ENGLAND AND WALES 5 HASTINGS 7 QUEBEC 111 SPANISH PENINSULA 173 SALAMANCA 198 BELGIUM AND WATERLOO 208 CRIMEA 250 INDIA 266 ARMS MUSKETS, ETC. 125 FIELD ARTILLERY 38 SPEARS AND SWORDS 231 THE STORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY CHAPTER I THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE--TO 1100 All nations have passed, more or less, through the same stages in the up-growth of that military system which is as essential to the political security of the mass as the formation of a police force is necessary for the protection of the individual in civil life. From the outset, the history of human existence has been one of combat. First, in the earliest of primeval days, archaic man had to contend with mammoth, cave bear, and all the host of extinct mammals primarily for food, and then for safety when the need for clearing them away became more and more apparent as population increased. With this increase in numbers grew also the instinctive hostility between man and man. The desire for conquest is one of his strongest attributes. The stronger has always tried to make the weaker subservient; and as time went on, that desire was accentuated by the wish to possess the women or slaves--the terms were then synonymous--of the weaker family. It was no mere poetic statement, therefore, that the head of a patriarchal household felt safe with a body of stalwart sons, and was not afraid “to speak with his enemy in the gate.” That old-world text tells volumes, behind which lie sinister pages and details of family feud and rapine. But families segregated together and became tribes; these in their turn formed clans under a general head, and this led to the further development of inter-tribal and clannish contest, of which the greater wars of the present time are the natural outcome.