The Order of St George was a military order instituted in Russia in 1769 by the Empress Catharine II as a reward of military achievements. It consisted of four classes to which a fifth, intended for non-commissioned officers and privates, was added in 1807.
The Oredr of St George is an order instituted in Bavaria by the Emperor Charles VII. (Charles Albert) in 1729, and reorganized by King Louis II in 1871. Since the re-organisation the order, which had previously been a mere decoration for the nobility, it devoted itself to such services as the care of the wounded on battlefields, etc.
The Order of St George is a Sicilian military order, instituted by Joseph Napoleon on the 24th of February, 1808, and remodelled by King Ferdinand IV in 1819. Research Order of St George
Agnes Sorel was the mistress of king Charles VII of France. She was born in 1409 at Fromenteau in Touraine and died in 1450. After entering the service of the duchess of Anjou in 1431 she was taken to the royal court where she attracted the attention of Charles VII and in 1444 became his mistress, remaining so until her sudden and suspicious death in 1450 which the dauphin, afterwards Louis IX, was thought to be responsible. Research Agnes Sorel
Charles VII (Charles The Victorious) was king of France. He was born in 1403 and died in 1461. He was crowned in 1422 after the death of his father, Charles VI, in spite of the treaty of Troyes which gave Henry V of England claim to the throne following his conquest of the country. He made little progress against the English until the advent of Joan of Arc in 1429.
Charles VII was Emperor of Germany. He was born in 1697 and died in 1745. He was the son of Maximilian Emanuel, elector of Bavaria. On the death of Charles VI of Germany he refused to acknowledge Maria Theresa as heiress and in support of his own claims he invaded Austria with an army, took Prague and was crowned King of Bohemia and in 1742 was elected Emperor. But fortune soon deserted him. The armies of Maria Theresa reconquered all Upper Austria, and overwhelmed Bavaria. Charles fled to Frankfurt, and returning to Munich in 1744, died there the following year. Research Charles VII
Douglas is a family distinguished in the annals of Scotland. Their origin is unknown. They were already territorial magnates at the time when Bruce and Baliol were competitors for the crown. As their estates lay on the borders they early became guardians of the kingdom against the encroachments of the English, and acquired in this way power, habits, and experience which frequently made them formidable to the crown.
We notice in chronological succession the most distinguished members of the family. James Douglas son of the William Douglas who had been a companion of Wallace, and is commonly known as the Good Sir James, early joined Bruce, and was one of his chief supporters throughout his career, and one of the most distinguished leaders at the battle of Bannockburn. He fell in battle with the Moors while on his way to the Holy Land with the heart of his master, in 1331.
Archibald Douglas, youngest brother of Sir James Douglas, succeeded to the regency of Scotland in the infancy of David. He was defeated and killed at Halidon Hill by Edward III. in 1333.
William Douglas, son of Archibald Douglas, was created first earl in 1357. He recovered Douglasdale from the English, and was frequently engaged in wars with them. He fought at the battle of Poitiers. He died in 1384.
James Douglas, the second earl, who, like his ancestors, was constantly engaged in border warfare, was killed at the battle of Otterburn in 1388. After his death the earldom passed to an illegitimate son of the Good Sir James Douglas, Archibald the GrimLord of Galloway.
Archibald Douglas, son of Archibald the Grim and fourth earl, was the Douglas who was defeated and taken prisoner by Percy (Hotspur) at Homildon the 14th of September, 1402. He was also taken prisoner at Shrewsbury on the 23rd of July 1403, and did not recover his liberty until 1407. He was killed at the battle of Verneuil, in Normandy, in 1427. Charles VII. created him Duke of Touraine, which title descended to his successors.
William Douglas, sixth earl, was born in 1422, together with his only brother David was assassinated by Crichton and Livingstone at a banquet to which he had been invited in the name of the king, in EdinburghCastle, on the 24th of November, 1440. Jealousy of the great power which the Douglases had acquired from their possessions in Scotland and France was the cause of this deed.
William Douglas, the eighth earl, a descendant of the third earl, restored the power of the Douglases by a marriage with his cousin, heiress of another branch of the family; was appointed lord-lieutenant of the kingdom, and defeated the English at Sark. Latterly having entered into a treasonous league, he was invited by James II to Stirling and there murdered by the king's own hand, on the 22nd of February 1452.
James Douglas, the ninth and last earl, brother of William Douglas, took up arms with his allies to avenge the death of his brother, but was finally driven to England, where he continued an exile for nearly thirty years. Having entered Scotland on a raid in 1484 he was taken prisoner and confined in the abbey of Lindores, where he died in 1488. His estates, which had been forfeited in 1455, were bestowed on the fourth Earl of Angus, the 'Red Douglas,' the representative of a younger branch of the Douglas family, which continued long after to flourish.
The fifth Earl of Angus, Archibald Douglas, was the celebrated ' Bell-the-Cat,' one of whose sons was Gawin Douglas the poet. He died in a monastery in 1514.
Archibald, the sixth earl, married Queen Margaret, widow of James IV, attained the dignity of regent of the kingdom, and after various vicissitudes of fortune, having at one time been attainted and forced to flee from the kingdom, died about 1560. He left no son, and the title of Earl of Angus passed to his nephew David.
James Douglas, brother of David Douglas, married the heiress of the Earl of Morton, which title he received on the death of his father-in-law.
His nephew, Archibald, eighth Earl of Angus and Earl of Morton, died childless, and the earldom of Angus then passed to Sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, his cousin, whose son William was raised to the rank of Marquis of Douglas.
Archibald, the great-grandson of William, was raised in 1703 to the dignity of Duke of Douglas, but died unmarried in 1761, when the ducal title became extinct, and the marquisate passed to the Duke of Hamilton, the descendant of a younger son of the first marquis. The line of Angus or the Red Douglas is now represented by the houses of Hamilton and Home, who both claim the title of Earl of Angus. Research Douglas
Louis XI was king of France. He was born in 1423 and died in 1483. He was the eldest son of Charles VII and raised France from the degradation of the Hundred Years War. His chief enemies were the feudal nobles in alliance with Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. In this struggle he suffered some severe disasters, and in 1467 was a prisoner in the hands of Charles at Peronne. In his internal administration he made great use of the new ideas of Roman law which were quickly coming into vogue. Research Louis XI
Maria Theresa was queen of Hungary and German empress. She was born in 1717 at Vienna and died in 1780. For nearly thirty years her father (Charles VI) endeavoured to secure for her the right of succession to the imperial crown. This he did by the Pragmatic Sanction in 1740. She married Francis of Lorraine, whom, when she was crowned at Pressburg in 1741, she nominated joint-regent with herself. Her succession was at once challenged by Charles Albert of Bavaria, supported by the French, by the elector of Saxony, and by the kings of Prussia, Spain and Sardinia. On the success of Charles, who was proclaimed emperor in 1742 as Charles VII, she took refuge in Hungary, and the Magyars helped her to win back her crown in 1748. Silesia, however, during the struggle was taken by the Prussians in 1742 and this gave rise fourteen years later to the Seven Years' War.
In 1772 Poland was partitioned by Catherine II of Russia, Frederick of Prussia and Maria Theresa, who acquired Red Russia. Between 1777 and 1779 Maria Theresa engaged in another war with Prussia. After 1763 the empress instituted many reforms in the army, justice, and education; opened the ports of Trieste and Fiume to trade; expelled the Jesuits and confiscated much church property; and abolished legal torture. With much of her later policy Count Von Kaunitz is associated. In honour of Marshal Leopold Daun's victory over the Prussians at Kolin in 1757, she instituted the military order bearing her name. Research Maria Theresa
An army is a collection or body of men and or women armed for war, and organized in companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, or similar divisions, under proper officers.
Ancient armies from the time of Rameses II (Sesostris) of Egypt downwards, underwent a series of progressive improvements under the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, until they reached a high degree of perfection under the Romans. In Rome every citizen from the age of seventeen to forty-six was bound to serve in the army. Under the republic a levy took place every year soon after the election of the Consuls. It was superintended by the military tribunes, who at once formed the new levies into legions. Under the empire a standing army was required for maintenance of order in the interior and the defence of the frontiers. In the reign of Augustus the strength of this army reached 450,000 men.
The earliest military system of the Teutonic races consisted of the armed freemen, ruled by elected leaders, but even then there was a personal following or bodyguard of the king or leader. Among the countries of modern Europe the foundation of a standing army was first laid in France. Charles VII of France issued an ordinance for the creation of a number of troops of horse, and a corresponding body of infantry, the whole force amounting to 25,000 men. The superiority of such a body over an assemblage of feudal troops was soon proved, and other states imitated the example of France. By the beginning of the sixteenth century France, Germany, and Spain were all in possession of considerable standing armies. From the middle of the eighteenth century a great change took place in the composition of armies through the reintroduction of the principle of the universal liability of all men capable of bearing arms to military service, or, in other words, through the raising of armies by a general conscription, which was done in every European country except Britain during the 19th century.
Before the Norman conquest the armed force of England consisted essentially of a national militia (called fyrd), in which every landholder was bound to serve when called upon; but the king and some of the great earls maintained bodies of troops out of their private means. Under William The Conqueror and his immediate successors the whole kingdom was divided into upwards of 60,000 knights' fees, every tenant of a fee being bound to attend his lord with horse and arms (or provide a substitute) at his own cost for forty days in each year. When one man held many fees he was bound to furnish the king with one fully equipped horseman for every knight's fee. In course of time it became customary for the king, when the holder of a fee was unable or unwilling to render the service required by his tenure, to accept instead a pecuniary fine (scutage); and these fines enabled the king either to maintain additional troops or to pay the feudal troops to prolong their service. The feudal army thus created almost entirely superseded the national levies of the Anglo-Saxon period, yet these were not altogether given up, and survived to the end of the 19th century in two institutions, the posse comitatus and the militia. The armies with which the English carried on their early wars with France were mostly made up of paid troops, the king usually contracting with some of his most wealthy subjects to levy the number required. At first foreign mercenaries were sometimes included in the troops so raised, but in later times the armies of England were always national. The chief strength of the feudal armies lay in the men-at-arms, who were all mounted, heavily armed, and protected by shields and defensive armour. On the other hand, the paid levies usually consisted of men educated from infancy in the use of the long-bow. The introduction of firearms closed the career of the man-at-arms, and caused the long-bow to be laid aside.
From the accession of Charles I until the reign of William III the army was a constant cause of dispute between the king and the Parliament, the latter fearing that a standing army would be used, as it was elsewhere, as an instrument of tyranny. Under the Commonwealth the first standing army was maintained, but after the Restoration it was reduced to the royal guards, besides what was necessary for two or three garrisons. During the reign of Charles II the forces of England were increased by the addition of a few other regiments, among which was the 1st or Royal Scots, originally the Scottish guard of the kings of France, transferred to England shortly after the Restoration. After Monmouth's rebellion in the reign of James II there was maintained in England a force of 20,000 men, but at the Revolution this army was to a great extent disbanded. The Bill of Bights declared the keeping of a standing army within the kingdom except with the consent of Parliament to be unlawful; but it was found necessary to grant that consent in order to subdue the adherents of James in Ireland, and in the first year of William's reign the army was formally recognized on the basis on which it still exists, that its pay, and hence its strength, remain entirely under the control of the House of Commons. By the so-called Mutiny Act, passed annually from 1689 to 1879, the Parliament formally retained control over the army, as it still does, though the old act is no longer passed. For a long time regiments were raised by contract, the government making an arrangement with some gentleman to raise the men on terms of receiving a certain amount of bounty-money per man, or of being paid by the sale of the regimental commissions, he having the right of nominating the officers. The colonel used to receive a certain sum of money annually for the men's pay and clothing, the expenses of recruiting, etc; and the men might agree to serve for life, for a term of years, or for the duration of the war.
dinary enlistment was for life. During the 18th century the strength of the army fluctuated greatly; then came the long struggle with France, which brought into existence a large army continually under arms, besides an immense body of volunteers and local militia. After the Peninsular war the army was cut down, and was long greatly neglected, while the volunteer force ceased to exist. Only after the Crimean War was reform taken up, the Indian army being taken over, a fresh body of volunteers created, reserves established, etc.
The largest permanent divisions into which modern armies are organized are the army corps. According to the system of localization commenced in 1872, the United Kingdom was divided into regimental districts, in each of which an officer has command of all the forces, including the militia and volunteers. These districts were regarded as the special recruiting areas of the corresponding territorial regiments. The terms of enlistment were for nine years' army service and three years' reserve service. After twelve years service a soldier may be permitted to re-engage for other nine years, and after the completion of twenty-one years' service was entitled to be discharged with a pension. The old system of conferring commissions by purchase was abolished by royal warrant of July the 20th, 1871. First commissions were then given to successful candidates at the Civil Service Commissioners' open examinations, candidates being selected by competition, and entering the cavalry and infantry through the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, the artillery and engineers through the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; to university students who pass certain examinations; to non-commissioned officers specially recommended ; etc; while promotion was regulated by seniority principally, but partly by selection.
The most important division of the British forces consists of the regular army, which around 1900 numbered about 200,000 men-more or less-exclusive of the British troops serving in India (about 74,000) and paid by the Indian government. Of the component parts of the regular army the infantry of the line was the most numerous. In 1900 it comprised 69 regiments, each with its own special designation, and each attached to some particular district. A few of the regiments had more than four battalions of regulars (apart from militia and volunteers attached), but the majority had only two, each representing one of the old regiments that used to be commonly known by a special number. The regimental titles are generally territorial: BedfordshireRegiment, City of London Regiment, etc, but some are not, such as the Gordon Highlanders, etc. One of the regular battalions was always in garrison or serving outside the kingdom, the other within it. The latter trained the recruits and made good the losses suffered by the battalion serving abroad. In 1900 the full complement of private soldiers in a battalion at home was 760, in the colonies 880, in India 900; the sergeants numbering from 24 to 32, the officers from 24 to 29. In war the full complement of a battalion (904 men armed with rifles) was rather greater than in peace, drivers and others being required in connection with the baggage, ammunition, etc. The battalions in war were not linked together in regiments, but were under the direct orders of the officer commanding the brigade to which they were attached. Mounted infantry were a force embodied and employed only as occasion required, suitable men for the purpose being selected from different infantry regiments. Besides the line regiments, the infantry forces also comprised three regiments of guards: the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, and the Scots Guards, each of three battalions, with the Irish Guards of one. The guards, or household troops, had various
leges, and served outside the United Kingdom only in time of war; otherwise being usually stationed in barracks at London, Aldershot, and Windsor.
The cavalry also consisted of guards and of troops of the line. The former comprised three regiments of cuirassiers, the 1st and 2nd Life Guards and the Royal Horse Guards (or Blues), permanently garrisoned in London and Windsor. The cavalry of the line consisted of 28 regiments, designated as dragoons, dragoon guards, hussars, and lancers; the 12 regiments of hussars being also known as light cavalry, the others as heavy. On the war footing a cavalry regiment consisted of three squadrons, and numbers a total of 531 officers and men. The cavalry generally were armed with carbines and sabres, the lancers carried lances in addition. While service in the infantry was for nine years with the colours and three in the reserve, men were enlisted in the cavalry of the line for eight years with the colours and four in the reserve.
The artillery was not divided into regiments like the cavalry and infantry, but the field, horse, and garrison artillery formed together a single body (about 55,000 strong), called the Royal Regiment of Artillery, the field and horseartillery being divided into a large number of 'batteries', the garrison artillery into companies. Of these batteries a certain number were mountain-batteries (for special service). On the war footing, a battery of horseartillery had 165 men, a battery of field artillery 157, the great majority consisting of gunners and drivers. Every battery had 6 guns, those of the field artillery being heavier than those of the horseartillery. The field artillery acted with the infantry, and the gunners were not mounted but carried on the gun-carriages; the horseartillery went with the cavalry, the gunners being mounted for rapid movement. The garrison artillery was distributed over the various fortresses and garrisons.
To a special corps, the Royal Engineers, belong the construction and maintenance of military works and fortifications, military telegraphs and railways, pontoons, military balloons, etc. Another branch of the regular army was the Army Service Corps, which had to attend to transport, the purchase and issue of provisions, forage, light, fuel, the appointments of barracks, etc. It was organized in companies, which were allotted to the several brigades or other units of the army, and it comprised bakers, butchers, saddlers, farriers, clerks, etc.
The medical services called for by the army are rendered by the Royal Army Medical Corps, under the director-general and staff of the army medical service. The officers are divided into ranks corresponding to those of the rest of the army, from surgeon - generals, surgeon - colonels, etc, downwards. The privates largely consist of men that have to attend to the ambulances and other means of conveyance. Other departments of the regular army are the ordnance corps, army pay department, veterinary department, military police, etc. What were generally designated as the auxiliary forces consisted of the army reserves, militia and militia reserve, imperial yeomanry, and volunteers. The army reserve of infantry consisted of men who had served with the colours during the period for which they enlisted for active service, and were liable in case of war to be again called up for service with the particular branch of the army to which they still belonged (receiving meanwhile a small pension). The militia was a force of old standing that had repeatedly rendered valuable services to the country. The force was intended to provide a number of trained men by which, on important emergencies, the regular troops might be supplemented or relieved. It consisted chiefly of a large number of battalions of infantry of the line, linked with those belonging to the territorial regiments, the men being enlisted for a period of six years, and being called up annually for a short period of drill and training. During the 19th century measures were taken for increasing the efficiency of the militia, and a militia reserve was formed. The volunteer force was formed in 1859, and was largely self-supporting, though it also received certain grants from government. Like the militia, it formed a number of battalions attached to the line regiments in their respective districts. The force proved very popular, but some authorities maintained that its efficiency was not equal to its numbers, and
e changes were proposed early on. The Imperial Yeomanry, or Yeomanry Cavalry, were a force that came into existence as a volunteer force in the beginning of the 19th century, being intended to furnish mounted troops for home defence. The force was reorganized at the end of the 19th century, and formed a body of more than fifty regiments, in which were absorbed certain volunteer companies of light horse and mounted infantry. The members provided themselves with horses, and receive a certain sum as daily pay during their period of training, with an allowance also for a horse.
Army administration and reorganization underwent major changes during the 20th century. The strength of the British army by the scheme of March, 1905, was: regulars, 192,697; reserve, 80,000; militia, 148,000; yeomanry, 28,000; volunteers, 250,000; besides over 78,000 men for India and the colonies.
Before the Second World War and the upheavals that followed, a large number of men raised in the United Kingdom were always serving abroad, in India and the colonies, but some of the British colonies had bodies of troops raised and maintained by themselves. The Indian army alone constantly absorbed drafts of men from the home countries, since there were always about 74,000 British regulars in it, besides native troops raised in India more than twice that number. The Indian army as a whole stood quite apart from the British army proper. This army had its own commander-in-chief and its own organization, and was paid from the revenues raised in India itself. Under the commander-in-chief were three great commands, those of the northern (Punjab), the western (Bombay), and the eastern (Bengal) army corps, besides the commands or districts of Madras and Burma. Both the British and the Indian regular forces comprised infantry, cavalry, and artillery; and there were volunteers, army reserves, and a body known as 'imperial service troops', kept up by native states, besides a frontier militia for the north-west frontier, and a military police, also serving on frontier duty. The native regiments were partly under British officers.
After the Great War the British Regular Army was a reproduction of the pre-war army and its reserves, established mainly on the basis of reforms instituted during the War Secretaryship of Haldane, with the improvements suggested by the Great War. The previous reforms had established a spirit of co-ordination and professional dignity. The militia had been replaced by a Special Reserve; the efficient Territorial Force replaced the old Volunteers; the General Staff was brought into being, and later the Imperial General Staff. The O.T.C. system began in 1909, and the creation of a small expeditionary force, to serve in emergency, was an innovation that splendidly proved its utility. The establishment of the pre-war regular army in the financial year 1914-15 was as follows: British troops - regimental establishments, 168,500 all ranks; British army in India, 75,896 all ranks; total, 244,396. The immense armies raised during the Great War having in the course of 1919 been almost entirely demobilized, Parliament was asked in the opening session of 1920 to sanction an establishment of approximately 220,000 men, exclusive of the army in India, which then consisted of 68,000 British troops and 164,000 Indian troops.
The British army after the Great War was distributed in general accordance with the Cardwellian system i.e., half abroad and half at home. The home units were to supply the units abroad in time of peace with drafts. The units abroad would absorb the reserves, who on mobilization would raise the units at home to full war strength. The home units would be organized so as to form, on mobilization, a force consisting of infantry, artillery, and mechanized units, and this force was the central reserve of the British Empire, available to be sent in time of trouble to any part of the world. Behind each linked battalion of the regular army there was a militia battalion. This militia battalion discharged the function hitherto discharged by the special reserve and the extra special reserve of supplying drafts for the regular battalions which were sent out of the country in time of war. There were 74 militia battalions, and it was assumed that they were capable, when the country was engaged in a war of no more than a few months' probable duration, of taking the field for the extension of the regular army - an assumption proved incorrect when the Second World War broke out a few years later. These forces - the regulars and militia battalions - constituted the first line of the British army, the second line being constituted by the 14 territorial infantry divisions and the cavalry division of the territorial army (yeomanry).
The improvements suggested by experience in the Great War were many and varied, but the rigid economy required in the national life after the armistice reduced the realization of these improvements to the lowest limits.
(1) Tanks. The big surprise of the Great War was the tank, or armoured land cruiser, for breaking through defensive organizations. Since 1919 progress was made in the evolution of this formidable weapon and a separate tank corps was revived, and mechanization of the army further proceeded by the conversion of certain cavalry units.
(2) Education A striking feature of the post-Great War army was the introduction, as a permanent and integral feature of the new army, of a system of compulsory education, both academic and technical, in unit schools, such as will ensure that any soldier on leaving the army would find employment in civil life instead of being, as in past times, shut out through a lack of appropriate skills.
The Garde Ecossaise was the Scotch guard in the service of the kings of France, first instituted on a regular footing by Charles VII, who in 1453 selected a hundred Scoth archers to form a special body-guard in. recognition of the service of the Scotch soldiery in the Hundred Years' War. There was also another company of a hundred Scots placed at the head of a regular army of fifteen companies of 100 lances each, which was organized. This body was commanded by Scotchmen of the highest rank. James VI, and his sons Henry and Charles, and James II when Duke of York, held in succession the rank of captain in it. Research Garde Ecossaise
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Order of St George
