The Reemergence of the Citizen-Soldier in Modern Military Theory

The Reemergence of the Citizen-Soldier in Modern Military Theory Kevin A. Brown M.A., J.D. [email protected] Abstract The purpose of this paper will be to explore the historiographical role of the citizen-soldier in the Western World and his reemergence in modern military theory. The paper will examine the importance of the citizen-soldier in western antiquity. Furthermore it will explore the decline of the citizen-soldier in the late Roman Empire and Medieval period as the use of citizens as soldiers was largely eclipsed by professional and mercenary military forces. Finally it will discuss the reemergence of the citizen-soldier in the late eighteenth century that corresponded with the rise of the nation-state, the wars of revolution, and the shift from dynastic to national wars. Keywords: History; Military History. The purpose of this paper will be to explore the historiographical role of the citizen-soldier and his reemergence in modern military theory. The concept of the citizen-soldier was greatly acclaimed in western antiquity. However by the modern era, around 1600 or so, the citizen-soldier was largely eclipsed by professional and mercenary military forces. The citizen-soldier would see a reemergence in the late eighteenth century with the rise of the nation-state, the wars of revolution, and the shift from dynastic to national wars. This paper will explore how the citizen-soldier has been viewed in modern historical theory and how his role compares to that of the professional soldier. This will include a short review of the concept of the citizen-soldier as viewed in antiquity, particularly in the Greek city-states, Roman Republic, and the latter Roman Empire. The role of the citizen- soldier will be examined through the works of writers such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Vegetius. Next, the paper will explore the status of the professional soldier at the beginning of the modern era and the reemergence of the citizen-soldier conceptually in the works of writers such as Machiavelli, Lipsius, Guibert, Johannes von Muller, and others. Further it shall examine the actual manifestation of the citizen-soldier in the United Netherlands and Sweden and his further reemergence in the writings of the Enlightenment. The paper will then examine the unique role of the citizen-soldier in the American colonies and the American Revolution. Next, it will examine the citizen-soldier's return to preeminence in the French Revolution with the levee en masse, his importance throughout the Napoleonic Wars, and the eventual spread of the citizen-soldier concept from France to Prussia and Great Britain. This will include an appraisal of the citizen-soldier's status as viewed in the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic era by such theorists as Carl von Clausewitz. In order to understand the concept of the citizen-soldier it is important to define the term. The term citizen-soldier refers to members of the military that are not career professionals or mercenaries. It refers to the individual who comes to the military defense of the state, either voluntarily or through conscription, in time of war or when needed by the state. This would include militia and irregular forces and any individual who temporarily enters the military in time of war or crisis. Victor Davis Hanson often uses the term "civic militarism" when describing the Western way of war. When describing battles as distant from one another as Salamis and Midway, Hanson states, "The status of freedom, individualism, and civic militarism at those battles, however, was vastly different among the opposing forces.” Victor Davis Hansen, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2001), 21. This concept of civic militarism is closely associated to the citizen-soldier. Hanson also states: Thus, the sixteenth-century renaissance was a reawakening of Western dynamism. It is better to call it a 'transformation' in the manifestation of European battlefield superiority that had existed in the classical world for a millennium and was never entirely lost even during the darkest days of the Dark Ages. Ibid., 20. The reawakening or transformation that Hanson describes shares a close relationship with the role of the citizen-soldier in antiquity and his reemergence in the modern military world. The concept presented is that the citizen-soldier played an important role in antiquity in both the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. That this reliance on the citizen-soldier was slowly eroded during the Roman Empire and further muted, but not quite lost during the Dark Ages, during which time the mercenary and other military professionals gained prominence. Furthermore, it is contended that this reliance on mercenaries and other military professionals continued into the early modern period. Despite this fact the concept of the citizen-soldier was never completely extinguished and began to reemerge and to take its proper role after the rise of the nation-state and the shift from dynastic to national wars occurred. The concept of the citizen-soldier was an important aspect of ancient Greek and Roman culture. As John Lynn points out, in classical Greece, "Battle grew out of the Greek sense of equality, independence, and intense civic and personal pride." John A. Lynn, Battle, A History of Combat and Culture (New York, NY: Westview Press, 2003), 4. Citizenship and military service were intertwined and the free citizen had both the honor and obligation of militarily defending the polis. Defense of the polis was provided by a citizen militia composed of free men of moderate means. Ibid., 10. The hoplite armies, as well as the Greek naval forces, were composed primarily of full-time farmers and artisans who only served occasionally and when needed in their military roles. The Greek historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon all describe and extol the virtues of the citizen-soldier. Thucydides Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Britannica: Thucydides, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/eb11-thucydides.asp (accessed January 30, 2012). and Xenophon Richard Holmes, ed., The Oxford Companion to Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1009. themselves served as citizen-soldiers. As Lynn states, "Classical Greeks tied political participation to military and naval service, citizenship to the warrior role." Lynn, 12. The distinction between citizen and non-citizen was bolstered by the belief that citizens deserved their status by virtue of their military service. Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 23. The citizen-soldier concept would also be a basic component of the Roman Republic. Much like the Greeks, the early Romans saw military service as an aspect of citizenship. Civic militarism was a part of life in republican Rome. For most of the republican period, 509-27 B.C., the legions were composed of citizen-soldiers. They were essentially a militia called out in wartime and quickly returned to civilian life when the campaign was over. Lynn, 15. The army was composed of property-owning citizens who could afford their equipment, with poorer citizens serving as light infantry or in other roles. Campaigns were tied to the less busy periods of the agricultural year. Holmes, 780. Even in the protracted Punic Wars and the fight against Hannibal, it was the citizen-soldier that formed the basis of the Roman army. Polybius describes how "Each of the Consuls was in command of four legions of Roman citizens, each consisting of five thousand two hundred foot and three hundred horse." Polybius, The Histories, Book II: 300-1 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/2*.html (accessed January 30, 2012). Livy is also specific in his description of the Roman dead at Cannae as "fellow-citizens." Livy, The History of Rome, Vol. III, Book 22: 59 http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Liv3His.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1(accessed January 30, 2012). However the part-time citizen soldier was ill-suited to what was rapidly becoming an extended empire and the prolonged campaigns against the Gallic tribal armies and the Iberians resulted in evolutionary changes in the nature of the Roman military which have generally been associated, perhaps erroneously, with Gaius Marius. Holmes, 550. The reforms in the late republic, ca. 100 B.C., resulted in Rome enlisting paid volunteers who then became long-service military professionals. Lynn, 16. As Lynn states, "A professional army linked to the state no longer by civic militarism but rather by self-interest was a legacy of the republic to the empire." Ibid. These professionals owed their allegiance to their commanders, who they were reliant upon during their service and retirement and they evenually became a source of political instability. Holmes, 780. This trend towards full-time professional armies and away from the concept of the citizen-soldier continued throughout the imperial period. In De Re Militari, written in the Fourth Century, Vegetius makes a determined argument for a return to the military standards that made Rome the masters of their world. He calls for recruits of "reputable families" and "whose fidelity can be relied on." Flavius Vegetius Renatus, On Roman Military Matters (St. Petersburg: Red and Black Publishers, 2008), 11. But the days of the citizen-soldier had long since passed. In both the Eastern and Western Empire the legions themselves were now composed more of barbarian soldiers than Roman ones. Provinces such as Gaul, Illyria, and Isauria had become the major recruiting grounds for the legions. H. St. L.B. Moss, The Birth of the Middle Ages, 395-814, (London: Folio Society, 1998), 23-4. The concept of the citizen-soldier continued to be lost throughout the late Roman Empire and into the Dark Ages. The tribal forces and Germanic peoples that swept through the empire were of many various types. Lynn, 16. But Victor Davis Hanson would argue that "Nevertheless, the idea of a voting citizen as warrior and the tradition of an entire culture freely taking the field of battle under constitutional directive with elected generals were too entrenched to be entirely forgotten." Hanson, 128. This argument might be an overstatement, but suffice it to say that the concept of the citizen-soldier was generally gone, but would ultimately reemerge. While the principle of the citizen-soldier generally lay dormant during the Middle Ages it began to reappear during the period of the Renaissance and would gain more attention in the philosophical thought of the Enlightenment. In these writings the idea of the citizen-soldier returns long before it became an actual reality. One of the earliest and most important individuals to attempt to resurrect the concept of the citizen soldier was Niccolò Machiavelli. It was largely through his work that the citizen-soldier returned to modern military thought. As an official in Florence Machiavelli developed contempt for the condottieri system which relied upon paid mercenaries. Felix Gilbert, "Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War," in Makers of Modern Strategy, from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 18. Machiavelli became a major proponent of a return to a citizen-based army. This was shown when Machiavelli drafted the Ordinanza in December of 1505. The Ordinanza provided for a militia of 10,000 men who were to be chosen by government committee from the males, eighteen to fifty years old, in the rural districts of Tuscany which was under Florentine rule. Machiavelli considered the Ordinanza as merely a start and envisioned an army composed of men from Florence and the surrounding towns and territories under a unified command. Ibid., 18-9. Machiavelli was a well-educated humanist who turned to the writings of classical Rome and espoused the concept of the citizen-soldier contained therein. This is shown in Machiavelli's work, Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy which was written ca. 1517. In the Discourses Machiavelli states, Present princes and modern Republics, who lack their own soldiers in regard to defense and offense, ought to be ashamed of themselves and to think from the example of Tullus that such a defect exists not because of the lack of men suitable for the military, but that by their own fault they have not known how to make soldiers of their men. Niccolò Machiavelli, Harvey C. Mansfield, and Nathan Tarcov, Discourses on Livy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 38. In his Discourses Machiavelli extols the virtues of the Roman Republic including the idea of the citizen-solder as the defender of the state. Machiavelli believed that one of the most powerful forces in inspiring an army to heroic deeds was an appeal to patriotism, but patriotism could only be expected of men fighting for their native land. Gilbert, 26. As Machiavelli states in his Discourses, "Those who combat for their own glory are good and faithful soldiers." Machiavelli, Discourses, 63. The citizen-soldier is a topic that Machiavelli returns to often in his other writings such as The Art of War (1520). Here Machiavelli, or more precisely, Fabrizio Colonna, the main protagonist in the dialogue states: As to being apprehensive that such organization will not deprive you of the State by one who makes himself a leader, I reply, that the arms carried by his citizens or subjects, given to them by laws and ordinances, never do him harm, but rather are always of some usefulness, and preserve the City uncorrupted for a longer time by means of these (arms), than without (them) Rome remained free four hundred years while armed. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War, Book I, (1520) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/machiavelli/works/art-war/ch01.htm (accessed January 30, 2012) Machiavelli returns repeatedly to the virtues of the citizen-soldier throughout The Art of War and continues his laudatory treatment of the subject in his most famous work, The Prince, where he states: I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having its own forces; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength. And one's own forces are those which are composed either of subjects, citizens, or dependants; all others are mercenaries or auxiliaries. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 13, (1532) http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince13.htm (accessed January 30, 2012) The importance of discipline, training, and, most importantly, the citizen as soldier are consistent topics in the writings of Machiavelli, but for the most part his beliefs remained relegated to the realm of ideas. Despite Machiavelli's writings, the military establishment in the Sixteenth Century continued to rely upon mercenaries and professional soldiers, not the citizen-armies of antiquity. As Gunther Rothenberg states, "Although by the sixteenth century there existed some permanently embodied units, these were inadequate to provide strong field armies which had to be constituted from other sources. And although most countries retained relics of obsolete medieval institutions, feudal knight service and militia levies, these normally were inefficient and the great bulk of armies everywhere was composed of mercenaries." Gunther E. Rothenberg, "Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and the 'Military Revolution' of the Seventeenth Century," in Makers of Modern Strategy, 33. Despite the writings of Machiavelli many rulers were hesitant to arm their subjects and believed that professional mercenaries were more reliable than native soldiers and were better equipped to master the intricacies of warfare. Ibid., 34. The idea of citizen-based armies continued to be championed by certain theorists. Justus Lipsius, the Belgian philologist, neo-Stoic philosopher, polyhistorian, and humanist, was a great admirer of Machiavelli and reiterated the belief that the ideal soldier was one motivated by service to his own community. As such he believed it was preferable that they be citizens of the state for which they fought. Lipsius, like Machiavelli, argued in favor of using citizen-soldiers because he believed they would be more disciplined and better fighters than mercenary forces. Scott Fitzsimmons, "A Rational-constructionist Explanation for the Evolution and Decline of the Norm against Mercenaries," in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies , Vol. 11, No. 4 (Spring 2009): 13. Lipsius stressed the doctrines of obedience, loyalty, and service to state, believing that such qualities are what enabled the Roman citizen-soldiers to overcome their foes. Rothenberg, 35. Lipsius would have a direct influence on Maurice of Nassau. As a pupil of Lipsius, Maurice tested and supported his teacher’s rationale positing the superiority of citizen-militias with battlefield results. Fitzsimmons, 14. Appointed as Admiral-General of the United Netherlands and Captain-General of the Troops in Brabant and Flanders he would achieve the strategic objective of securing Dutch independence and repel the veteran Spanish Army of Flanders. In the course of this struggle Maurice managed to transform a motley crowd of unreliable mercenaries and part-time militias into a credible fighting force. Rothenberg, 37. Although supporting the ideas of Machiavelli and Lipsius, Maurice would be forced to rely upon hired professionals, as well as citizen militias. The militias fought well enough, but maritime trade and the growing navies had first call on native manpower in the Netherlands. Ibid., 41. Despite this fact Maurice had proven that citizen-based militias could be an integral part of an effective fighting force. The Dutch tactical system attracted wide attention after the battle of Nieupoort in 1600 and "the Low Countries became the ‘Military Schools’ where most of the Youth of Europe did learn their Military Exercises." Ibid., 45. In Sweden, King Gustavus Adolphus copied the methods of Maurice of Nassau with modifications to improve offensive capabilities. The king revived the national conscript army and overhauled the method of recruitment. Local clergy kept registers of eligible men and perhaps one in ten were called for twenty- year service. As Rothenberg states, "the system produced a substantial long-service national army, up to forty thousand men, the first such in Europe." Ibid., 47. Gustavus was judicious in the use of this native army. He felt that the "state is best defended by its natives" and he supported this belief by using his national army for home defense. Ibid. He also actively recruited foreign mercenaries including English, German, Scots, and other regiments. It is these troops, which made up the majority of his army, which he used in foreign wars. This was a deliberate policy insuring that no matter how badly his army was hurt; his units of Swedish citizens would be safe to defend the homeland. Ibid. Although Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus made limited use of citizen- soldiers, mercenaries and other such military professionals remained the norm in Europe during the seventeenth century and most of the eighteenth century. The style of army that would remain prevalent in Europe from the mid-seventeenth century until the onset of the French Revolution can best be termed "the state commission army." Lynn, 183. In such armies an officer would receive a commission from a ruler to recruit standardized regiments to be raised, trained, maintained, and provided as stipulated by the state in question. Such regiments might have mercenaries or professionals, but the ranks were often filled with the casts-offs of the population, those of the poorest and most destitute levels of society. There was little identification with a people or a cause and foreign conscripts or entire regiments of foreigners were quite common. Ibid., 184. Intellectuals, philosophers, and idealists still continued to praise the sort of civic militarism that had existed in Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic and searched for the nobility of the citizen-soldier in other historical sources. As Lynn states, "Men of letters and men of war focused on the notion of the citizen soldier long before the fall of the Bastille." Ibid., 185. Baron de Montesquieu would praise the virtues of the citizen-soldier in his Reflections on the Grandeur and Decline of the Romans (1734) and contributors to the great Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot published in France between 1751 and 1772 repeatedly acclaimed the Roman citizen-soldier. Ibid. Jean-Jacques Rousseau praised the warrior ideal in Considerations on the Government of Poland (1772), stating, ""I know that the state should not remain without defenders; but its true defenders are its members. Each citizen should be a soldier by duty, none by profession." Jean Jacques Rousseau, Considerations on the Government of Poland, in Rousseau: Political Writings, ed. Frederick Watkins (Edinburgh: Nelson and Sons, 1953), 237. That same year Jacques-Antoine-Hypolite de Guibert published his General Essay on Tactics. One of the themes of Guibert's book was the development of a patriot or citizen army. R.R. Palmer, "Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bulow,: From Dynastic to National War" in Makers of Modern Strategy, 106-7. As Lynn points out, "No less a figure than Voltaire himself saluted the General Essay as 'a work of genius'." Lynn, 186. In 1780 Joseph Servan published The Citizen Soldier which included a detailed plan for army reform including a call for universal conscription. Ibid. That same year Johannes von Müller published Geschichte der Schweizer, a romanticized history of the Swiss people. This work, which Friedrich Schiller would draw upon for his play William Tell, is filled with Müller's concept of the common fighting man as the champion of freedom. Müller stated that "the armed citizen, imbued with the ideal of freedom, stands at the center of the free and just community." Peter Paret, "From Ideal to Ambiguity: Johannes von Müller, Clausewitz, and the People in Arms." Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January 2004):105. While the writers and philosophes of Europe were extolling the idea of the citizen-soldier, across the Atlantic in the Americas, the citizen-soldier had become a reality. As Lynn states, "No concept could be as easily projected onto American reality as that of the citizen soldier, because it so closely matched actual practice, particularly in local militias." Lynn, 186. The American colonies stood in a unique position. The English colonies were generally settled as joint-stock or proprietary colonies, meaning that investors or a single individual had the responsibility for its settlement without significant government or military support. Colonial warfare in America was essentially a "war in the wilderness." Edward Pierce Hamilton, "Colonial Warfare in North America," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 80 (1968): 5. It was not until the French and Indian War from 1754-1763 that regular troops were used as a primary source of military manpower in the colonies. Ibid., 6-7. When John Smith referred to "soldiers" in the Jamestown colony, he was referring to those inhabitants who at that moment had guns in their hands and were on the lookout for danger. John Shy, "A New Look at Colonial Militia," The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 20, No. 2 (April 1963): 177. The colonists were largely left to their own devices when it came to military protection. In 1632 the Virginia Assembly required every fit man to carry a gun and bring it to church so they might exercise with it after services. One hundred and forty-four years later the legislature of Revolutionary Massachusetts similarly required all men between the ages of sixteen and fifty to be enrolled in the militia, provide their own weapons and equipment, and be mustered and trained by their duly commissioned officers. Ibid., 176. What one sees is a generally unbroken history of the requirement that the citizen serve as soldier in America from 1607 onward. With a few notable exceptions, such as the sending of a regiment of regulars to Georgia under James Oglethorpe in 1740 to defend against the Spanish during the War of Jenkins Ear, the colonies were generally responsible for their own defense. Ibid., 181. Even when regular English troops were eventually dispatched to America during the French and Indian War, the citizen-soldier tradition remained intact with the colonial militia providing support and about 7,500 colonials enlisting in the British regiments after General Edward Braddock's arrival. Ibid., 183 There was an aversion to the concept of large standing armies in America for a number of reasons. In addition to the long-standing history of using militia forces for defense, the colonists had inherited the English distrust of standing armies as a threat to liberty. After the tumultuous times of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, large standing armies were seen as a threat to liberty. As John Trenchard, the co-author of Cato's Letters wrote, "standing armies were the agents of political intrigue and corruption. Only a militia could be counted on to protect both the territories and the liberties of a free people." Lawrence D. Cress, "An Armed Community: The Origins and Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms," Journal of American History, Vol. 71, No. 1 (June 1984): 23. Other writers, such as the English Whig James Burgh, whose writings were widely read and favorably received in America, deprecated standing armies for similar reasons. Charles A. Lofgren, "Compulsory Military Service under the Constitution: The Original Understanding," The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 33, No. 1 (January 1976): 72. During the American Revolution the rebelling colonies turned first to its militias to provide military manpower. George Washington, however, insisted on the need to create a European-style professional army to wage war with the British in a European manner. Russell F. Weigley, "American Strategy from Its Beginnings through the First World War," in Makers of Modern Strategy, 412. The answer was a short-term citizen volunteer army that could be trained to fight against the British regulars and their mercenary allies. Richard Robertson , review of A Revolutionary People at war: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775-1783by Charles Royster, The History Teacher, Vol. 14, No. 1 (November 1980): 149. The unique American character was noted by Baron von Steuben, who became the drillmaster of the new American army. Explaining to another Prussian, Steuben stated, "you say to your soldier 'do this' and he doeth it; but I am obliged to say 'this is the reason you ought to do that' and he does it." Ibid. A simplified manual of arms and leadership based on the care of one's soldiers led too marked improvement in the proficiency of the American army. After independence was won George Washington would propose a small regular army supported by a well-regulated compulsory-service militia. Weigley, 410. The citizen-soldier concept would remain strong in the newly independent United States of America. While the American Revolution may have had an effect on the role of citizen armies in the military thought of the time, it was the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that would separate the wars of kings from the wars of people. Deborah Avant, "From Mercenary to Citizen Armies: Explaining Change in the Practice of War," International Organizations, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter 2000): 43. In the first year of the French Revolution, Camille Desmoulins addressed French troops stating, "You are no longer satellites of the despot, the jailers of your brothers. You are our friends, our fellows, citizens, and soldiers of the Patrie." The next year Maximilien Robespierre would proclaim to the National Assembly "soldiers are citizens." Lynn, 187. In 1793 the Revolutionary French Republic was faced with a coalition of Great Britain, Holland, Prussia, Austria, Sardinia, and Spain. In order to meet this threat the Committee of Public Safety created a war economy and introduced the levée en masse. Palmer, 113. The changes brought about by the levée en masse would necessitate a new definition of the relationship between citizenship and military service. As Lynn states, "The Enlightenment discussion of the citizen soldier gave particular definition to that relationship and made it instantaneously applicable to Revolutionary France." Lynn, 187. As Deborah Avant notes, "Thinking of themselves as citizens fighting for their country rather than subjects fighting on behalf of the crown made people more willing to fight." Avant, 45. Even more than just the universal conscription of citizen-soldiers, the levée en masse harnessed the military might of all its citizens by a proclamation stating: Young men will go to battle; married men will forge arms and transport supplies; women will make tents, uniforms, and serve in the hospitals; children will pick rags; old men will have themselves carried to public squares to inspire the courage of the warriors, and to preach the hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic. Holmes, 504. This represented a theoretical new age and era of warfare with the citizen-soldier at its center and the people united behind him. Additionally changes resulted on the battlefield from the levée en masse. The Republican army, because of its size, was supplied by requisition rather than magazine, which resulted in a revolution in logistics. Early battles saw the French throw their half-trained troops into combat in rushing columns or fanned-out lines and broke away from the system of solid battalions and gave rise to changes in tactics. Palmer, 113. The French Army's victory at Valmy in 1792 became a huge psychological victory for the French people and the concept of the citizen-soldier. Lynn, 188. This victory was subsequently followed by the unprecedented success that Napoleon would achieve with the military instrument forged by Revolution. By 1805 the Grande Armée would surpass all other European armies in mobility and striking power and the world would once again see the citizen-soldier at the center of military thought, theory, and battlefield application. Lynn, 190. The citizen-soldier concept would continue to spread throughout Europe, albeit somewhat slowly. Despite the successes of the French, Europe was slow to switch from its long-held reliance on mercenaries. Smaller armies were easier to arm, train, and supply. Additionally many military leaders believed that mercenaries fought better than native citizens. This was supported by the generally good performance of mercenaries during the Napoleonic Wars. Avant, 45-6. The disastrous defeats of the Prussian military at the battles of Auerstadt and Jena in 1806 were instrumental in the spread of the citizen-soldier concept to Prussia. Prussia interpreted the French victories at Auerstadt and Jena as a testament to the value of citizen-soldier. It is really immaterial that the battles were lost as a result of Prussian ineptitude, Frederick William III's poor choices and his refusal to use spies, poor morale among the soldiers, bad communications, and poor field command. What was important was the perception that the battles were a result of the superiority of citizen-soldiers. Ibid., 59. In 1813 Prussia revolted against French control and during that revolt instituted a number of reforms. Foreign recruitment was eliminated and universal military service was established. Ibid., 61. The Prussian army performed better and achieved victories during this time, although it can be argued that such success was not the result of the use of citizen-soldiers, since the citizen militia was poorly trained and disciplined. Ibid., 62. Regardless of this fact Hermann von Boyen, as war minister, solidified reforms such as universal service and the landwehr. Ibid., 61. The Prussian army would eventually return to a more formal, systematic approach to war, but it would be with an army of citizens. Ibid., 47. The spread of the citizen-soldier concept from France to Prussia was central to its continued growth in Europe. As Deborah Avant argues: Once a citizen army was created in France and demonstrated success against the Prussians, such an army became a more appealing solution. Those advocating a citizen army in Prussia could make more credible arguments because the French won. When Prussia created a citizen army and won, not only against Napoleon but also later in the century, the Prussian army became the international model of a modern army. Ibid., 52. The citizen-army concept would continue to spread across the European continent and eventually to Great Britain, although somewhat more slowly. Concepts such as universal conscription similar to the levée en masse were not popular due to the association that was made to Cromwell's army in the English Civil War. The concept of universal conscription had even caused William Pitt's attempt to maintain the navy through the Quota Acts of 1795-96 to be unsuccessful. Ibid., 57. Additionally Britain had the ability to raise funds to pay for professional soldiers and mercenaries through its effective economic loan system. Ibid., 53, n. 52. Even after adopting the idea that its army should only include British citizens Britain generally resisted the idea of universal conscription. Ibid., 53, n. 51. Despite this fact the perceived effectiveness of the Prussian model would, in the course of time, result in British reforms. The British army's poor performance in the Crimean War and the after effects of the Indian Mutiny would illustrate the need for change. Ibid., 64. Beginning in the early 1870's Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell would institute a number of changes to the British army. The Cardwell reforms would see the elimination of flogging and end the practice of the purchase of commission. It also made it illegal for British citizens to enlist in foreign armies. Additionally it established a system of short service enlistment rather than the older system, which had effectively resulted in enlistment for life. The new system was based on voluntary enlistment rather than conscription, but followed the continental model more closely than before. Ibid., 65. X The reemergence of the citizen-soldier and civic militarism, generally lost since the end of the Roman Republic, returned fully to the forefront of modern military thought and theory after the French Revolution. As Clausewitz described the French army after the levée en masse: Suddenly war again became the business of the people--a people of thirty millions, all of whom considered themselves to be citizens...The people became a participant in war; instead of governments and armies as heretofore, the full weight of the nation was thrown into the balance. The resources and efforts now available for use surpassed all conventional limits; nothing now impeded the vigor with which war could be waged, and consequently the opponents of France faced the utmost peril. Carl von Clausewitz, Michael Howard, and Peter Paret On War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 592. The return of the citizen-soldier had been a long process. The time period between Gaius Marius and Robespierre covers a gap of close to 1900 hundred years. Lynn, 19. During that period the citizen-soldier was generally lost in military practice. However the citizen-soldier would return. It may not represent, as Victor Davis Hansen argues, "a direct line of transmission from classical antiquity...." Hansen, 128. Nonetheless the conception of the citizen soldier would eventually be resurrected. The principle of civic militarism and the idea of the citizen-soldier that existed in antiquity may have been all but extinguished in the late Roman Empire and through the Dark Ages, but it continued to exist. Its flame was fanned by humanistic writers like Machiavelli and Lipsius and would grow stronger through the works of many of the Enlightenment writers. Finally, in the early modern period, civic militarism and the role of the citizen-solder would reemerge and take its place in modern military theory. SOURCES BOOKS Clausewitz, Carl von, Michael Howard, and Peter Paret. On War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. Hansen, Victor Davis. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2001. Hunt, Peter. Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Livy. The History of Rome. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Liv3His.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1 (accessed January 30, 2012). Lynn, John A. Battle, A History of Combat and Culture. New York, NY: Westview Press, 2003. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Art of War. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/machiavelli/works/art-war/ch01.htm (accessed January 30, 2012) ___, Harvey C. Mansfield, and Nathan Tarcov. Discourses on Livy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ___, and Peter E. Bondanella. The Prince. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 Moss, H. St. L.B. The Birth of the Middle Ages, 395-814. London: Folio Society, 1998. Paret, Peter, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy, from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1986. Polybius. The Histories, Book II. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/2*.html (accessed January 30, 2012). Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Considerations on the Government of Poland, in Rousseau: Political Writings, ed. Frederick Watkins. Edinburgh: Nelson and Sons, 1953. Vegetius Renatus, Flavius. On Roman Military Matters. St. Petersburg: Red and Black Publishers, 2008. ARTICLES Avant, Deborah. "Mercenary to Citizen Armies: Explaining the Change in the Practice of War." International Organizations, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter 2000): 41-72. Lawrence D. Cress, "An Armed Community: The Origins and Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms," Journal of American History, Vol. 71, No. 1 (June 1984): 22-42. Fitzsimmons, Scott. "A Rational-constructionist Explanation for the Evolution and Decline of the Norm against Mercenaries." in Journal of Military and Strategic Studies Vol. 11, No. 4 (Spring 2009): 1-35. Hamilton, Edward Pierce. "Colonial Warfare in North America." Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 80 (1968): 3-15. Karsten, Peter. "The American Citizen Soldier: Triumph or Disaster?" Military Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 1966): 34-40. Lofgren, Charles A. "Military Service under the Constitution: The Original Understanding." William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 33, No. 1 (January 1976): 61-88. Paret, Peter. "From Ideal to Ambiguity: Johannes von Müller, Clausewitz, and the People in Arms." Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January 2004): 101-111. ___. "Justifying the Obligation of Military Service." The Journal of Military History, Vol. 57, No. 5 (October 1993): 115-126. Robertson, Richard (1980) Review of A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783, by Charles Royster. The History Teacher Vol.14, No. 1 (November): 159-150. Shy, John. "A New Look at Colonial Militia." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 20, No. 2 (April 1963): 175-85. age | 23