Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

have been dealt with in considering the advantages and disadvantages of the several forms of recruiting. It only remains to give some indication of the advantages which such forces (irrespective of their time of service) possess over troops which only come up for training at intervals. Physically, the men with the colours are always superior to the rest, owing to their constant exercise and the regularity and order under which they live; as soldiers, they are more under the control of their officers, who are their leaders in daily life, in closer touch with army methods and discipline, and, as regards their formal training, they possess infinitely greater power of strategic and tactical manoeuvre. Their steadiness under fire is of course more to be relied upon than that of other troops. Wellington, speaking of the contrast between old and young soldiers (regulars), was of opinion that the chief difference lay in the greater hardiness, power of endurance, and general campaigning qualities given by experience. This is of course more than ever true in respect of regular and auxiliary troops, as was strikingly demonstrated in the Spanish-American War. On the whole, it is true to say that only a regular army can endure defeat without dissolution, and that volunteers, reservists or militiamen fresh from civil life may win a victory but cannot make the fullest use of it when won. At the same time, when they have been through one or two arduous campaigns, raw troops become to all intents and purposes equal to any regulars. On the other hand, the greatest military virtue of auxiliary forces is their enthusiasm. With this quality were won the great victories of 1792-94 in France, those of 1813 in Germany, and the beginnings of Italian unity at Calatafimi and Palermo. The earlier days of the American Civil War witnessed desperate fighting, of which Shiloh is the best example, between armies which had had but the slightest military training. In the same war the first battle of Bull Run illustrated what has been said above as to the weaknesses of unprofessional armies. Both sides, raw and untrained, fought for a long time with the greatest determination, after which the defeated army was completely dissolved in rout and the victors quite unable to pursue. So far it is the relative military value of the professional soldier and the citizen-soldier that has been reviewed. A continental army of the French or German stamp is differently constituted. It is, first of all, clear that the drilled citizen-soldier combines the qualities of training and enthusiasm. From this it follows that a hostile "feeling" as well as a hostile "view" must animate such an army if it is to do good service. If a modern "nation in arms" is engaged in a purely dynastic quarrel against a professional army of inferior strength, the result will probably be victory for the latter. But the active army of France or Germany constitutes but a small part of the "nation in arms," and the army for war is composed in addition of men who have at some period in the past gone through a regular training. Herein lies the difference between continental and British auxiliary forces. In the French army, an ex-soldier during his ten years of reserve service was by the law of 1905 only liable for two months' training, and for the rest of his military career for two weeks' service only. The further reduction of this liability was proposed in 1907 and led to much controversy. The question of the value of auxiliary forces, then, as between the continuous work of, say, English territorials, and the permanent though dwindling influence of an original period of active soldiering, is one of considerable importance. It is largely decided in any given case by the average age of the men in the ranks.