The emergence of armies and armed forces

The need for a huge army to wage imperialist wars and the fear of the ruling circles of capitalist countries to arm the multi-million masses of the people lead to a deep and insoluble crisis of the military system of capitalism. Russian Russian Empire showed serious signs of a crisis in the military system of capitalism during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and during the first Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. This crisis was expressed in the mass revolutionary actions of soldiers and sailors of the tsarist army and Navy, who did not want to fight for interests alien to them and participate in the suppression of the labor movement. The Tsarist army came to the same crisis in 1917, and the German army in 1918. The armed forces of France, England and Austria-Hungary were in a state close to crisis at that time.

While preparing their armies for war against the USSR, Western countries in the period between the two world wars took all measures to make them an obedient tool for reactionary domestic policy and a reliable means of aggression against the socialist state. Fearing the involvement of the working masses in the armed forces, bourgeois military ideologists proposed theories that talked about abandoning mass armies and returning to small, professional armies (Fuller, Sekt, Soldan, de Gaulle, etc.) or to waging a lightning war with one aircraft (Douai, etc.). After the First World War, Britain and the United States returned to professional armies, manned for hire. In France, overtime professionals made up more than a third of the armies recruited on the principle of universal military service. In the defeated countries – Germany, Austria and others – a system of professional armies with long service lives was also established. But this could not resolve the deep contradictions of the military system of capitalist countries, which consist in the fact that the imperialists during the general crisis of capitalism were unable to ensure the strength of the rear, which is the most important of the constantly acting factors determining the fate of the war.

The experience of the two world wars has shown that the imperialists were forced to involve the multi-million masses of peoples in the war, whose attitude to the goals of the war becomes crucial, since it determines the morale of the armed forces. The growth of the armed forces, which began at the end of the 19th century, continued in the early 20th century. In 1898, the armed forces in each of the main Western capitalist powers (Germany, France) in peacetime amounted to 400-600 thousand people. Before the First World War in 1914, they increased to 500-800 thousand people, and before the Second World War in 1939. For example, 1300 thousand people have reached in Germany. Pre-revolutionary Russia in 1898 had a peacetime land army of 660 thousand people, and in 1914 – 1360 thousand people. At the beginning of the First World War, the number of land forces of each of the main European countries (Germany, Russia, France) exceeded 4 million people, and by the end of the war in Russia and Germany had already reached over 8 million people.

In World War II, the number of land forces of each of the capitalist powers (Germany, England, USA) exceeded 5 million people, and by the end of the war in Germany alone reached over 9 million people.

The forms of organization of armies, genera and types of troops are usually adapted to the forms and methods of warfare. Since the latter change depending on economic conditions and the development of production, in connection with the emergence of new technical means of struggle, a new type of armed forces (aviation) arises, the importance and role of each old branch of the army of the land army changes and new branches and types of troops arise.

Before the machine period of the wars, there were only three types of troops in the armies: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and in an embryonic form there were engineering troops, which by the time of the First World War included poorly developed communications units, aviation, aeronautical units, etc.

During the First World War, due to the rapid growth of military equipment, forms of armed struggle became more complicated and, along with the development of the old branches of the armed forces (infantry and artillery), new ones appeared: armored, air defense, chemical, communications, automotive, road and others, which ensured the combat activities of the main branches of the armed forces.

Further development of the armed forces

Until the 19th century, all the forces of the state, which did not exceed 200 thousand people, made up one active army, deployed before the battle in a narrow space measured in a few kilometers. Even the more numerous army of Napoleon I in such general battles as the battles of Jena in 1800, Wagram in 1809, Borodin in 1812, was not divided into separate armies as operational associations.

The continuous growth of the armed forces in the 19th century, recognized by new bourgeois social relations and increased economic opportunities created by the development of capitalism, led to an expansion of the scale of wars (campaigns and operations). The rapid development of science and technology has led to an unprecedented arms race, to the rapid development of weapons and military equipment of all kinds. The growth of the composition of the armed forces, the increase in the fire and technical power of units and formations on the basis of qualitative and quantitative growth of weapons contributed to the continuous expansion of the fronts of combat clashes even in the manufacturing period of the wars. This caused the need to introduce into the operational management system of the armed forces such basic operational associations as the private army, and subsequently the highest operational association – the front (army group). The land forces began to be divided into several armies, the number of which was constantly growing.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the armed forces of states were usually called the army. This was due to the fact that the land army in most States made up the vast majority of the armed forces. There was no air fleet, and the Navy most often represented an organization independent of the land army with its own specific tasks in naval theaters of operations. Since the middle of the 19th century. Increasingly, the term "army" has become used only to refer to ground forces or military associations, e.g., the land army, combined arms army, etc.

Subsequently, the armed forces of all States underwent major changes related to the development of productive forces and industrial relations. The dependence of the development of armies on the economic and political structure of society and their class character are clearly visible in the examples of the entire history of human society.

For the first time, the army as an operational association appeared in Russia before the Patriotic War of 1812 due to the fact that Russian troops were forced to cover the territory of the country on a very wide front in three independent directions. In total, three armies were created. Prussia first divided its troops into two armies in 1866 during the Austro-Prussian War and into three armies during the Franco—Prussian War of 1870-1871. France had only one army in the Austro-Italo-French War of 1859 and deployed two armies only in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. According to the plans of the Russian command, in the event of war, it was planned to deploy four armies in 1880, six armies in 1900, and eight armies in 1908. The fighting in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905 was deployed by Japan with five armies, Russia had one army. The increase of Russian troops in Manchuria, the expansion of the front of hostilities and the difficulties of management by the end of the war led to the division of the active army into three combined arms armies.