Military police are soldiers detailed for duties concerned with the maintenance of discipline and upholding the laws of war. In WW II the British military policeman's slogan was ‘guide the responsible, check the irresponsible and incarcerate the incorrigible’. Military police is a wide term, which can refer to troops belonging to dedicated units or to soldiers temporarily carrying out policing duties, for instance at unit level or in garrisons. Troops have carried out such duties in many armies in history. It has been claimed that the household sergeants-at-arms of Richard ‘the Lionheart’ were the first English military police, and the English army of the 16th century had a few ‘tipstaves’ who exercised limited powers. From the creation of modern standing armies in the 17th century onwards, most armies had small numbers of troops who performed policing duties, assisting the provost marshal or his equivalent.
A principal role of military police has been to apprehend deserters and to prevent soldiers straggling or running from the battlefield; troops deployed in the latter role are often termed ‘battle police’. Twentieth-century mechanized armies demand sophisticated traffic control, which has become an important role for many military policemen. In addition, on occasions regular troops have performed policing duties in support of the civil power, especially in the era before the establishment of standing police forces, and various paramilitary bodies, especially during the British Raj, were given the somewhat misleading title of ‘military police’. Military police also have an important role in processing and guarding POWs. Many military police forces have adopted distinctive items of dress: the German gorget (hence the nickname ‘chained dogs’), the American white helmet (Snowdrops), the British red cap.
Bibliography
- Sheffield, G. D., The Redcaps (London, 1994)
— Gary Sheffield
