own. II. ARMY. The 63rd Article of the Constitution of 1871 enacts that 'the whole of the land forces of the Empire shall form a united army in war and peace, under the orders of the Kaiser.' The Prussian War Office discharges also the functions of an Imperial War Office, but Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg have WarMinisters of their The military budgets of the two last named are, however, prepared in Berlin, and Bavaria is obliged to vote military supplies in a fixed proportion to the other budgets. The Sovereigns of these three Kingdoms have the right to select the lower grades of officers, and the King of Bavaria, by a convention signed November 23, 1870, reserved to himself the special privilege of superintending the general administration of the Bavarian contingent to the German army. But the approval of the Kaiser must be obtained to all appointments, and nothing affecting the superior direction of the troops of any State of the Empire can be done without his consent. All German troops are bound by the Constitution to obey unconditionally the orders of the Kaiser, and must swear accordingly the oath of fidelity. But this oath to the Kaiser is not imposed upon the Bavarian troops in time of peace. Art. 65 of the Constitution gives the Emperor the right of ordering the erection of fortresses in any part of the Empire; and Art. 68 invests him with the power, in case of threatened disturbance of order, to declare any country or district in a state of siege. The constitution of the army is regulated by various military laws passed between 1867 and 1888; the Prussian military legislation before 1871 being extended to the Empire. By the Constitution of April 16, 1871, it is enacted that 'every German is liable to service--and no substitution is allowed.' Every German capable of bearing arms has to be in the standing army (or navy) for seven years, as a rule from the finished twentieth till the commencing twenty-eighth year of his age, though liability to service begins on the completion of the seventeenth year. Of the seven years, three must be spent in active service and the remaining four in the army of reserve. Conscripts, whose conduct or proficiency earns them the privilege, are sometimes discharged from active service at the end of two years, though liable to recall. They are familiarly known as Königs Urlauber.' After quitting the army of reserve, the conscript has to form part of the Landwehr for another five years in the first class or ban,' and up to his thirty-ninth year in the second 'ban.' About 400,000 young men reach the age of twenty every year, and when the numbers of those morally or physically unfit to serve, of volunteers, and of emigrants, are deducted, about 300,000 are left liable to service. Of these, however, owing to the legal limitation of the peace strength, only a certain number (chosen by lot) join the army, the remainder are drafted into the Ersatztruppen, a kind of reserve, where the period of service is twelve years. Men in the Ersatztruppen are liable to three periods of drill (of ten, six, and four weeks respectively); but as financial considerations allow of only a certain number being so drilled, many receive no military training at all. At the end of twelve years the trained members of the Ersatz pass into the first ban of the Landsturm, the untrained into the second ban. One-year volunteers, of whom about 8,000 join annually, serve at their own charges, and are not reckoned in the legal peace strength. Non-commissioned officers are generally appointed from men desiring to make the army their profession. All able-bodied men between the ages of seventeen and forty-five, who are neither in the standing army nor the reserves, must belong to the Landsturm, which is only called out in the event of an invasion of Germany. The Landsturm is divided into two classes or 'bans;' to the first ban belong those between the ages of seventeen and thirty-nine; to the second those between thirty-nine and forty-five. The following table shows the strength and organisation of the imperial army on the peace footing, 1889--90: By the law of March 11, 1887, to continue in force to March 31, 1894, the peace strength of the imperial army is 468,409 men, besides officers, surgeons, paymasters, &c.-in all 491,955. No official returns of the war-strength of the German army are published; nor are experimental mobilisations on a war-footing ever made. The following approximate estimates are from a report by military experts prepared for the Intelligence Division of the British War Office in 1888. The total war forces of the Empire would, according to this report, consist of 19 army corps, 9 cavalry divisions, and 18 reserve (Landwehr) divisions, which on mobilisation would be divided into a Feld Armee or active army, and a Besatzungs Armee or garrison army. The following table shows the suggested composition of these two armies: As compared with this total of 2,234,631 men, 3,358 guns, and 439,759 horses in 1888, the effective mobilised strength of Germany in 1870 was 1,183,389 men, 2,046 guns, and 250,373 horses. According to the recruiting statistics for 1888, the number of fully trained men was 1,986,277 on April 1. To this fall to be added the railway staff and other special services, and in case of invasion the Landsturm, estimated at about 700,000 men; so that in the last extremity Germany on her present organisation would have a war-strength not far short of 3,000,000 trained men. The mass of soldiers thus raised is divided into companies, battalions, regiments, and corps d'armée. The strength of an ordinary battalion in peace is 544 men, raised in war to 1,002 by calling in part of the reserves: it is divided into four companies, each of which in war consists of 250 men. Exceptions to this general rule are the battalions of the guards and the regiments in garrison in the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine, the strength of which on the peace footing is 686 men. During peace each regiment of infantry consists generally of three battalions, but 15 regiments have four battalions each; each brigade of two regiments; each infantry division of two brigades, to which, under the command of the divisional general, four squadrons of cavalry, four batteries of artillery, each of six guns, and either a battalion of riflemen or a battalion of pioneers are attached. Each fieldartillery regiment is divided into three detachments, each of three or four batteries. In all there are 364 field batteries, of which 47 are mounted. Each battery numbers, as a rule, in peace four, in war six, fully mounted guns. In war the strength can be raised to 455 batteries. The corps d'armée is considered a unit which is independent in itself, and includes not only troops of all three arms, but a portion of all the stores and appliances which are required by a whole army Each corps d'armée consists of two divisions of infantry, a cavalry division of four regiments, with two horseartillery batteries attached, besides the two cavalry regiments attached to the infantry divisions, and a reserve of artillery of six field batteries and one mounted battery. There is, moreover, attached to each corps d'armée one battalion of pioneers and one of train. The corps d'armée, with the exception of the corps of the guards, are locally distributed through the Empire. There are (besides the Prussian corps of the guards) 17 army corps districts and one divisional district for the 25th (Grand Ducal Hessian) division, the first eleven of which are named after Prussian provinces, and the remaining six after States of the Empire. They are:-1, Prussia; 2, Pomerania; 3, Brandenburg; 4, Saxony; 5, Posen; 6, Silesia; 7, Westphalia; 8, Rhineland; 9, SchleswigHolstein; 10, Hanover; 11, Hesse-Nassau; 12, Saxony; 13, Württemberg; 14, Baden; 15, Alsace-Lorraine; and the 1st and 2nd Royal Bavarian Army Corps. The 15th army corps has an extra infantry division, which it is supposed would be joined to the Hessian division to form an 18th army corps in case of war; while the guards corps would make up the total of 19 mobilised army corps, referred to in the official report above-mentioned. In November 1889 it was resolved to add two new army corps. The infantry and rifles are armed with Mauser's breech-loading repeating rifle (1871-84), carrying eight cartridges in the magazine and one in the chamber, with an extreme range of 3,300 yards; weight, 10 lbs. 1 oz., with bayonet, 11 lbs. 13 oz. The cavalry have swords and carbines; the lancers swords and lances, 10 feet long, weighing 44 lbs. III. NAVY. The following table gives the strength of the German navy on April 1, 1889, completed and building, not including torpedo This includes the Brummer and Bremse, with deck armour and no side armour. The following is a tabulated list of the 29 ironclads, including the Prinzessin Wilhelm and the Irene. (Mtl.=material of hull; I iron; S steel; W=wood; a=turret ships; b=barbette ships; c=central battery ships; d= broadside ships; e=armoured gunboats): |