The Five Armies That Made Europe
Regrettably, war is inevitable. Many of us who have had the privilege of being born in Western democracies after 1945 have been spared having to confront war directly. This has created a false optimism that future generations may not have to suffer its terrible embrace much as we also hoped as a generation that pandemics had been consigned to history. Those who live in other parts of the world have been less fortunate. In the last three quarters of a century, many in South-East Asia, Africa and the Middle East have had to confront both war and pandemics regularly but it is only since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 that war has become seen as a present threat in the rich European liberal democracies.
This is disturbing, by any measurement of human values, and negates the feeling that life will inevitably get better as humankind progresses. War does not, of course, negate societal progress – in a rather macabre way, it can actually give societies an impetus to rebuild – but it is a sad fact that the 20th century was the bloodiest in history. It is impossible to come up with a precise figure, but certainly more than 100 million people lost their lives through conflict with some estimates as high as 187 million or over 10% of the world’s population before the First World War. Many distinguished people have attempted an explanation as to why humans fight each other. Arguably no one has yet done so compellingly nor is it the purpose of this book to try to do so. My starting point is that war is a sad but unavoidable part of the human condition which, given that we can not get rid of it, it is our duty to minimise its consequences. Just as aggressors will use armies to pursue their interests, so responsible governments need armies to defend theirs.
Sadly, it looks as if this present century may rival the last in terms of war and bloodshed. This points to two things. First, human nature remains violent. Not only is modern conflict hideously costly in life but the violence of war itself has not diminished. There is a certain rather revolting smugness in thinking that a strike by a remotely-controlled missile is somehow less horrific than a Roman legion massacring a village but the effect on the unfortunate recipients is much the same. It is also sadly true that warfighting on a battlefield when armies meet is as nasty, primitive and destructive as it has always been; there is again little difference between how, in the 4th century BC, a British tribesman speared his rival whose bones were found on Salisbury Plain and a Russian conscript knifing a Ukrainian this year. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 is often cited as being the ultimate example of how hundreds of thousands of lives were wasted for minimal territorial gain. A life for every yard was the criticism levelled at the army commanders; around Bakhmut over the last year that figure is one Russian life for every 19 inches.
Secondly, the inevitability of conflict means that societies, and therefore states, need armies. Societies must be able to defend themselves. A state may not be interested in war but, in Trotsky’s sinister words, “war is interested in you”. It is totally plausible and logical to think that it will not happen but sadly it is wrong. Aggressors see war differently There was a reasonable and genuinely held belief that the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989 had greatly reduced the threat to world peace in general and to Europe in particular, thus allowing a substantial post-Cold War peace dividend. There was a corresponding feeling that armies were becoming something of an anachronism and the inevitable triumph of liberal democracies meant that eventually you would not need an army because there would be no enemies to fight and no threats to combat. It was felt that it was as important for armies to reflect social change as for them to be operationally coherent. Governments across the Western World measured success by how much they could save on defence budgets. They were again simply following a pattern set for millennia that when there was no war you did not need a large standing army. When threats emerged, you re-armed. If you were the aggressor, you did so first to steal a technological and readiness advantage over your rivals; if you were less aggressive you re-armed late and generally lost, at least in the early stages of a war. Sadly we are now entering one of those dangerous periods when war hovers menacingly in our world, clearly and horribly defined in Ukraine and Gaza, more a lurking spectre in Western Europe. Sweden, Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, Germany, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Turkey are all re-structuring and re-equipping their armies now as are many nations in Asia and Africa; the UK and USA faced major defence reviews in 2025. We are entering a period when a nation will once again be defined by its army. States are now forced to reconsider what part of their national resource they are prepared to devote to the protection of their citizens even though the threat may be imminent as opposed to immediate.
But what is an army? Originally societies gathered together to protect themselves. Every man, and sometimes woman, in a group was required to take part in the defence of the group whether village, tribe or later state. Over time this principle became refined so that each group was required to produce a quota of fighters such as the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, a principle later extended into the British county militias. It also became corrupted as the better-off found ways of delegating their service to those less fortunate. However, the idea remained that every member of a society should participate in its defence, although admittedly that was a principle that became complicated as rulers fought wars to further their own interests. Yet the fundamental point remained and, although armies were to become less representative and professionalised, when a state faced existential threats, such as France after 1914 or Russia in 1941, the whole nation was mobilised. Contemporary politicians misunderstand this, clumsily citing conscription as a tool for engineering societal change. By doing so they obscure the fact that the most fundamental purpose of government is to defend the state when it is threatened and that every member of that state should in some way contribute. History shows us that the vast majority understand this and are prepared, if not actually happy, to participate. It is for government to provide the means for them to do so.
Take, for example, Lithuania, a Baltic state of 2.8 million souls which finds itself uncomfortably situated between Russia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad which used to be Konigsberg, once capital of Prussia and scene of some of the most vicious fighting in 1945. Since 1990, when Lithuania gained its independence from the Soviet Union, its citizens have enjoyed the benefits of living in what has become a prosperous liberal democracy. They hoped that this time it might last, unlike the last time they celebrated independence in 1918. Lithuania is a member of NATO and relies on its NATO allies under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which says that an attack on one is an attack on all. However, they are taking no chances and every part of Lithuanian society is preparing to mobilise. They intend to deter any future Russian aggression and if Russia does invade, yet again, then they are determined to defend every inch of their native soil. It was not what they had hoped for back in 1990, but now they see it as inevitable if they are to have a chance of survival.
One way governments have discharged their fundamental duty to protect their citizens is to create professional armies which could also be used in circumstances when the state was not existentially threatened or to further other interests. Being structured, armed and trained organisations, they could also be used as police forces, as guards, to enhance the prestige of a state and, most importantly, could act as a core of the army when it was required to expand and act as the repository for technological innovation. Sometimes these ‘professional’ armies were full-time, as in most European states, or sometimes they were part-time, such as in Sparta or later Prussia, but they were still part of the standing army as opposed to being reservists who might be called up in times of crisis.
Much as the fundamentals of warfare have not changed over the last two millennia, so the fundamentals of how a society defends itself and organises its army have not changed much either. Weapons and communications are self-evidently constantly changing but the roles and structures of armies are much the same now as they were in classical times although this truism can be vitiated by the sheer complexity of modern warfare. Successful armies historically have been those that have structured themselves around these fundamentals rather than just being re-modelled versions of what went before. Restructuring an army is a difficult thing to do. It requires someone with the authority and confidence to do so, for them to have the political support and to be strong enough to override the traditionally conservative instincts of those in command. Restructuring also tends to happen during a crisis when time is short and measured thought a rarity. The natural tendency is to develop what is there which can have obvious advantages but can also lead to reinforcing failure. What most successful armies have in common is that although they are constructed against a specific threat, which is self-evident and which demands action, they are also flexible enough to adapt; this flexibility comes from having been built on the foundations of those same core principles.
What I have done in this book is to look at five instances when a state, in its widest sense, was threatened and how five governments have reacted by introducing fundamental reform which brought not only battlefield success but ensured the long- term survival of their nations and the interests of their people. In all these cases, the rulers had the strength and imagination to build an entirely new structure which would last for centuries or, in the case of the British and American armies, is still in existence today. My argument is that, serious and intimidating as the problems the world faces today are, history offers many examples of when affairs have been more serious; by examining how past governments have reacted when facing existential crisis, it is possible to discern common traits which are as applicable today as they were in the 4th century AD.
The five armies I have taken are the late Roman army of Constantine the Great, remodelled by him after he succeeded as emperor in 306 AD; that of Mehmet II, the Conqueror, faced with taking Constantinople and securing Ottoman rule in South East Europe; the New Model Army created by Fairfax and Cromwell when faced with losing the British Civil Wars; the Prussian Army after its catastrophic defeat at Jena in 1806 and French occupation; and lastly, the US Army from 1941, when it ranked eighteenth in the world somewhere below Portugal and Rumania, to 1944 when it fielded 91 divisions. Several friends have expressed surprise that I have excluded Napoleon’s army, undoubtedly one of the most innovative and successful on the battlefield. The answer lies in what it did to France. What is the purpose of an army if it serves merely the vanity of a regime? For an army to be successful it must, at least by my criteria, serve the interests of its nation and its people.
Barney White-Spunner is a former British Army soldier and the author of Nations in Arms: Five Armies That Made Europe.
