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army

(är'mē)

n., pl. -mies.

1. A large body of people organized and trained for land warfare.
2. often Army The entire military land forces of a country.
3. A tactical and administrative military unit consisting of a headquarters, two or more corps, and auxiliary forces.
A large group of people organized for a specific cause: the construction army that built the Panama Canal.
A multitude; a host: An army of waiters served at the banquet. See synonyms at multitude.

[Middle English armee, from Old French, from Medieval Latin armāta, from Latin, feminine past participle of armāre, to arm, from arma, arms.]

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: army

Large, organized force armed and trained for war, especially on land. The term may be applied to a large unit organized for independent action or to a nation's or ruler's overall military organization for land warfare. The character and organization of armies have varied through history. At various times armies have been built around infantry soldiers or mounted warriors (e.g., cavalry) or men in machines, and have been made up of professionals or amateurs, of mercenaries fighting for pay or for plunder, or of patriots fighting for a cause. See also air force, conscription, guerrilla, military unit, militia, U.S. Army.

For more information on army, visit Britannica.com.

British History: army

Long before the Norman Conquest, military obligation seems to have divided into two basic forms. One was an obligation for service by all adult males, established in English law as the militia by the Assize of Arms of 1181. The other was a small permanent standing army, usually represented in the medieval period by the warriors of the royal household.

By early modern times, English armies consisted almost entirely of troops paid in some fashion. However, any form of standing army was considered a potential instrument of royal despotism. The Yeomen of the Guard, founded by Henry VII in 1485 as a small royal bodyguard, is the earliest unit of the British army that has survived. The granting of money by Parliament to finance armies on a temporary basis became one of the most important issues between crown and Parliament. It reached a crisis in 1639-41 when Parliament refused Charles I money to repel a Scots invasion, and would not trust him with control of an army to suppress the Irish rebellion.

The direct ancestor of the modern British army is usually considered to be the parliamentary New Model Army of 1645. However, its part in enforcing Cromwell's rule in England and in subjugating Scotland and Ireland helped to establish a prejudice against soldiers which lasted well into modern times. The first properly constituted standing army, of tiny proportions, was created in 1661 by Charles II, and entitled ‘His Majesty's Guards and Garrisons’. The existence and function of the army was based on royal prerogative rather than statute, an issue which came to a head in the reign of James II and played a part in his overthrow. Thereafter the 1689 Declaration of Rights established that a standing army was illegal without Parliament's approval, granted every year in the Mutiny Act until 1953, when this was replaced by a five-yearly Armed Forces Act.

Particularly after the Act of Union with Scotland of 1707, and the subsequent defeat of Jacobite uprisings, a large army at home was not required. Instead, the British needed a minimum force to keep order, garrisons for their overseas possessions, and small forces to contribute to coalitions for European wars. The British army developed in a manner regarded by European standards as both eccentric and old-fashioned, with a central core of units providing the basis for a much larger army that could be expanded and disbanded according to need.

Whereas in some countries the army became the focus of political and social reform, in Britain it was always seen as a bastion of reaction. Particularly after the French Revolution, the army was deliberately kept apart from British society (through the building of barracks), and practices regarded as obsolete in continental warfare, such as officers purchasing their commissions, regiments having considerable autonomy from central authority, and the flogging of soldiers, persisted well into the 19th cent. Parliamentary fears of militarism meant rigid control of the army's budget, a deliberately divided command system, and a toleration of inefficiency in order to keep the army politically weak. Officers were drawn largely from the lesser gentry, with an admixture of the aristocracy, and recruits from the poorest classes.

After the loss of the American colonies in 1783, the largest single focus for the British army was India, following the crown's absorption of the East India Company army as the Indian army in 1858. Garrisoning British India with both British and Indian troops became the major army role of the late 19th cent. A series of reforms following the Crimean War (1853-6), associated in particular with the abolition of purchase by Edward Cardwell in 1871 and with the creation of the ‘county regiments’ structure ten years later, produced a largely infantry army to serve overseas. The revelation of serious military deficiencies in the Second Boer War (1899-1902) produced reforms to prepare the army for warfare in Europe, particularly associated with Richard Haldane.

The British tradition of a small long-service army for use overseas meant that at the start of the First World War (1914-18) Britain was the only belligerent country without conscription, introduced with reluctance in January 1916. The creation of a mass citizen army for the war was of great social as well as political significance for Britain, marking the first real contact between the army and British society since the Civil War. Ultimately the British army was the most successful of the war, inflicting a crushing defeat upon Germany. However, with no shared military tradition to draw upon, the social and cultural impact of the war upon Britain was devastating, and persisted to the end of the 20th cent.

The experience of the First World War enabled Britain to cope rather better with the Second World War (1939-45). For the first time in British history peacetime conscription was introduced in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war. Although Britain once more emerged victorious, it faced in 1945 a changed military situation. In particular the traditional roles of the British army of garrisoning the empire and fighting in Europe were ceasing to be relevant. After 1945 Britain maintained, again for the first time in its history, peacetime conscription (known as National Service) until 1963, after which the army reverted once more to an all-volunteer force. Its two major roles were from 1949 membership of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as part of the collective defence of western Europe against the Soviet Union until 1991, and covering the ‘Retreat from Empire’, a succession of wars as Britain dismantled its empire.

Columbia Encyclopedia: army,

large armed land force, under regular military control, organization, and discipline.

Ancient Armies

Although armies existed in ancient Egypt, China, India, and Assyria, Greece was the first country known for a disciplined military land force. The Greeks made military service obligatory for citizens and training was rigorous. As a result of Greek military successes, leaders of other nations sought the services of Greek mercenaries. In time, a class of professional soldiers developed. They sold their services to other rulers as well as to wealthy Greeks who chose to avoid required military service (see Xenophon).

Like the Greek armies, the Roman army was originally composed of citizen soldiers. As the Roman Empire expanded, a professional standing army came into being; it became increasingly composed of barbarian mercenaries. The Roman army was divided into legions, each of which included heavy and light infantry, cavalry, and a siege train. The army became a political force that often determined who ruled the empire.

Feudal Armies

In Islam, slave soldiers were often trained from youth to be loyal only to their owners. These slave armies often established dynasties of their own (see Mamluks; Janissaries). In medieval Japan and Europe, samurai and knights, respectively, owed military service to a lord. The European system depended on the feudal levy, which required knights and yeomanry to provide a fixed number of days of military service per year to a great lord. Because of this limitation on service and the poorly trained force that it produced, sustained military operations were difficult. Feudal armies were undermined by the development in England of the longbow, but they were destroyed by the introduction of gunpowder. Armed knights became easy victims of hand-carried firearms and castle walls could now be breasted by cannon.

Professionals and Conscripts

National armies, largely composed of mercenaries, reappeared after the introduction of gunpowder. An example is the Italian condottiere, who hired mercenaries to fight for the prince who was able to pay the most. German and Swiss mercenaries served all over Europe in the 15th and 16th cent. Professional soldiers were also a notable feature of the armies of the Ottoman Turks, who threatened to destroy the forces of Western Europe in the 16th cent. Eventually, as a result of the writings of such political theorists as Niccolo Machiavelli, national or standing armies developed—armies of professional soldiers led mostly by officers from the country's aristocracy.

After the Thirty Years War (1618–48), France emerged as the preeminent European military power. Under Louis XIV and his war minister, the marquis de Louvois, that country organized a national standing army that became the pattern for all Europe until the French Revolution. A professional body, set apart from civilian life and ruled under an iron discipline, the standing army reached harsh perfection under Frederick II of Prussia.

In the late 18th cent. the American and French revolutions brought about the return of the nonprofessional, citizen army. The introduction of conscription during the French Revolutionary Wars led to mass armies built around a professional nucleus. Officers could be from any class. Conscription also transformed non-European armies, such as that of Egypt during the early 19th cent.

The Modern Army

With the advent of railroads and, later, highway systems it became possible after the mid-19th cent. to move large concentrations of troops, and the nations of the world were able to benefit from enlarging their manpower bases by conscription. Armies changed technologically as well. Trench warfare resulted from improvements in small arms and prompted the development of various weapons designed to end the stalemates and murderous battles that entrenched forces produced. The growing role of artillery made logistics even more important. From the first, armies had needed soldiers to supply the fighting troops—even when the armies simply lived off the land. No formal distinction orginally was made between service troops and combat troops, but with the creation of the great citizen armies after the French Revolution formal specialization proliferated, and quartermasters, ordnance troops, engineers, and medical specialists were organized into separate units. The development of mechanized warfare in the 20th cent. made armies powerful and highly mobile and yet did not always provide them with the capabilities needed to fight so-called asymmetric opponents, such as they face in guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

The term army is still applied to all the armed land forces of a nation, but it is also used to designate a self-contained unit with its own service and supply personnel. In many armies today the division (usually about 15,000 men and women) is the smallest self-contained unit (having its own service and supply personnel). Two or more divisions generally form a corps; and an army (c.100,000 men or more) is two or more corps. In World War II, army groups were created, including several armies (sometimes from different allied forces). Above the groups is the command of a theater of operations, which in the United States is under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

See Defense, United States Department of; strategy and tactics; warfare.

Bibliography

See A. Vagts, A History of Militarism (1937); L. L. Gordon, Military Origins (1971); J. Keegan and R. Holmes, Soldiers (1986); R. O'Connell, Of Arms and Men (1989).

Veterinary Dictionary: army

A group of hippopotami; for full appreciation of this irregular collective noun a lyrical pronunciation of hippopotarmy is needed.

Word Tutor: army

IN BRIEF: A large group of soldiers trained for war.

During the American Civil War, the North's army was called "The Union."

Wikipedia: army

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Map of the world of the army forms

Colour key:

Green: No armed forces
Blue: Fully voluntary/professional army
Orange: Conscription, but abolition of conscription decided upon (<to 3 years)
Red: Conscription (in some cases limited)
Grey: No information

An army (from Latin armata "act of arming" via Old French armée), in the broadest sense, is the land-based armed forces of a nation. It may also include other branches of the military such as an air force. Within a national military force, the word Army may also mean a field army, which is an operational formation, usually made up of one or more corps.

In several countries the army is officially called the Land Army to differentiate it from an air force called the Air Army, notably France. In such countries, the word "army" on its own retains its connotation of a land force in common usage.

Field Army

A Field Army is composed of a headquarters, army troops, a variable number of corps, and a variable number of divisions. A battle is influenced at the Field Army level by transferring divisions and reinforcements from one corps to another to increase the pressure on the enemy at a critical point. Armies are controlled by a General or Lieutenant General.

Formations

People's Liberation Army in dress uniform, currently the biggest army in the world.

Standard symbol for a numbered Army, the X'es are not substituting the army's number.

A particular army can be named or numbered to distinguish it from military land forces in general. For example, the First United States Army and the Army of Northern Virginia. In the British Army it is normal to spell out the ordinal number of an army (e.g. First Army), whereas lower formations use figures (e.g. 1st Division).

Armies (as well as army groups and theaters) are large formations which vary significantly between armed forces in size, composition, and scope of responsibility.

In the Soviet Red Army, "armies" were actually corps-sized formations, subordinate to an army-sized "front" in wartime. In peacetime, a Soviet army was usually subordinate to a military district.

For the hierarchy of land force organizations, see military organization.

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
		Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more
		Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Army". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

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