Army is the branch of a nation’s armed forces that is trained to fight on land. An army consists of ground troops, their weapons and equipment, and military bases. It includes infantry, armored vehicles, and artillery, plus support troops who handle transportation, medical care, and other responsibilities.
Almost every nation has an army. Armies vary greatly in size and strength, depending on several factors. The economy of a nation plays a major role because wealthy nations can afford to buy expensive weapons and pay large numbers of soldiers. Nearly all developed nations maintain armies with large numbers of tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, and even ships. Less developed nations that cannot afford advanced weapons often depend on specially trained light infantry, small ground attack aircraft, and armored cars.
Potential threats also shape a nation’s army. For example, Switzerland, which has few potential enemies, does not have a standing army of professional soldiers. It instead maintains a large national militia of men who can be called into service at any time. Nations with extensive foreign commitments, such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, need a large standing army to meet their needs outside the country.
Countries also differ in how they raise and maintain their army. Some nations use a military draft, in which certain individuals are selected for duty. Others have universal military service, which requires all qualified men and women in a certain age range to serve. Still other nations have a completely volunteer army. Today, almost all armies include women.
Most nations divide their army into a regular army and an army reserve. The regular army consists of professional soldiers. They continually receive training and are always on active duty and ready for combat. No nation, however, can afford to support a regular army large enough to meet any crisis. Even nations that rely on large regular forces generally maintain an extensive army reserve. Such a reserve, also called a national guard or militia, trains citizens for immediate active duty in an emergency. Except during training, reservists remain on inactive duty, living as civilians but prepared to respond to a call to duty.
For thousands of years, warfare consisted almost entirely of battles between armies. Often, a single land battle would decide the fate of nations and empires. Beginning in the 1600’s, the importance of navies rose to equal that of land forces. In the early 1900’s, military aircraft first appeared and changed warfare forever. Armies still formed the largest part of the military power of most nations. But nations began to use their armies in combination with air and naval units in joint operations, which involve more than one branch of the armed forces. The rise of military alliances beginning in the 1700’s led to the growth of combined or coalition warfare, which involves the military forces of several nations.
Every army has a specific set of ideas, plans, and training practices that determines how it fights. For example, a nation in a mountainous or jungle region will have substantially different plans and practices than an industrialized nation with an advanced highway system.
The organization of armies
How a country organizes its army depends on the nation’s customs, its history, and the tasks it expects the army to accomplish. But there is a general similarity in the organization of armies throughout the world.
The largest units of some armies are called army groups and may have several hundred thousand soldiers. Army groups usually consist of several organizations themselves known as armies. Each army is made up of several corps << kawrz or kohrz >> . A corps << kohr >> normally has from 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers. A corps consists of two or more divisions and any necessary support troops.
The division is the basic fighting unit of many armies. Divisions include such combat troops as infantry, armored forces, and artillery; and engineers, who are sometimes considered as combat troops. Divisions also have support troops who handle transportation, medical care, and other responsibilities. Divisions usually are identified according to their equipment, training, and function. Types of divisions include infantry, mechanized, armored, and airborne divisions.
The size of a division varies from about 10,000 to 18,000 soldiers. Most divisions have three or more brigades of roughly equal size, and each brigade has three to five battalions. The battalion, a combat unit of 500 to 800 soldiers, is further divided into groups of 100 to 200 soldiers. Infantry and armored units of this size are called companies. Artillery groups are known as batteries, and groups of cavalry (highly mobile forces used for scouting and surprise attacks) are called troops.
The role of armies
In war, a nation uses its army to conquer enemy territory and to defend itself from attack. In peacetime, an army can help prevent war. It also aids civilians in certain emergencies.
Attack.
A nation may seek to take over territory held by an enemy by conducting offensive operations. The attacker’s tanks and other armored vehicles invade the enemy’s territory, with planes and artillery supporting the advance. Other planes drop airborne troops behind enemy lines, and helicopters carry in specially trained soldiers, sometimes called special forces or commandos, to seize certain key positions. Later, mechanized infantry sweeps in and occupies the conquered territory.
Defense.
An army is trained for both offensive and defensive combat operations. But some units may be assigned to fight only in case of an enemy attack. In the past, fortifications along borders formed the main line of defense for many countries. But modern armies do not rely nearly as much on fortifications, which can often be bypassed with airborne assaults or by the combined action of land, sea, and air forces.
Prevention of war.
A powerful nation may sometimes station troops in politically troubled regions or in areas threatened by attack. Such a show of military strength may help prevent war. In 1991, for example, French and Belgian troops went to Zaire—now the Democratic Republic of the Congo—to restore order after Zairian soldiers rioted.
The development of tactical nuclear weapons in the 1950’s gave armies an important defensive strategy. These weapons are designed to be used in areas where a conventional war is being fought. An army that massed its men and equipment was vulnerable to a nuclear attack. The fear of such an attack could prevent a nation from invading an enemy. This idea, known as deterrence, was used by the Soviet Union and Western nations from the end of World War II in 1945 to the late 1980’s, a period of hostility known as the Cold War.
Internal security and civilian aid.
Armies may be used by a nation for roles other than combat. In some countries, armies serve as an internal police force. In others, regular or reserve forces may serve in a multitude of roles that include disaster relief, humanitarian aid to foreign nations, and peacekeeping functions. They may respond to major disasters, such as forest fires or hurricanes, in order to provide emergency medical aid and food and water distribution, or to prevent looting.
The world’s major armies
An army’s ranking among the armies of the world is based on its overall fighting strength. In general, fighting strength depends on the number of troops on active duty. However, an army’s size does not necessarily reflect its actual strength. Well-trained soldiers and modern weapons are also important. A small army with tactical nuclear weapons may have greater striking power than a large army with outdated weapons.
The world’s major armies include those of China, India, North Korea, Russia, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. All of these armies except India’s and North Korea’s have tactical nuclear weapons. However, both India and North Korea have the capability to produce such weapons.
The Chinese Army
has about 1 million troops on active duty. Many of the Chinese forces are assigned to defensive positions near the Russian border in northeastern China. The Chinese Army has about 500,000 people in its reserve and armed militia. China uses a military draft.
The Indian Army
has about 1,200,000 men on active duty, about 300,000 in the reserve, and about 40,000 in the Territorial Army. Only a few hundred women serve in the Indian Army, many as doctors and nurses. All members of India’s Army are volunteers.
The North Korean Army
has about 1,100,000 troops on active duty and about 600,000 in the reserve. Men from the ages of 20 to 25 are drafted to serve for five to eight years. After service, they serve part-time in local militias until the age of 40 and then in the Red Guard until the age of 60. Women may join the army on a volunteer basis.
The Russian Army,
officially called the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation, has about 280,000 troops on active duty. Many troops are posted along Russia’s border with China. Russia began organizing its army in 1992, following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Russian army has small forces in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan. The army has both volunteers and draftees. After 18 months of active duty, Russian soldiers serve in the reserve until the age of 50.
The United States Army
has about 482,000 troops on active duty and about 522,000 in the reserve and the National Guard. Army troops are stationed in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and parts of Latin America and the Middle East. All members of the United States Army are volunteers. See Army, United States; National Guard.
The French Army
has about 115,000 members on active duty and 22,000 in the reserve. French troops are stationed in Western Europe, several African countries, and in France’s overseas territories. The French Army has both volunteers and draftees.
The British Army
has about 80,000 troops on active duty and about 30,000 members of the Territorial Army. British troops are stationed in Germany, Northern Ireland, and many other parts of the world. All members of the British Army are volunteers.
Other major armies
include those of Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Each of these armies has 300,000 or more troops on active duty. The armies have purchased weapons and equipment from the world’s major powers. None has tactical nuclear weapons, though Pakistan has the capability to produce them.
History
Ancient armies
developed as civilizations grew in Mesopotamia—the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq—and in the Nile Valley of Egypt. As early as 3200 B.C., the Mesopotamians had built a regular army of spear throwers and archers. About 2500 B.C., the Sumerians used the first war chariots. Small wild asses and, later, horses drew these chariots. By the 700’s B.C., the Assyrians had organized armies that were equipped with spears and battering rams.
In the 600’s B.C., the ancient Greeks introduced the phalanx, which was probably the first important tactical formation in history. In this formation, soldiers with spears and heavy armor stood from 4 to 50 rows deep in a solid rectangle. The phalanx was primarily a defensive formation. It could withstand the shock of a cavalry charge, but it could neither move rapidly nor attack across rough ground.
The mightiest conqueror of the period was Cyrus the Great of Persia. During the mid-500’s B.C., Cyrus extended the Persian Empire to include most of southwestern Asia. In the 300’s B.C., Alexander the Great of Macedonia, the next world conqueror, organized the first known military supply system.
The ancient Romans developed the next great tactical formation. During the early 300’s B.C., they devised the legion. This rectangular formation had greater flexibility than the phalanx. It consisted of three lines of small phalanxes called maniples or, later, cohorts. The Romans conquered Carthage in 146 B.C. and built a great empire overseas. They were also skilled military engineers. The armies of the Roman general Julius Caesar built roads, bridges, and forts in much of Europe. See Legion.
China’s civilization grew up in isolation from the empires of Europe and western Asia. The Chinese had knowledge of gunpowder long before the A.D. 1300’s, when Europeans began to use it in guns. But gunpowder did not become an important weapon of war for the Chinese because they did not use it in artillery, except possibly in rockets.
Armies in the Middle Ages.
After the Roman Empire collapsed in the A.D. 400’s, Europe had no large regular armies for several centuries. All able-bodied free men in the tribes that overran the empire were warriors. The tradition of a militia developed at this time (see Militia).
During the Middle Ages, military relationships were central to the organization of Western Europe’s society. A king ruled this society and was, in turn, supported by nobles. These nobles ruled their own estates, exercising political, economic, judicial, and military power. The lower classes, known as serfs or peasants, labored on the estates. The nobles, who were often trained as knights, used the wealth provided by the serfs’ labor to arm and equip themselves and their loyal soldiers, who were called men-at-arms. A knight’s equipment included broadswords, lances, and armor, and it was expensive. The entire agricultural output of a knight’s holdings for several years could only pay for a single warrior’s armor, horses, and weapons. Due to this expense, the armies of the Middle Ages were small.
The cost of medieval armies led some rulers to turn to mercenaries (hired soldiers) to fight for their nations. Some mercenaries specialized in siege weaponry, such as the stone-throwing weapons called catapults, while others used crossbows or long spears known as pikes. Among the best-known mercenaries of the late Middle Ages were the Swiss pikemen. They would form large phalanxes to prevent heavily armored, mounted knights from overrunning them. The Swiss mercenaries, along with hired soldiers from England, Germany, and Italy, formed groups called companies. The company still forms the basic unit of most armies.
During the 1300’s, the Ottoman Empire, which ruled what are now Turkey, the Middle East, Greece, and most of southeastern Europe, established the first full-time professional national army since the Roman Empire. These soldiers, known as Janissaries, were mostly slave soldiers taken from the Balkan provinces. They were much feared on the battlefield because they were loyal only to the sultan, who ruled the Ottoman Empire, and to their fellow Janissaries.
Western European nations copied the Ottoman example of a permanent army. By 1500, most major European nations had a permanent army, usually called the Royal Army or King’s Army. Some nations, such as the independent states in Germany, developed the first permanent quartermaster organizations to find quarters and food for their armies.
Gunpowder had a dramatic impact on the organization and tactics of armies, and it played a major role in changing medieval warfare and society. Castles built by nobles could not stand up to bombardment by cannons. Rulers who could afford gunpowder-based artillery became much more powerful. The nobles lost their military function because armies of commoners with muskets could shoot them off their horses.
The rise of modern armies.
By the late 1600’s, infantry armed with bayonets mounted on muskets could defend themselves against cavalry charges. They did not have to rely on troops armed with pikes. Three rows of soldiers stood in ranks, shoulder to shoulder, in a formation called the line. A line of infantry could fire many shots at the same time at close range.
The obligation of all men to serve in wartime had disappeared almost everywhere by the early 1600’s. But Sweden kept this custom throughout the Middle Ages, and King Gustavus Adolphus used a military draft to recruit troops for the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). He gave his army greater mobility by equipping it with lighter weapons and increased firepower. His force is sometimes called the first modern army. See Gustavus Adolphus; Thirty Years’ War.
During the 1700’s, most governments continued to build their armies by recruiting volunteers, especially among the poor and unemployed. Armies became professional groups of well-trained foot soldiers supported by artillery and cavalry. Most countries followed certain rules in warfare. Campaigns took place only in good weather. The troops went into quarters in winter and did not fight again until spring. They tried to gain a favorable position before they attacked the enemy. Commanders who were caught in a poor position often withdrew instead of fighting to the finish.
In the mid-1700’s, Frederick the Great of Prussia introduced greater mobility to warfare. When his enemies outnumbered him, he struck quickly and unexpectedly. Frederick was forced to fight wars on several fronts at the same time. He moved rapidly to attack a single army before it could unite with other armies and attack his forces.
The French government adopted a military draft system in 1793. Napoleon I drafted huge armies for his conquests. He divided his armies into divisions that marched separately but joined to fight. Napoleon often massed all his heavy guns together into a grande batterie (big battery). He poured a tremendous amount of fire into one point in the enemy’s lines, then sent forward his heavy formations of cavalry and infantry at that point. To defeat him, Napoleon’s enemies had to adopt draft systems and develop national armies. See Draft, Military.
The growth in the size of armies made necessary an organization to control troops from a distance. Only a military genius such as Napoleon could personally direct so many military units in the field. From 1840 on, railroads began to spread across Europe. The Prussians realized that they could move armies much more quickly by rail, and that this made possible more accurate long-range planning. Gerhard von Scharnhorst of the Prussian Army developed the modern general staff that planned military operations.
During the 1800’s, the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid industrialization and technological advances, dramatically changed the size and strength of armies. Mass production enabled armies to equip more soldiers than ever before. Technology improved weapons and helped provide such supplies as canned food and rifles. As technology changed, so did the way armies were organized and how they fought.
Armies in the two world wars.
When World War I began in 1914, the machine gun and artillery became the dominant weapons on the battlefield. The use of these weapons made free movement impossible on the Western Front, where the United Kingdom and France battled Germany. Both sides adopted trench warfare. Infantry dug in to hold their positions when they could not advance against the enemy. Railroads carried millions of soldiers to the fighting fronts. Motor trucks hauled supplies from railroads to the front lines. See World War I.
Field commanders tried to end trench warfare and regain tactical mobility. They shelled and bombed the enemy lines, and followed with mass bayonet attacks. Sometimes they used poison gas against enemy lines. But most of these assaults—even those that used poison gas—failed to break through enemy lines during more than three years of intense fighting. The trenches of the Western Front repelled almost all attacks. Army commanders found a solution, but they used it improperly and too late. The United Kingdom built an armored tracked vehicle with a gasoline engine and created the first military tank. Tanks soon replaced horse cavalry. During World War I, airplanes were used for the first time in support of ground fighting. See Tank; Air force (World War I).
In World War II (1939-1945), tanks and airplanes restored mobility to warfare. In the war, the Allies, who included Canada, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, fought the Axis powers, who included Germany and Japan. The Germans developed a type of warfare called blitzkrieg (lightning war). Tanks and bombers blasted great holes in enemy defenses. Then infantry poured through the gaps and carried the war deep into enemy territory. See World War II (The invasion of Poland).
World War II also saw the first use of armies in large-scale airborne operations. The Germans launched the first successful paratroop invasion in May 1941, when they seized the island of Crete. The largest airborne operation took place in September 1944, when three divisions of Allied paratroops dropped behind the German lines in an unsuccessful attempt to capture bridges across the Rhine River. The largest combined land, sea, and air attack in history occurred on June 6, 1944, when Allied armies landed in Normandy, in northern France.
During World War II, armies brought the military art of logistics (supply and services) to a high point of development. They organized huge commands that provided food, clothing, fuel, ammunition, weapons, supplies, and transportation for combat troops. The Allied victory in World War II resulted partly from superiority in logistics and in civilian industrial production. See Logistics.
Armies in the nuclear age.
World War II ended shortly after United States warplanes dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Development of the atomic bomb marked the beginning of the nuclear age.
The earliest types of nuclear warheads could be delivered only by bomber planes flying at high altitudes. This type of delivery could not be used on the battlefield and could be considered only for strategic targets—that is, facilities that supported the war effort, such as weapons factories and transportation systems. By the 1950’s, armies had developed nuclear cannons and missiles. These weapons changed the thinking of many experts about the tactical use of nuclear weapons. Such cannons and missiles could launch nuclear warheads at a large body of troops, a supply dump, or any other target within the weapons’ range.
Since World War II, the fear of starting a nuclear war has helped prevent major armies from using nuclear weapons. As a result, only conventional weapons have been used in wars fought during the nuclear age. The first major conflict was the Korean War, which began in 1950. Large armies did most of the fighting in this war. See Korean War.
Armies have continued to use conventional tactics and weapons in war. For example, the United States Army relied heavily on conventional warfare tactics during its involvement in the Vietnam War, from 1965 to 1973. At the time, these tactics were considered the most effective way to fight Communist guerrillas in the jungles of Vietnam. However, Vietnamese guerrillas avoided major battles in the open, where heavy U.S. firepower could be decisive. They relied on surprise and mobility instead (see Vietnam War). Arab and Israeli forces fought wars with conventional weapons in 1956, 1967, and 1973. The tactics used by both sides resembled those of World War II, in which aircraft and tanks spearheaded attacks and were followed into battle by infantry.
Since the mid-1970’s, armies of developed nations have tended to fight brief, intense wars that usually decide a conflict quickly. Advances in computer technology and other electronics have had a massive impact on armies. Today, many armies have access to instant satellite photographs, real-time images of battlefields, and worldwide communications with political and military leaders. Armies have begun to concentrate on strategic mobility, the ability to quickly move troops, supplies, and equipment anywhere on short notice. This can be done using fast troop transport ships and large, troop-carrying jet airplanes. For example, during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, the United States deployed nearly 200,000 troops and their equipment to Saudi Arabia in only 2 months. Technology will continue to advance as time passes, and armies will likely change with each new development.
