Talk:Standing army

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What about historically outside Europe? 213.186.252.209 14:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ottoman Empire

It's a matter of dispute whether the Ottoman Empire was part of Europe or Asia, even the part of it that was geographically part of Europe. It says there should be a citation as to whether or it was Charles VII who first established standing armies in Western Europe, and I will not argue with that. The truth is, from around his time up until the Treaty of Westphalia most armies were sort of like private armies, half soldiers and, unless they were led by a strong ruler, half marauding bandits. The Ottomans had standing armies in the sense that we think of conscripted state armies (more like impressed in their case), and the French may well have been ahead of their time, but they didn't become commonplace in what we usually think of as Europe until after the the Treaty of Westphalia. Shield2 04:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

"The establishment of a standing army by King James II in 1685 in Britain and later the control of the British Army over the British Colonies in America was controversial, leading to distrust of peacetime armies too much under the power of the head of state, versus civilian control of the military, resulting tyranny."

This sentence needs attention.