Are "citizen soldiers" better fighters than professionals?

[econ21]

One thing surprised me from reading Band of Brothers was how the author, Stephen Ambrose, emphasises that the men who joined after Pearl Harbour ended up so much better fighters than the pre-war army men. This got me wondering about the relative fighting ability of "citizen soldiers" - where a big cross-section of society joins an army to fight in a patriotic war - compared to "professionals", the people who would have joined the army in peacetime as a career. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

One factor is obviously training - especially important in a modern high tech war. For example, the professional 1914 BEF was highly rated compared to the citizen soldier Pals battalions of 1916 in part because it was better trained. But let's take that out of consideration. Citizen soldiers can in theory receive enough of training. Ambrose was talking about paratroops, so these ended up being highly trained men in both cases. And indeed the professionals had less of an edge than usual in that case because IIRC airborne training was a WW2 innovation for the US.

Another factor is experience. But again, let's put that to oneside. A citizen army could fight a lot of battles and get experience; professionals could never have fought in a war. Plus it seems from WW2 that battlefield experience can eventually become a bad thing. After a point, the stress of battle may lead veterans to keep their heads down - this was said in 1944-45 of the British veterans of the earlier desert campaigns.

Morale is another factor. If a volunteer, the citizen soldier may have more of an "ideological" fervour - the country in danger and all that - compared to a professional who might just be in the army for a living. If a conscript, then the advantage is presumably with the professional who at least chose to fight. Against this, a professional may have built up a certain professional pride, been more indoctrinated into a martial ethos and have more of an attachment to the regiment etc. In general, I would not regard differences in morale as being particularly telling either way.

What Ambrose was really talking about was the "quality" of the men. A lot of this was just physical - the airborne were selected as the most athletic. Men who were best in school for games might not choose the army as a profession, but would get into the airborne when war broke out. But if we were talking about citizen soldiers in general - rather than just those in an elite unit - I suspect the balance would shift the other way. You would expect professional fighters to be of above average physical ability compared to other men of fighting age. This may depend partly on the society - if only the poor and undernourished signed up (Wellington's "scum of the earth"), it may be less clear. Differences in intellectual and some other relevant abilities may go the other way. (No offence to any military men here.) Clearly how well paid the Army is will be important here. I'm not sure how important these non-physical abilities are, but in a modern conflict - where soldiers have lots of initiative and brawn is less central - they may well be crucial.

I guess my conclusion is that citizen soldiers may well end up as proficient as regulars, given equal training and experience. In the pre-gunpowder wars, I might expect the physical abilities of professionals to give them a slight edge. In a modern war, other abilities might favour the citizen soldiers but the demands of training may be such that they are unlikely to be brought up to speed quickly enough for them to shine.

Any opinions?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think the concept of the superiority of the citizen soldier has always rested on the issue of motivation. In its ideal form, the dedicated "citizen," fully informed of the danger to his polity would leap to the service of his nation in time of war -- thus being a fully informed and dedicated volunteer with all of the morale advantages inherent to that status. This citizen, who would serve at need but not on a permanent basis would then leave the military when the crisis had passed, thus obviating the danger to the polity that a large standing army might pose.

How well this has worked in practice vice theory is, of course, debatable.

[Keba]

From a historical perspective, citizen soldiers were quite succesful. During the French Revolution the entire army of the Republic was at that time composed of volunteers (well, mostly, but citizens definitely).

They fought against professional armies of Prussia, Austria, Netherlands and England. And yet, in 1794. French troops crossed into Belgium, despite fighting enemy forces with superior training. The same goes for the US Revolution (except that the rebels had more troops, and later, reinforcements from European countries).

The research project American Soldier (I forget the year, late 20th century though, 1979 or something close) showed that highly educated and more intelligent individuals were, in fact, better soldiers (this was done to refute the miconception that less educated people made better soldiers). The fact is, most of these people would only join in the event that their country was in danger, since their usual jobs would be more rewarding than a peace-time military.

[Kagemusha]

I think those points in Simon Appletons(gah,what was the new name again? )post mentioned are the basic points behind The conscripted armies. I can only talk about Finland but our country has small population and pretty big land area so defending it has always been the duty of its Citizens.The cost of Professional army would be tremendous compared to well armed army of conscripts that get rehearsial training in the weapon systems they use when new equipment are available Also in Conscription many talented people that never would never choose military career.Will get military training.One point has been the Reservist officers.In WWII infact it was spotted that the reservist officers whom many of them worked as leaders in private business or in Civilian government,grow out in many cases to be better leaders then the professonial Officers.Also the training of whole generation to defend their country.Creates a good spirit inside the Nation and makes easyer to co-operate in crisis situation. But the key in my opinion for succesfull conscripted army is the spirit and dedication of the citizens. If they are dtermined or not will decide in time of War,are they succesfull or not.My humble opinion is that for little countries that has Army for sole purpose of self defence the Conscription is the best and cheapest way to deal with the issue.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

They could be if deffending their homeland, while the professionals could be mercenaries, not caring what happend...

Maybe?

[Papewaio]

On a purely numbers game if 10% of the forces are professionals and 90% citizens then you would expect that if you then filtered that set into an elite unit it would be dominated by citizens. The question might be are they more dominate in the elite units then they are in the entire army?

=][=

My take is that citizen soldiers do better. The Australian Army in WWII did very well as did their citizen generals.

Again it is a numbers game. When the vast majority of the army is composed on citizens it makes sense that the majority of any section will be citizens.

But joining the Army when it is at war would mean that those soldiers know they are joining to go to war. They are not joining for a job or to get through college.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Citizens can win if:
* it's a military historical period where tactics are simple and they're equipped with the same weapons as regulars
* a period where tactics are evolving rapidly and pros who have been taught that only one thing is correct are stuck in old thought-patterns
* it's a period where weapons are simple and inexpensive so all can arm themselves easily
* numbers and determination is huge (often when determination is huge numbers are huge and vice versa...)

Citizens probably lose if:
* training is important
* tactics not evolving during the war or at the start of it
* there's no reason why the citizens would want to fight the war
* it's a period where militias can't arm themselves effectively because good weapons are expensive

[edyzmedieval]

Citizens can win if:
* it's a military historical period where tactics are simple and they're equipped with the same weapons as regulars
* a period where tactics are evolving rapidly and pros who have been taught that only one thing is correct are stuck in old thought-patterns
* it's a period where weapons are simple and inexpensive so all can arm themselves easily
* numbers and determination is huge (often when determination is huge numbers are huge and vice versa...)

Citizens probably lose if:
* training is important
* tactics not evolving during the war or at the start of it
* there's no reason why the citizens would want to fight the war
* it's a period where militias can't arm themselves effectively because good weapons are expensive

Legio is right.

Sometimes, professionals and mercenaries are much better than citizens. Citizens are often afraid of fighting. Take example the citizens of Carthage or the citizens of the Byzantine Empire.

[Kagemusha]

Like i sayed before it depends on the citizens.About the Weapon systems.In Modern weapons one very important factor is how easy the system is to use and the development goes all the time towards more easy systems. If some citizen cant use the basic infantry weapons right, then he shouldnt be allowed to be part of any kind of Army or then his instructors dont know what they are teaching.

[The Wizard]

One thing: Wellington was wrong. Case in point? The Marian Roman army.

One can make several distinctions in this sense: professionals, conscripts and 'obligated' soldiers. What are the latter? Citizens who were obligated by their society to go into war if the motherland was at stake. They're pretty rare throughout history, and in modern Western society are no longer able to exist, but they did make an appearance a couple of times in military history: most notably in the Greek city-states (this includes Sparta) and Rome (perhaps Israel could also be included, but that one's sketchy). Along these lines you can single out a few examples:

And once again: citizens can be very effective, as history has pointed out in several key examples. It all depends on the ethos amongst the citizens, be they volunteers or conscripts. Forces like the Spartan army (obligated), just about every polis' army (obligated) the pre-Marian Roman army (obligated), the armies of the Muslim conquest (volunteered/obligated), the revolutionary French army (conscripted/volunteered), and the Haganah (volunteered/obligated) were very potent forces and went very far. And in these cases the difference between conscript and volunteer doesn't really hold true, since the conscripted Roman army was a powerhouse -- as were the Muslim volunteers.

I think it depends a lot on morale, state-of-mind (disciplined or not), the esprit de corps and, not to forget: the commanders. As Alexander the Great pointedly noted: equipment really isn't all that important.

[Kraxis]

Actually many of the smaller western nations still have, or have only recently abandoned the 'obligation'.

We have conscription as well as professionals. The conscription is fairly short and mostly meant to make a soldier out of the man, who then returns to society, but can in case of war be armed and fairly effective pretty fast (he knows the weapon and how to handle it properly as well as some basic tactics and is assumable a pretty good shot).