THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4831, 14 September 1901, Page 4

THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES.

There is an interesting comparison of the sizes of the armies of the chief Powers of the world in a recent number of • FeaceQQ'a Magazine/ which is as follows :-»Every. ninth person in France ia a trained soldier. In Germany there is one soldier to every dozen peraons — every sixth male. The Austrian Army is made up of every eleventh soul m the empire, and the Italian army consists of one-seventh of the male population. The population of Russian is so great that, enormous though the army is, oniy one person out of every 14 is a soldier. How does Great. Britain stand, viewed in the same light? She has only one soldier including reserves and voulnteers, to every 55 persons. .Russia, of all countries on the face of the earth, possesses the largest standing army, and each year it is growing- larger »ud larger. Every year some 280,000 conscripts join the army which in time of peace, numbers a million men. On a war footing a half-million is added, and the calling out of the reserves would increase it to 6,947,000 trained soldiers. Should neceßßity arise, the second and third hands of the Opoltscbenic (or militia), consisting of untrained men, could be called out by Imperial ukase, thus" swelling the Sussian army to the enormous total of nine million men. France comes next, with a standing army of 580,000 men, rising to two millions and a-haif in time of war, which th 9 calling out of the reserves would increase to 4,370,000. Despite this tremendous force, the French | army ia increasing year by year. I The German army, which is rightly I considered a model of military perfection numbers 585,000 men in peace. Within ten days of the declaration of war Germany could put 2,230,000 trained men into the field, and the calling out of the reserves would increase this number to 4,300,000.