Most nations at that time (and today) with large armies were
based on conscription. Many of the nations involved in the war used
"universal conscription," meaning that all eligible and able male
citizens were required to serve in the military for a specified amount of time
(usually one to three years depending on the nation). After that time expired these
people could choose to remain in the fulltime military,
or they could leave be assigned to a reserve unit and be discharged to civilian life,
only being required train with their reserve unit periodically. Once the
reservist (a member of a reserve unit) reach a certain age they would be
discharged from the reserve unit and no longer expected to provide military
service.
Some a some nations involved in the war began with all volunteer
armies (Great Britain for example) where people joined the military voluntarily
but were required to be reservist following leaving the military for a
specified amount of time. So when the war began all the British troops were
volunteers or reservist who had been called back to military service.
By the end of the war many volunteer military nations would
rely on "partial conscription" when there were not enough volunteers to
meet the need. This is where the military decides it needs a certain number of
soldiers and sailor and it randomly selects from the eligible male population that
number of individuals and requires them to join the military. It is commonly
called "The Draft" in the United States.
So that is the basic make up of a military in the era of World
War One. There were people in the military serving "fulltime"
stationed in and around military bases and reservist who lived all over the country
who, for the most part, lived and worked completely independent of the
military, with the exception of some periodic training. This is very much how
most modern militaries work today as well.
When a national "mobilized" all members currently
serving in the armed forces would have a their leave (vacation) cancelled and
would be readied in to combat units. Messages would be sent across the nation (via telegraph at the time)
for all reservist to report to their duty or muster (meaning gathering)
stations were they would be organized into their combat units armed and given
their military equipment and uniforms, if they did not already have them.
At the time of World War One the inventions of telegraph and
railroads allowed for a large nation to expand their armies from a few hundred
thousand to millions in a matter of days by calling up reservist (something
that was impossible only a few decades earlier).
Mobilization meant paralyzing a nation in all ways except preparing
for war and nations did not take it lightly. Shops, factories and farms would
be shut down all over the country as millions of men would leave their jobs at
a moment's notice. All civilian transportation would defer to military transportation
to get these millions of men were they needed to be. Railroads, telegraph
stations, boats and barges would be put under military control. You can imagine
today the effect it would have if you saw on the news that all flights were
cancelled so the military could use the airliners to move troops and then when
you turned on your computer to send a message to someone about it you got a
message on your computer that all civilian access to the internet had been temporarily
suspended to free up bandwidth for military use.
With this in mind you can imagine why one nation would
become very nervous if its neighbor began a mass mobilization. Shutting down its
entire civilian economy and putting millions of armed men on its boarders was rightly
seen as tantamount to a declaration of war. As there was little possibility
that any other action would be taken at that point. It was far too great of an
undertaking to be just for show. In fact some nations were worried that if they
mobilized and did not go to war, they would look weak and foolish to their neighbors
and their own citizens.
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