Levée en masse is a French term for mass conscription.

Origins

In the polis envisioned in Plato's Laws, the militia would include the entire population, and women and children would drill alongside men. A polis (πολις) — plural: poleis (πολεις) — is a city, or a city-state. ... The Laws is Platos last and longest dialogue. ... A militia is a group of citizens organized to provide paramilitary service. ...

Under Alfred the Great, the Wessex fyrd was divided in two, with half the farmers staying home to tend their crops, and the other half levied to serve in the army, then rotating back to the village. Alfred (849? – 26 October 899) (sometimes spelt Ælfred) was king of the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex from 871 to 899. ... Wessex was one of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (the Heptarchy) that preceded the kingdom of England. ... Fyrds were medieval, Anglo-Saxon tribal militias in which every free, able-bodied male was required to serve. ...

In feudal times, peasant levies were often used to supplement levies of men-at-arms, usually as sappers, pioneers, woodcutters etc., and not as fighting men. Some jurisdictions, like France, developed the institution of corvée, whereby laborers were conscripted annually by their seigneur for either military or non-military duties. Man-at-arms was a medieval term for a warrior or soldier, specifically a heavily armed and armoured mounted soldier. ... This article is about the military vocation. ... A military engineer is primarily responsible for the design and construction of offensive and defensive structures for warfare. ... Corvée, or corvée labor, is a term used in feudal societies. ...

None of these, however, were on the same scale that was to be realized for the first time in Europe during the French Revolution. World map showing location of Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ... The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ...

The Levée in China

Until the French Revolution warfare in China was waged on an entirely different scale to that in Europe. During the 15th Century France and England maintained standing armies of less than 50,000 during the height of the Hundred Years War. By contrast Ming dynasty China maintained a peace time standing army of about 1.8 or 1.9 million. (14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ... This article is in need of attention. ... The Ming Dynasty (Chinese: 明朝; Pinyin: míng cháo) was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, though claims to the Ming throne (now collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662. ...

Of course this is largely due to the much larger population of China, but the kingdom of Qin in the Warring States period and the Taiping Tianguo stand as examples of the levée en masse in China prior to the 20th Century. The Qin empire in 210 BC, during the Qin Dynasty. ... Alternative meaning: Warring States Period (Japan) The Warring States Period (traditional Chinese: 戰國時代, simplified Chinese: 战国时代 pinyin Zhànguó Shídài) takes place from sometime in the 5th century BC to the unification of China by Qin in 221 BC. It is nominally considered to be the second part of the Eastern... The Taiping Rebellion (1851 - 1864) was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, a clash between the forces of Imperial China and those inspired by a Hakka self-proclaimed mystic named Hong Xiuquan, who was also a Christian convert. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

The Legalist State

The first real manifestation of the levée en masse in human history was actually a long way from France where the term was first coined two thousand years later.

During the Warring States period of Chinese history a number of different philosophical schools contended. The four main schools were Confucianism, Daoism, Moism and, importantly to this topic, Legalism. The Legalist pholosophy proposed strict laws with rigidly enforced punnishments and rewards given in accordance with these laws and a system of meritocracy. However the Legalists also believed that the most important aspect of governance was to make the state strong. This naturally meant creating a strong army. Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā The School of the Scholars), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical, religious and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. ... For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ... Legalism has several meanings. ... Meritocracy is a system of government based on rule by ability (merit) rather than by wealth or social position; merit means roughly intelligence plus effort. ...

The most prominent Legalist was Gongsun Yang, the Lord of Shang, who was prime minister of Qin from 361 to BCE. Gongsun Yang believed that if the entire state's citizenry could be divided between agriculture and the military the state would be invincible. The goal was to turn the nation into little more than a weapon - every citizen would do his or her bit to support the military. The Legalist system of rigid laws and autocratic, authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorship was an important aspect of this. Shang Yang (商鞅) (d. ... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 410s BC 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 366 BC 365 BC 364 BC 363 BC 362 BC 361 BC 360 BC 359 BC 358... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC - 330s BC - 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 343 BC 342 BC 341 BC 340 BC 339 BC - 338 BC - 337 BC 336 BC 335...

Every resource of the Qin state was mobilized in its efforts to subdue its neighbours and unify China. This it accomplished in 221 BCE after 9 years of constant warfare. At its height the Qin army reached about 2,000,000 strong - out of a total population of less than 20 million. Before it began to conquer its neighbours it maintained a standing army of almost a million from a population of just 5 million. This is probably the highest ratio of enlisted personnel to total population in human history and is certainly an accurate example of the levée en masse in action. Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC - 220s BC - 210s BC 200s BC 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC Years: 226 BC 225 BC 224 BC 223 BC 222 BC - 221 BC - 220 BC 219 BC...

Later Chinese Military

Although throughout much of Chinese history an army of over a million men has been maintained by the Empire, the Qin state remained unrivalled in its efficiency, and considering the population of the unified Chinese empire throughout history the size of the army, although impressive cannot really be seen as the result of a levée en masse, but merely feudal levying from an enormous population base.

Taiping Tianguo

However total war resumed in China in the mid-nineteenth century when Hong Xiuquan (1812-1864) created the Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Perfect Peace) in 1850. This separatist state was founded by Hong's cult of Christian fanatics, all of which received military training. In essence every citizen of the Taiping Tianguo was a soldier and even children received rudimentary martial training in preparation for future service in the Taiping armies. Women were treated no differently to men and the numbers of both genders in the ranks did not vary dramatically. Total war describes an international war in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another organized countrys or nations ability to engage in war. ... Hóng Xiùquán (洪秀全, Wade-Giles: Hung Hsiu-chüan, born Hong Renkun 洪仁坤, Courtesy name Huoxiu 火秀) (January 10, 1812-June 1, 1864), a Hakka Chinese Christian who led the Taiping Rebellion and established the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping, in which he was known as the King of Heaven (天王... 1812 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1864 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The Taiping Rebellion (1851 - 1864) was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, a clash between the forces of Imperial China and those inspired by a Hakka self-proclaimed mystic named Hong Xiuquan, who was also a Christian convert. ... 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

At its height in the early 1860s the Taiping army numbered a little under 2 million. Events and trends Italian unification under King Victor Emmanuel II. Wars for expansion and national unity continue until the incorporation of the Papal States (March 17, 1861 - September 20, 1870). ...

Pospolite Ruszenie

In Poland, the levying of gentry and peasantry together became known as pospolite ruszenie. Non-Polish historians often use the anachronistic French term levée en masse to denote the institution. This article or section should be merged with levée en masse Pospolite ruszenie (also referred to with the French term levée en masse), is an ancient Polish term to describe the mobilisation of armed forces, especially in the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. ...

Before the 13th century pospolite ruszenie was the customary method employed in the raising of royal Polish armies. Gradually, however, because of the perceived unreliability of untrained peasants, it became rare for large numbers of them to be mobilised. Instead, the levies included knights—who later transformed into nobles (szlachta)—along with wojts and soltys. Szlachta ( pronounced: [ʃlaxta]) was the noble class in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ( Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). ...

Pospolite in Commonwealth Poland

Pospolite ruszenie units were usually organised on voivodship basis and varied in quality. Szlachta from regions like Kresy, where combat was common, created farily competent units, while those from peaceful regions of the Commonwealth lacked battle experience and training and often were substandard compared to the wojsko kwarciane or mercenaries. A Voivodship ( Romanian: Voievodat, Polish: Województwo, Serbian: Vojvodstvo or Vojvodina) was a feudal state in medieval Romania, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Serbia (see Vojvodina), ruled by a Voivod. ... The name Kresy (Polish for borderlands) (or more correctly Kresy Wschodnie, Eastern Borderlands) is used by Poles to refer to the eastern part of Poland in the inter-war period. ... Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Wojsko kwarciane (quarter army) was the term used for regular army units of Poland (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). ... A mercenary is a soldier who fights, or engages in warfare primarily for money, usually with little regard for ideological, national or political considerations. ...

Szlachta usually created cavalry units, and their favoured weapon was szabla (a kind of saber). The privileges granted the nobility by succesive kings severly curtailed the royal perogative in calling for pospolite ruszenie, especially for actions outside the territory of Poland. An army unit consisting of mounted soldiers are commonly known as cavalry. ...

The Later Pospolite

Under the influence of revolutionary France and Enlightenment ideas about the role of the militia, the pospolite ruszenie of post-partition Poland was deemed to consist of all able males between 18 and 40 years of age. In 1806 by decree of Napoleon, the pospolite ruszenie in the Duchy of Warsaw served for a short period as the reserve force and recruitment pool for the regular army. During the November Uprising in 1831, the Sejm called for pospolite ruszenie from ages 17 to 50, but that plan was opposed by General Jan Zygmunt Skrzynecki. For the period in European history, The Age of Enlightenment For the corresponding movement in the European Jewish community, see Haskalah. ... Location Official languages Polish Established church Roman Catholic Capital Warsaw Largest City Warsaw Head of state Duke of Warsaw Area about 158,000 km² Population about 3 million Existed 1807 - 1814 The Duchy of Warsaw (Polish: Księstwo Warszawskie, Latin: Ducatus Varsoviae, French: Duche de Varsovie) was a Polish state established...

Between 1918 and 1939, in the Second Republic of Poland, the pospolite ruszenie was considered to consist of reserve soldiers from ages 40 to 50 and officers from ages 50 to 60. They had to participate in army exercises and serve in armed forces during times of war. World War I After World War I and the collapse of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Poland became an independent republic. ...

The Modern Levée

The French Revolutionary Wars

The modern levée en masse was born in the French Revolutionary Wars. Under the Ancien Regime there had been some conscription (by ballot) to a militia milice to supplement the large standing army in time of war. This had been unpopular with the peasant communities on which it fell, and one of their grievances which they expected to be addressed by the French_States-General when these were convened in 1789 to put the French monarchy on a sounder footing. When things turned out rather differently (see French Revolution), the milice was duly abolished by the National Assembly. The French Revolutionary Wars occurred between the outbreak of war between the French Revolutionary government and Austria in 1792 and the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. ... Ancien R gime means Old Regime or Old Order in French; in English, the term refers primarily to the social and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, and secondarily to any regime which shares the formers defining features: a feudal system under the control... In France under the ancien gime, the States-General or Estates-General (in French: tats-G raux), was an assembly of the different classes of French citizenry. ... The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ... The National Assembly is the name of either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. ...

As the Revolution progressed, external enemies appeared prepared to invade France to restore the status quo. They were resisted by a mixture of what remained of the old professional army and volunteers (it was these, not the levee en masse that won the battle of Valmy and saved the Revolution). By March 1793 France was at war with Austria, Prussia, Spain, Britain and the United Provinces: it was recognised that volunteering could no longer be relied upon, and the National Convention called upon each French departement to supply a quota of recruits (totalling about 300,000); with the means of selection unspecified. By some accounts, only about half this number appears to have been actually raised, bringing the army strength up to about 645,00 in mid-1793 and the military situation continued to worsen (not helped by internal difficulties such as the revolt in the Vendee which were in part triggered by this re-introduction of conscription). Valmy is a village and commune in the Sainte-Menehould arrondissement of the Marne département in France. ... The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: Preußen or Preussen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: Prūsai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and... This article is about the Dutch United Provinces. ... This article is about a legislative body and constitutional convention during the French Revolution. ... The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties and are now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas régions. ... Vendée is a département in west central France, on the Atlantics Bay of Biscay. ...

In response to this, a levee en masse was decreed by the National Convention on 23 August 1793 in ringing terms, beginning This article is about a legislative body and constitutional convention during the French Revolution. ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... 1793 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

"From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn linen into lint; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic"

All unmarried able-bodied men between 18 and 25 were requisitioned with immediate effect for military service. This significantly increased the number of men in the army, reaching a peak of about 1,200,000 in September 1794, although the actual fighting strength probably peaked at no more than 750,000. In addition, as the decree suggests, much of the civilian population was turned towards supporting the armies through armaments production and other war industries as well as supplying food and provisions to the front. For all the rhetoric, the levee en masse was not popular; desertion and evasion were high. But the effort was sufficient to turn the tide of the war, and there was no need for any further conscription until 1797, when a more systematic system of annual intake was instituted.

Though not a novel idea—cf. thinkers as diverse as Plato, above and the lawyer and linguist Sir William Jones (who thought every adult male should be armed with a musket at public expense)—the actual practice of a levée en masse was rare before the French Revolution. The French levée was a key development in modern warfare and would lead to steadily larger armies with each successive war - culminating in the enormous bloodbaths of World Wars One and Two during the first half of the Twentieth Century. But it was the Prussians in the wake of their defeat by Napoleon who made the crucial improvement of systematic short-term peace-time conscription to create large numbers of trained men who could be mobilised on the outbreak of war. Unfortunately, the advantage this gave to the first to mobilise did nothing to make war less likely. Statue of a philosopher, presumely Plato, in Delphi. ... Sir William Jones (September 28, 1746 - April 27, 1794) was a British philologist and student of ancient India, particularly known for his discovery of the Indo-European languages family. ... Missing image Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...

World Wars in the Twentieth Century

By the time of the First and Second World Wars armies of Great Powers were generally well in excess of a million men with some soaring beyond 10 million. Between 1941-45 a total of 29 million Soviets served in the Red Army. Of these 1.5 million were proffessional soldiers, 4 million were volunteers and the remainder were conscripted through the levée en masse. This was the largest army ever mobilized and revealed the full potential of the levée en masse, dwarfing even the armies of the First World War in size. Red Army flag The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya in Russian), the armed forces organised by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ...

The Modern Levée Since 1945

Since World War II instances of levée en masse have been scarce with more limited forms of conscription favoured for the smaller, geographically confined conflicts of the Cold War era. The Korean War and the Iran-Iraq War serve as instances of post-WWII instances of levée en masse. A cold war is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, acts of espionage or conflict through surrogates. ... The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁), from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... Iranian troops in the northern front. ...

In addition several nations today maintain sizeable reserve forces. The Russian Federation has 20 million trained reserves at the ready in the instance of an outbreak of hostilities with a major power. Austria can mobilize to around a million troops within 48 hours of the order being given in a time of war. Vietnam maintains 3.8 million reserves and both North and South Korea have over 4.5 million reserves. The separatist Chinese province of Taiwan keeps over a million reserves at the ready in case of invasion from the mainland. A number of other nations have large reserve forces in excess of a million (including the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, both of which have around 1.5 million reserves). North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK; Korean: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; Hangul: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Hanja: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國), is a country in eastern Asia, covering the northern half of the peninsula of Korea. ...