cards, dicing,
duelling and women were forbidden in most regular armies, but in time
of war the soldiers were allowed an incredible license in pillaging and
in foraging. Rings and other decorations were given as rewards of
valor. Uniforms began first to be introduced in England by Henry VIII.

[Sidenote: Personnel of the armies]

The personnel of the armies was extremely bad. Not counting the small
number of criminals who were allowed to expiate their misdeeds by
military service, the rank and file consisted of mercenaries who only
too rapidly became criminals under the tutelage of Mars. There were a
few conscripts, but no universal training such as Machiavelli
recommended. The officers were nobles or gentlemen who served for the
prestige and glory of the profession of arms, as well as for the good
pay.

[Sidenote: Size of armies compared]

But the most striking difference between armies then and now is not in
their armament nor in their quality but in the size. Great battles
were fought and whole campaigns decided with twenty or thirty thousand
troops. The French standing army was fixed by the ordinance of 1534 at
seven legions of six thousand men each, besides which were the
mercenaries, the whole amounting to a maximum, under Francis I, of
about 100,000 men. The English official figures about 1588 gave the
army 90,000 foot soldiers and 9000 horse, but these figures were
grossly exaggerated. In fact only 22,000 men were serviceable at the
crisis of England's war with Spain. Other armies were proportionately
small. The janizaries, whose intervention often decided battles,
numbered in 1520 only 12,000. They were perhaps the best troops in
Europe, as the Turkish artillery was the most powerful known. What all
these figures show, in short, is that the phenomenon of nations with
every man physically fit in {490} the army, engaging in a death grapple
until one goes down in complete exhaustion, is a modern development.

[Sidenote: Sea power]

The influence of sea power upon history has become proverbial, if,
indeed, it has not been overestimated since Admiral Mahan first wrote.
It may be pointed out that this influence is far from a constant
factor. Sea power had a considerable importance in the wars of Greece
and of Rome, but in the Middle Ages it became negligible. Only with
the opening of the seven seas to navigation was the command of the
waves found to secure the avenues to wealth and colonial exp