Militia (Lat. miles, 'a soldier') is the name sometimes given to the troops of the second line of a national army. Thus, an Italian or Russian soldier, after serving in the active army and its reserve, passes into the militia available as garrison troops or to form a field army. The corresponding troops in Germany and Austria are called landwehr and landsturm, and in France the territorial army.
Though at first intended for home defence only, those troops are freely used to reinforce the regular army if the exigencies of the campaign require it. In several respects the militia of Great Britain differs from that of other European nations. It can only be sent out of the country if it volunteers and with the consent of parliament, and with a few individual exceptions the men composing it have never served in the regular army.
It is a constitutional force raised under the sanction of parliament for the defence of the country against invasion. Organised by counties and cities, it is essentially a local force. Under the Anglo-Saxons all men were required to bear arms as a sort of body-rent for the land they held, but there was no special organisation until Alfred's reign. That great king organised the militia or fyrd, making land the basis of numbers, but the family system that of discipline: so many families were a tything, ten tythings a hundred, and hundreds were united into county powers, each under its heretoga, dux, or duke. Each section of the community had not only to furnish its quota in time of war, but also to provide arms, keep them in repair, and train its men for so many days every year. This arrangement subsisted in more or less vigour until the Conquest; then the feudal troops rendered the militia unnecessary; but it never ceased wholly to exist, and when the crown began to contend with the Norman barons it naturally found its most powerful instrument in the Saxon militia. Henry II. established 'an assize of arms,' at which every holder of land was bound to produce one or more men fully equipped, and capable of fighting in the national defence. This annual assembly of the fyrd or militia is first recorded after the Conquest in 1181. Further alterations to suit the advances in the art of war took place in 1558. In 1604 James I. abolished the fyrd, and substituted 'Trained (commonly called Train) Bands,' to the number of 160,000 men—a force partaking of the nature of both the militia and volunteers, but deficient in discipline and drill. During the Civil War the train bands for the most part sided with the Parliament. Up to that time the command had never by any law been definitely assigned to the crown, but after the Restoration the loyal parliament of Charles II. declared 'the sole supreme government, command, and disposition of the militia to be the undoubted right of his majesty and his royal predecessors.' As, however, the crown from this time began to depend for its support upon a mercenary army, the militia was much neglected until 1757, when, a large portion of the regular army being absent in the Seven Years' War, it was carefully organised for the defence of the kingdom. Several militia acts have been subsequently passed. In 1871 the control of the militia was transferred to the War Office from the lords-lieutenant, who may, however, still recommend gentlemen for commissions. Various laws for the consolidation of the national defences by bringing the army, militia, and other military forces into closer connection were completed in 1876, and the United Kingdom was divided into 69 infantry regimental districts. To each belongs a territorial regiment, consisting generally of two line battalions, and two to nine militia battalions, besides the regimental depot, volunteer battalions, and the men in the Army Reserve and Militia Reserve. The latter are militiamen who by taking a double bounty (£2) at the end of each training render themselves liable in time of emergency to be drafted into the regular army. The Militia Reserve numbers about 30,000.
The number of militiamen to be provided by each territorial district—known as its 'quota'—is fixed by government in proportion to the number of battalions in each such district. These numbers are raised by voluntary recruitment, serve six years, and may re-enlist for six more; but should volunteering fail, a levy by ballot would be made upon all the inhabitants of the locality between the ages of eighteen and thirty to serve five years. The power of making this ballot always exists, and would have by law to be enforced, but for the annual Militia Ballot Suspension Act. Many classes are exempt from the ballot, as peers, soldiers, volunteers, yeomanry, resident members of universities, clergymen, parish schoolmasters, articulated clerks, apprentices, seafaring men, crown employees, free watermen of the Thames; in England any poor man with more than one child born in wedlock; in Scotland any man with more than two lawful children and not possessed of property to the value of £50; in Ireland any poor man not worth £10, or who does not pay £5 per annum for rent, and has more than three lawful children under the age of fourteen.
Large barracks have been built at the headquarters of regimental districts where there were none previously, so that militia when training need no longer be billeted. Camps are constantly formed for their occupation. The officers are often employed with regular troops, both infantry and artillery. Militia recruits are if possible trained at the headquarters of the regimental district, and everything possible done to increase the efficiency of the force and assimilate it to the regular army. Young officers, after serving two trainings in the militia and passing an examination in tactics, fortification, military topography, and law, as well as a literary examination similar to that for cadetships at the Royal Military College (see MILITARY SCHOOLS), are given commissions in the line and cavalry, or, if they pass the entrance examination for the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, in the artillery. Finally, in 1890 it was decided that the militia should no longer be styled part of the 'auxiliary' forces of the empire.
The militia assembles annually for not more than fifty-six days' training (recruits for not more than six months'), and the government can embody the whole or part of the force at any national crisis. In November 1813 a brigade of three militia battalions was formed, and embarked for France in March 1814, serving in the Marquis of Dalhousie's division till the peace. By 1815 the militia had been embodied for nearly twenty years; again, during the Russian war of 1854–56 several battalions served in garrison at Gibraltar and Malta; and many were embodied during the Indian Mutiny, 1857–59. The quota of the United Kingdom (including the Channel Islands) is 143,459 men, of which number 121,000 may be considered as effective, costing the country about 1½ millions.
A militiaman receives a bounty of £1 (£1 10s. if re-enlisted) after each training. When out for training or embodied, the officers and men receive the same pay as regular troops of corresponding arms of the service, and are then all under the Army Act of 1881. The officers rank with, but junior to, those of the regular army, and are at all times subject to military law. The only distinction in uniform is the letter M on the shoulder-strap.
The celebrated Local Militia is the old general levy; it was instituted in 1808, and suspended but not abolished in 1816. It consisted of a force for each county six times as numerous as the regular militia quota. The men were drawn by ballot from those between the ages of eighteen and thirty, served four years, and were not paid bounties or allowed to find substitutes. The counties were liable to a fine of £15 for every man short of the quota. These troops could only be marched beyond their respective counties in the event of actual invasion, but were liable to be called out in case of rebellion. Their numbers reached in 1811 to 213,000 men.
The militia of Scotland was not organised until 1797, though before that year corps of fencibles had been embodied. It was to be raised by ballot among men between the ages of nineteen and thirty. In 1802 it was brought under the same rules as the English militia. The Irish militia dates from 1715, when all Protestants from sixteen to sixty were bound to serve or find substitutes. Several subsequent acts of parliament altered the conditions of service, introduced the ballot, &c., and finally in 1809 it was organised in a similar manner to the English force. Besides the infantry and artillery militia there are in England four companies of engineer militia, fortress troops, in Monmouthshire, and three in Anglesey; also six divisions of submarine miners (dating from about 1884) at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, Harwich, Milford Haven, and the Severn mouth.
The Channel Islands Militia, dating from 1201, consists of four corps of garrison artillery and six battalions of infantry (in all about 4000 men), and is recruited by conscription. All youths between the ages of sixteen and eighteen are liable to drill preparatory to being enrolled in the ranks of a regiment. Each man has to serve ten complete trainings, and then passes into the reserve, in which he remains up to the age of sixty years. A sum of £6570 is voted by parliament in aid of this force.
In Canada there are artillery and infantry militia for home defence, and similar troops in all important British colonies. The Royal Malta Fencible Artillery is declared by the Army Act of 1881 to be part of the regular army, though not liable to serve out of Malta except with their own consent. For the militia of the United States, see ARMY, Vol. I. p. 437, and UNITED STATES; see also LANDWEHR, and the articles on the several countries.