of Great Britain, all the major European powers have adopted the
principle of compulsory short service with reserves. Along with this has
come the fullest development of the territorial system (see below). The
natural consequence therefore of the heavy work falling upon the
shoulders of the Prussian officer, who had to instruct his men, was, in
the first place, a general staff of the highest class, and in the
second, a system of distributing the troops over the whole country in
such a way that the regiments were permanently stationed in the district
in which they recruited and from which they drew their reserves. Prussia
realized that if the reservists were to be obtained when required the
unit must be strictly localized; France, on the contrary, lost much time
and spent much trouble, in the mobilization of 1870, in forwarding the
reservists to a regiment distant, perhaps, 300 m. The Prussian system
did not work satisfactorily at first, for until all the district
staff-officers were trained in the same way there was great inequality
in the efficiency of the various army corps, and central control, before
the modern development of railways, was relatively slight. Further, the
mobilization must be completed, or nearly so, before concentration
begins, and thus an active professional army, always at war strength,
might annihilate the frontier corps before those in the interior were
ready to move. But the advantages far outweighed the defects of the
system, and, such professional armies having after 1870 disappeared,
there was little to fear. Everywhere, therefore, save in Great Britain
(for at that time the United States was hardly counted as a great
military power, in spite of its two million war-trained veterans in
civil life), the German model was followed, and is now followed, with
but slight divergence. The period of reforms after the Prussian model
(about 1873-1890) practically established the military systems which are
treated below as those of the present day. The last quarter of the
century witnessed a very great development of military forces, without
important organic changes. The chief interest to the student of this
period lies in the severe competition between the great military powers
for predominance in numbers, expressed usually in the reduction of the
period of service with the colours to a minimum. The final results of
this cannot well be predicted: it is enough to say that it is the
_Leitmotiv_ in the present stage in the development of armies. Below
will be found short historical sketches of various armies of the present
day which are of interest in respect of their historical development.
Details of existing forces are given in articles dealing with the
several states to which they belong. Historical accounts of the armies
of Japan and of Egypt will be found in the articles on those states. The
Japanese wars of 1894-95 and 1904-5 contributed little to the history of
military organization as a pure science. The true lessons of this war
were the demonstration of the wide applicability of the German methods,
upon which exclusively the Japanese army had formed itself, and still
more the first illustration of the new moral force of nationalities as
the decisive factor. The form of armies remained unaltered. Neither the
events of the Boer War of 1899-1902 nor the Manchurian operations were
held by European soldiers to warrant any serious modifications in
organization. It is to the moral force alluded to above, rather than to
mere technical improvements, that the best soldiers of Europe, and
notably those of the French general staff (see the works of General H.
Bonnal), have of late years devoted their most earnest attention.
PRESENT-DAY ARMIES