Militia
A militia is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from.
When acting independently, militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces. Militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. However, militias may also engage in defense activities to protect a community, its territory, property, and laws. For example, naval militias may comprise fishermen and other civilians which are organized and sanctioned by a state to enforce its maritime boundaries.
Beginning in the late 20th century, some militias act as professional forces, while still being part-time or on-call organizations. For instance, members of the part-time United States National Guard militia are considered professional soldiers, as they are trained to the same standards that their full-time, active duty counterparts are. Militias may nonetheless operate outside of a state's legal jurisdiction, taking the form of a private military force, irregular military, or guerilla forces.
In countries with conscription, the term "militia" may refer to the entire able-bodied population available, legally obliged, or who actually respond to be called to arms. In Russia and some countries of the former Soviet Union, an official reserve army composed of citizen soldiers is known as the militsiya.
Etymology
Militia derives from Latin roots:- miles /miːles/ : soldier
- -itia /iːtia/ : a state, activity, quality or condition of being
- militia /milːiːtia/: Military service
The word Militia comes from ancient Latin, in which it meant defense service, as distinguished from a body of defenders which would be volgus militum. The term is used by several countries with the meaning of "defense activity" indicating it is taken directly from Latin.
History
France
The first notable militia in French history was the resistance of the Gauls to invasion by the Romans until they were defeated by Julius Caesar. Centuries later, Joan of Arc organized and led a militia until her capture and execution in 1431. This settled the succession to the French crown and laid the basis for the formation of the modern nation of France.During the French Revolution the National Guard was a political home defense militia. The levée en masse was a conscription army used during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
At the time of the Franco-Prussian War, the Parisian National Guard engaged the Prussian Army and later rebelled against the Versailles Army under Marshal McMahon.
Under German occupation during World War II, a militia usually called the French Resistance emerged to conduct a guerrilla war of attrition against German forces and prepare the way for the D-Day Allied Invasion of France. The Resistance militia were opposed by the collaborationist French Militia—the paramilitary police force of the German puppet state of Vichy.
Although defunct from 1871 until 2016, the French National Guard has now been reestablished for homeland security purposes.
Germany
The earliest reports of Germanic militias was the system of hundreds described in AD 98 by the Roman historian Tacitus as the centeni. They were similar in nature to the Anglo-Saxon fyrd.File:Luetzows verwegene jagd aquarellreproduktion 1900.jpg|thumb|left|The Lützow Free Corps during the Napoleonic Wars. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Freikorps referred to volunteer forces that fought against the French.
Freikorps was originally applied to voluntary armies. The first Freikorps were recruited by Frederick II of Prussia during the Seven Years' War. These troops were regarded as unreliable by regular armies, so they were mainly used as sentries and for minor duties. During the Napoleonic occupation, organizations such as the Lutzow Free Corps fought against the occupiers and later joined the allied forces as regular soldiers.
However, after 1918, the term was used for nationalist paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. They were one of the many Weimar paramilitary groups active during that time. They received considerable support from Gustav Noske, the German Defence Minister who used them to crush the Spartakist League with enormous violence, including the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on January15, 1919. Militia were also used to put down the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. They were officially "disbanded" in 1920, resulting in the ill-fated Kapp Putsch in March 1920. The Einwohnerwehr, active in Germany from 1919 to 1921 was a paramilitary citizens' militia consisting of hundreds of thousands of mostly former servicemen. Formed by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior on April15, 1919, to allow citizens to protect themselves from looters, armed gangs, and revolutionaries, the Einwohnerwehr was under the command of the local Reichswehr regiments, which supplied its guns. In 1921, the Berlin government dissolved the Einwohnerwehr. Many of its members went on to join the Nazi Party.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-033-15, Vorbeimarsch des Volkssturms an Goebbels, Berlin.jpg|thumb|The Volkssturm was a national militia formed by Nazi Germany in the last months of World War II.
In 1921 the Nazi Party created the Sturmabteilung, which was the first paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party and served as a Nazi militia whose initial assignment was to protect Nazi leaders at rallies and assemblies. The SA also took part in street battles against the forces of rival political parties and violent actions against Jews. From the SA sprung the Schutzstaffel which grew to become one of the largest and most powerful groups in Nazi Germany, which Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler envisioned as an elite group of guards. The Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS, became a de facto fourth branch of the Wehrmacht.
In 1944–1945, as World War II came to a close in Europe, the German high command deployed increasing numbers of Volkssturm units to combat duties. These regiments were composed of men, women and children too old, young or otherwise unfit for service in the Wehrmacht. Their primary role was assisting the army with fortification duties and digging anti-tank ditches. As the shortage of manpower became severe, they were used as front line infantry, most often in urban settings. Due to the physical state of members, almost non-existent training and shortage of weapons, there was not much the Volkssturm could do except act like shields for regular army units.
Great Britain and Ireland
Origins
The obligation to serve in the militia in England derives from a common law tradition, and dates back to Anglo-Saxon times. The tradition was that all able-bodied males were liable to be called out to serve in one of two organisations. These were the posse comitatus, an ad hoc assembly called together by a law officer to apprehend lawbreakers, and the fyrd, a military body intended to preserve internal order or defend the locality against an invader. The latter developed into the militia, and was usually embodied by a royal warrant. Service in each organisation involved different levels of preparedness.16th and 17th centuries
With the decay of the feudal system and the military revolution of the 16th century, the militia began to become an important institution in English life. It was organised on the basis of the shire county, and was one of the responsibilities of the Lord Lieutenant, a royal official. Each of the county hundreds was likewise the responsibility of a Deputy Lieutenant, who relayed orders to the justices of the peace or magistrates. Every parish furnished a quota of eligible men, whose names were recorded on muster rolls. Likewise, each household was assessed for the purpose of finding weapons, armour, horses, or their financial equivalent, according to their status. The militia was supposed to be mustered for training purposes from time to time, but this was rarely done. The militia regiments were consequently ill-prepared for an emergency, and could not be relied upon to serve outside their own counties. This state of affairs concerned many people. Consequently, an elite force was created, composed of members of the militia who were prepared to meet regularly for military training and exercise. These were formed into trained band regiments, particularly in the City of London, where the Artillery Ground was used for training. The trained bands performed an important role in the English Civil War on the side of parliament, in marching to raise the siege of Gloucester. Except for the London trained bands, both sides in the Civil War made little use of the militia, preferring to recruit their armies by other means.Militia in the English Empire and the British Empire
As successful English settlement of North America began to take place in 1607 in the face of the hostile intentions of the powerful Spanish, and of the native populations, it became immediately necessary to raise militia amongst the settlers. The militia in Jamestown saw constant action against the Powhatan Federation and other native polities. In the Virginia Company's other outpost, Bermuda, fortification began immediately in 1612. A Spanish attack in 1614 was repulsed by two shots fired from the incomplete Castle Islands Fortifications manned by Bermudian Militiamen. In the Nineteenth century, Fortress Bermuda would become Britain's Gibraltar of the West, heavily fortified by a Regular Army garrison to protect the Royal Navy's headquarters and dockyard in the Western Atlantic.In the 17th Century, however, Bermuda's defence was left entirely in the hands of the Militia. In addition to requiring all male civilians to train and serve in the militia of their Parish, the Bermudian Militia included a standing body of trained artillerymen to garrison the numerous fortifications which ringed New London. This standing body was created by recruiting volunteers, and by sentencing criminals to serve as punishment. The Bermudian militiamen were called out on numerous occasions of war, and, on one notable occasion, to quell rioting privateers. The 1707 Acts of Union made Bermudian and other English militiamen British. The Militia in Bermuda came to include a Troop of Horse and served alongside volunteers and a small body of regulars. The Militia faded away after the American War of 1812 when the Parliament of Bermuda declined to renew the Militia Act. This resulted from the build-up of the regular army Bermuda Garrison along with Bermuda's development as the headquarters and dockyard of the North America and West Indies Station of the Royal Navy, which made the militia seem excess to need. Vast sums of the Imperial defence expenditure were lavished on fortifying Bermuda during the Nineteenth Century and the British Government cajoled, implored, begged, and threatened the colonial legislature for 80 years before it raised a militia and volunteer units. Although the militia had historically been an infantry force, many units in Britain had been re-tasked as militia artillery from the 1850s onward due to the increased importance of the coastal artillery defences and the new militia unit in Bermuda followed suit. Titled the Bermuda Militia Artillery, it was badged and uniformed as part of the Royal Artillery, and tasked with the garrison artillery role, manning coastal batteries. As in Britain, recruitment was of volunteers who engaged for terms of service, whereas the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was organised on the same lines as volunteer rifle corps in Britain. Recruitment to the BVRC was restricted to whites, but the BMA recruited primarily coloured other ranks, though its officers were all white until 1953. Neither unit was reorganised in 1908 when the Militia, Volunteer Force and Yeomanry in Britain merged into the Territorial Force, but the BVRC was re-organised as a territorial in 1921 and the BMA in 1926. The BVRC name was not modified to Bermuda Rifles until 1951, however, and the Bermuda Militia Artillery continued to be titled as militia until amalgamated with the Bermuda Rifles in 1965 to form the Bermuda Regiment.
In British India, a special class of militia was established in 1907. This took the form of the Frontier Corps, which consisted of locally recruited full-time auxiliaries under British officers. Their role combined the functions of tribal police and border guards deployed along the North-West Frontier. Regional units included the Zhob Militia, the Kurram Militia, and the Chagai Militia. After 1946 the Frontier Corps became part of the modern Pakistan Army.