system in principle. Indeed, as has been shown above, a feudal army was
chiefly at fault owing to the dislocation of the various levies.
Concentration was equally the characteristic of the professional armies
which succeeded those of feudalism, and only such militia forces as
remained in existence preserved a local character. The origin of
territorial recruiting for first-line troops is to be found in the
"cantonal" system, said to have been introduced by Louis XIV., but
brought to the greatest perfection in Prussia under Frederick William I.
But long service and the absence of a reserve vitiated the system in
practice, since losses had to be made good by general recruiting, and
even the French Revolution may hardly be said to have produced the
territorial system as we understand it to-day. It was only in the
deliberate preparation of the Prussian army on short-service lines that
we find the beginning of the "territorial system of dislocation and
command." This is so intimately connected with the general system of
organization that it cannot be considered merely as a method of
recruiting by districts. It may be defined as a system whereby, for
purposes of command in peace, recruiting, and of organization generally,
the country is divided into districts, which are again divided and
subdivided as may be required. In a country in which universal service
prevails, an army corps district is divided into divisional districts,
these being made up of brigade and of regimental districts. Each of
these units recruits, and is in peace usually stationed, in its own
area; the artillery, cavalry and special arms are recruited for the
corps throughout the whole allotted area, and stationed at various
points within the same. Thus in the German army the III. army corps is
composed entirely of Brandenburgers. The infantry of the corps is
stationed in ten towns, the cavalry in four and the artillery in five.
In countries which adhere to voluntary recruiting, the system, depending
as it does on the calculable certainty of recruiting, is not so fully
developed, but in Great Britain the auxiliary forces have been
reorganized in divisions of all arms on a strictly territorial basis.
The advantage of the system as carried into effect in Germany is
obvious. Training is carried out with a minimum of friction and expense,
as each unit has an ample area for training. Whilst the brigadiers can
exercise general control over the colonels, and the divisional generals
over the brigadiers, there is little undue interference of superior
authority in the work of each grade, and the men, if soldiers by
compulsion, at any rate are serving close to their own homes. Most of
the reservists required on mobilization reside within a few miles of
their barracks. Living in the midst of the civil population, the troops
do not tend to become a class apart. Small garrisons are not, as
formerly, allowed to stagnate, since modern communications make
supervision easy. Further, it must be borne in mind that the essence of
the system is the organization and training for war of the whole
military population. Now so great a mass of men could not be
administered except through this decentralization of authority, and the
corollary of short service universally applied is the full territorial
system, in which the whole enrolled strength of the district is
subjected to the authority of the district commander. Practice, however,
falls short of theory, and the dangers of drawing whole units from
disaffected or unmilitary districts are often foreseen and discounted by
distributing the recruits, non-regionally, amongst more or less distant
regiments.