The various stages of conscription in Napoleonic France, raise an army of one million men. This was also unprecedented. Now, because France, in responding to threats in the, last part of the 18th century has to raise his army. It is incredible successful beginning in the 1790s. Then the rest of Europe has to meet now this threat. And France's enemies had to respond in kind. We certainly see that the fear of a French invasion, transformed what we can now begin to call the British military and the state. That is, the fear of this other. The fear of the Frog, if you will. Crossing the channel, and imposing its authority on the population served as a way, as, of cohering that population. If the army was going to grow to counter the threat. The administrative systems have to be established to count, to select, to coerce, to arm and transport the men. That is, again as we saw in the previous lectures, you see this growth of bureaucracies, you see this growth of organizational complexity,. As a need to be able to produce a military that can be successful in battle. Perhaps more importantly the Napoleonic scare, if you will, transformed the English, the Welch, the Irish, and Scotts who served by giving them a new sense of common identity with their fellow British soldiers. Now this does not mean that these local identities disappeared, that the sub-national identities, or national identity depending on your proclivity. That they disappeared simply that the stage was created in which a supra identity of Britain was able to be created, was able to be defended. By showing in a sense, by showing these, these men the larger islands which existed past the boundaries of their shires, it granted them a new status, within that society. We begin to see some celebration of the common soldier. And inculcating them with the sense of loyalty to this grater hall. Again, war and the response to it made it possible, again using violent terms, the scum of the earth, to make them into bricks, to make them into something that could be honored, and something that could be celebrated. In Europe and North America the mass army also meant the creation of engation. Where non had arguably existed before. That is that the army serves as a fulcrum, the army serves as, a focal point by as which this national identity, who are we? We are those that serve in this common military. We are those who share this uniform. We are those who share this legacy with our past, which defines us as Americans, or as French, or as Britains, or whatever. Articulation of this nation. There are, the military as representation of the nation is the most important aspect of the massification of war. That is that conscription encouraged a different attitude towards the state, one based on collective identity and a shared citizenship. Again, let's not forget. The state can be seen as coercive. The state can be opposed. Nevertheless the whole basis, the assumptions of the relationship between citizen-soldier and state, have been transformed to one of this kind of mutual obligation. War and the military experience help break down provincial allegiances and networks, and replace these with ones more centered in a national community. So that is, [COUGH], rather than only knowing those in your village or those in your district. Now, you came to know through the various movement of military, through the various transfers, you came to know a larger part of the country. You came to associate them as similar to you, wearing the same uniform, fighting in the same cause. France is a critical example of this. And in the 19th century, the military played a very important role. Instarandizing language and symbolic repretuars words. That is not just showing the soldiers that they have something in common with other parts of member, of other parts of french communities. But the very creation of what it meant to be french, the very creation of the french language instandarization of the french language was insisted by this process of massive transcription. Now the 50 years following Waterloo, saw the resolution of several technical problems that had to be solved in order for the mass army to function properly. So, we now have a need for this mass army, we have an administrative context, and an ideological context in which that mass army. Can exist, but there are technical issues in a sense that have to be resolved. The first one is the administrative challenge of moving and using so many men. Again the size of the armies increases so much that they kind of organizational practices and bureaucratic, protocols that you need. In order to be do this smoothly, become ever more, complicated. There's probably, the great solution for this came from the Prussian general staffed by the early 1860's. Allowing this administrative group, the German general staff, to, control a new kind of armed force, a much larger kind of armed force, a different behaving armed force that could be used productively. Moreover, developments in the weapons used by common soldiers. That is rifling, breech loading, made it much more possible for people who had never seen a firearm, people who had not been exposed to firearms to gain some minimal training. So, not only do we have advances in the technology of organizing this army as a whole, but rather, we have a microtechnology that makes it much easier to turn a common citizen. Into in somewhat productive soldier. Now, let's not forget that things don't change completely. There was concern with the disciplinary of the new armies. Theorist contempt that those were short terms of service on a war, mass description could not be depended on the battle. And we've seen this for example protest in the American civil war. Where you, that idea that you can count on these soldiers even though they're not professionals, even though they're not totally coerced, is questionable. There was an issue that if the military order, strict discipline of a conscript army was not the same as its professional equivalent. Then, you know it would not work. However, there were those who would argue the sheer numbers and the youthful enthusiasm of these conscript armies would actually play out. And we see, again, this debate, about the usefulness of a conscript mass army as opposed to a formal army. The final obstacle for the creation of a nation at arms. Met a more complex and demanding administrative state apparatus to manage and fuel the new force. Not only do you need a new kind of general staff that can can actually tactically and strategically use these numbers, but you need a much larger apparatuses we have seen before. To actually produce this new kind of armies. This meant, as we talked again before, the states had little choice but to increase administrative efficiency. Without the new administrative efficiency, they could not produce the tools of their own survival. The American Civil War gives us some indication of what was to come. It involved massive amounts of men, very significant percentages of the relevant population of the south, and a little bit less of the north, and many of these new administrative and technological innovations. What we see of many things that we see in the American Civil War is the coming together of these new administrative practices, these new identities and these new technical means. The Franco-Prussian War pitted a professional force against a conscript army. And this altered the balance in favor of mass armies. That is that the Prussian ability or the German ability to use this constrict army use this mass army. Against a much more professionalized French force and to use it successfully in a sense is the ultimate trial by combat if you will. That finally these concert armies can show to be successful. After 1870 military powers could no longer ignore this new means of war. Even outside of Europe. Here is in a sense a market revolution. The market of violence. The market of interstate war. A new innovation has came in that could not be ignored. The spite, the harshness of the army. Conscription again as it was doing this it also helped create this greater sense of national identity and we see this outside of Europe. For example, certainly in the last 19th century among the Egyptian Fellahin, the Egyptian military. Serves in a sense as the birthplace of a new sense of Egyptian identity. The army plays a critical role in the development of Japanese nationalism following the Meiji revolution. It is the one institution in a sense that serves to create this new Japanese identity all along the central state. More recently, participation in the Israeli army is an experience which has served to crystallize young Israelis notion of their own national identity,. And there participation in the state and we can think of many many other examples whether it is in the 19th century in Western Europe or North America or the 20th century and other parts of the world where the sense of national service helps build a sense of nation. Mass conscription resulted in a series of parallel and complimenting processes, that help define their relationship between people and their state. I want to argue that conscription and citizenship could be seen as two sides of the same coin. That along with the compulsory education and the right to vote. Conscription was seen as one of the pillars of the democratic state. Thus, it was an obligation, but it also served to cement that sense of citizenship and that sense of participation. Again, limited to the few, most obviously men. which of course helps explain in a sense the power of that male monopoly. Over the vote and the power of the male monopoly over violence. These two in a sense can be seen as wedded. Moreover, on the one hand, the state came to demand more from the population than passive obedience. That is the state comes to expect more from a population. That simply quiet. It expects some kind of participation. The population on the other hand, comes to see themselves in the state and to demand more from it as a recompense for their ultimate sacrifice. So, we have this bargaining in a sense. What we have here is what Max Weber called a political exchange. Here I am quoting from him. Considered in purely mechanistic terms, the state needed unobstructed access to the citizen. In turn, to gain the citizen's willingness to work and to fight for the state, the individual had to be offered political power. Or, if that was impossible, new psychological inducements and social opportunities to enable him to reach his full potential. That is citizenship, nationalism, democracy, are all linked, in a sense, in this political exchange. An exchange for the right, or the duty, to participate in war. Citizens were rewarded with a greater rights and more welfare services. The vote and military services were corollaries. What Willie McNeil says, that military service is the ball and chain attached to political and social privilege. That military discipline met the triumph of democracy because the community wished, and was compelled to secure the cooperation of the non-aristocratic masses, and hence put arms, and along with arms, political power, into their hands. What we have here is a transfer of control over the means of violence from a privileged warrior elite. From a privileged nobility, from an autocratic state, to the very members of that state, to the very members of that society. And what we're talking about here is democracy in all it's terms. The three aspects of democracy, as described by T.H. Marshall. Civic rights, electoral rights, Social rights, the rights of the individual, the rights to participate in political decision-making, the rights for some welfare benefits, all these are linked to participation in wars. And now the two world wars are the culmination of this, and they created this pattern of universal service. There were some prominent exceptions. For example the United States and the United Kingdom at different periods in the 20th century, but this notion of universal service, this notion of political exchange. Defined in a sense a large part of the 20th century well into the 1970's. And we're going to talk a little bit more about what the consequences of that political exchange were.
