, but is followed by the sorceress, who at last rushes into battle against him. She is defeated by Rinaldo, who then declares his love for her, converts her to Christianity, and vows to be her faithful knight. The story of Armida has been made the subject of operas by Lully (1686), Gluck (1777), Cherubini (1784), Zingarelli (1786), and Rossini (1817).
AR′MIES (Fr. armée, through Med. Lat. armata, an armed force, seen in Sp. Armada, properly fem. of Latin p. p. armatus, from armare, to arm). Armed forces, organized under 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 describe an army which is only a part of the military forces of the country to which it belongs; as, for instance, the United States Army in Cuba or the Philippine Islands. The fundamental principle of combat is the same, whether between two individuals or two nations, and out of that principle has developed the art and science of war. From the earliest times when men first joined with one another for warlike purposes, there have been changes and developments in methods 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 warriorship as a rule go together; and among the early Germans the attainment of a youth's majority and his admission 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 identification of army and nation is perhaps to be found among nomad tribes, where from time to time the shifting of the entire population is necessitated 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 differentiation 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
