Conscription is the compulsory enrollment of people to some sort of public service. While the service may be of any sort associated with the public, the term typically refers to enlistment in a country's military A military is an organization authorized to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military. Militaries often function as societies within societies, by having their own.^[1] Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names. Used by the Royal Navy The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s. In World War II the Royal Navy operated almost between 1664 and 1814, it was called impressment Impressment, colloquially, "the Press", was the act of compelling men to serve in a navy by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to the time of Edward I of, or "the press".^[2] Most countries that maintain conscripts now refer to the practice as national service. In the United States, conscription ended in 1973 but remains alive in the national memory and is known colloquially as "the draft Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. The United States discontinued the draft in 1979, moving to an all-volunteer military force, thus there is no mandatory conscription".

Conscription has historically focused on young men but the range of eligible ages may be expanded to meet national demand. In the United States, for instance, the Selective Service System The Selective Service System is a means by which the United States maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 to 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of their 18th birthday. As of the end of 2008, the names and addresses of over 14 million men are drafted men for World War I initially in an age range from 21 to 30 but expanded its eligibility in 1918 to an age range of 18 to 45.^[3] In the case of a widespread mobilization Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Prussian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed since then. Notably, before World War I and World of forces where service includes homefront defense, ages of conscripts may range much higher, with the oldest conscripts serving in roles requiring lesser mobility. Expanded-age conscription was common during the Second World War: in the United Kingdom, it was commonly known as "call-up" and extended to Age 55, while Nazi Germany Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the government of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party , from 1933 to 1945. Third Reich (German: Drittes Reich) denotes the Nazi state as the historical successor to the mediæval Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) and to the modern German Empire (1 termed it Volkssturm The Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II. It was founded on Adolf Hitler's orders on October 18, 1944 and conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard ("People's Storm") and included men as young as 16 and as old as 60.^[4] The term of service is often initially set but includes the prospect of indefinite extension based on national requirements.

Conscription can be controversial, because conscripts may have religious, political or moral In some countries, conscientious objectors are assigned to an alternative civilian service as a substitute for conscription or military service. Some conscientious objectors consider themselves pacifist, non-resistant, or antimilitarist reasons for refusing to serve. When governments decide to ignore these objections, protests have occurred and conscripts have evaded their enlistment by emigrating.^[5] Some selection systems accommodate these situations by providing forms of service outside of typical combat-operations roles or even outside of the military (e.g. Zivildienst Zivildienst is the civilian branch of the national service systems in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is a means for conscripted persons who are conscientious objectors to fulfill their national service typically in the field of social works (e.g. hospitals, retirement homes, emergency medical services), and sometimes, although rare, in the in Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

As of the early twenty-first century, most nations[?] no longer conscript soldiers and sailors, relying instead upon professional militaries with volunteers A volunteer military or all-volunteer military is one which derives its manpower from volunteers rather than conscription or mandatory service. A country may offer attractive pay and benefits through military recruitment to attract volunteers. Many countries with volunteer militaries reserve the right to renew conscription in the event of an enlisted to meet extraordinary demand for troops. The ability to rely on such an arrangement, however, presupposes some degree of predictability with regards to both warfighting requirements and the scope of hostilities. Many nations that have abolished conscription therefore still reserve the power to resume it during wartime or times of crisis.^[6]

History

Ilkum

Around the reign of Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite ˤAmmurāpi, "the kinsman is a healer," from ˤAmmu, "paternal kinsman," and Rāpi, "healer"; ) was the sixth king of Babylon from 1792 BC to 1750 BC middle chronology (1728 BC – 1686 BC short chronology) He became the first king of the Babylonian Empire following the abdication of (1792-1750 BC), the Babylonian Empire Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (fl. ca. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. The Amorites being a Semitic people, Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, used a system of conscription called Ilkum. Under the system those eligible were required to serve in the royal army in time of war.^[7] During times of peace they were instead required to provide labour for other activities of the state.^[7] In return for this service, those subject to it gained the right to hold land.^[7] It is possible that this right was not to hold land per se but specific land supplied by the state.^[7]

Various forms of avoiding military service are recorded. While it was outlawed by the Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved ancient law code, created ca. 1790 BC (middle chronology) in ancient Babylon. It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, inscribed on a seven foot, four inch tall diorite stele in the Akkadian language in the cuneiform script, the hiring of substitutes appears to have been practiced both before and after the creation of the code.^[8] Later records show that Ilkum commitments could become regularly traded.^[8] In other places, people simply left their towns to avoid their Ilkum service.^[8] Another option was to sell Ilkum lands and the commitments along with them. With the exception of a few exempted classes, this was forbidden by the Code of Hammurabi.^[8]

Medieval levies

Under the feudal Feudalism is a political and military system between a feudal aristocracy , and his vassals. In its most classic sense, feudalism refers to the Medieval European political system composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. Although conditions for holding land in the medieval period, most peasants A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally owns or rents only a small plot of ground. The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district . The term peasant today is sometimes used in a pejorative sense for impoverished farmers and freemen were liable to provide one man of suitable age per family for military duty when required by either the king or the local lord. Those who refused became outlaws In the common law of England, a "Writ of Outlawry" made the pronouncement Caput gerat lupinum with respect to its subject, using "head" to refer to the entire person (cf. "per capita") and equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law: Not only was the subject deprived of all legal rights of the law being &. The levies Conscription is the compulsory enrollment of people to some sort of public service. While the service may be of any sort associated with the public, the term typically refers to enlistment in a country's military. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names. Used by the Royal Navy raised in this way fought as infantry under local superiors. This was essentially an early form of conscription. Although the exact laws varied greatly depending on the country and the period, generally these levies were only obliged to fight for one to three months. Most were subsistence farmers, and it was in everyone's interest to send the men home for harvest-time.

In medieval Scandinavia Scandinavia is a region in northern Europe that includes Denmark and the Scandinavian Peninsula's two nations, Norway and Sweden. Finland is sometimes considered a Scandinavian country in common English usage, and Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes also included. The term Nordic countries refers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden as well as the 'leiðangr' (Old Norse Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300), 'leidang' (Norwegian Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants (see Danish language)), 'leding', (Danish Danish (dansk, pronounced [d̥ænˀsɡ̊] ) is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany), 'ledung' (Swedish Swedish ( svenska ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along), 'expeditio' (Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native speakers, a small number of scholars can fluently speak it and it continues to be taught in schools and universities and has been, and currently is, used in the process of) or sometimes 'lething' (Old English), was a levy of free farmers conscripted into coastal fleets for seasonal excursions and in defence of the realm.

The bulk of the Anglo-Saxon English The history of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the fifth century until the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Anglo-Saxon is a general term that refers to tribes of German origin who came to Britain, including Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes army, called the fyrd The institution known as leiðangr , leidang (Norwegian), leding, (Danish), ledung (Swedish), expeditio (Latin) or sometimes lething (in English language), was a public levy of free farmers typical for medieval Scandinavians. It was a form of conscription to organise coastal fleets for seasonal excursions and in defence of the realm. In Anglo-, was composed of part-time English soldiers drawn from the landowning minor nobility. These thegns The term thegn , from OE þegn, ðegn "servant, attendant, retainer", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves. It is also the term for an early medieval Scandinavian class of were the land-holding aristocracy of the time and were required to serve with their own armour and weapons for a certain number of days each year. The historian David Sturdy has cautioned about regarding the fyrd as a precursor to a modern national army composed of all ranks of society, describing it as a "ridiculous fantasy":

The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription.^[9]

Military slavery

The system of military slaves Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave. In others it was a crime to kill a slave was widely used in the Middle East, beginning with the Egyptians training Mamluks A Mamluk (Arabic: مملوك , مماليك mamālīk (plural), "owned"; also transliterated mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke) was a soldier of slave origin who had converted to Islam. The "mamluk phenomenon," as David Ayalon has called it, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long- from the 9th century, to the Turks and Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire was a regime that lasted from 1299 to 1923 through the 19th century.

In the middle of the 14th century, Ottoman Sultan Murad I Murad I (Serbian: Мурат 1. / Murat I) (Turkish: I. Murat Hüdavendigâr) (March or June 29, 1326, Sogut or Bursa – June 15, 1389, Battle of Kosovo) (Ottoman Turkish: مراد اول) was the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan of Rûm, from 1362 to 1389. He was the son of Orhan I and the Valide Sultan Nilüfer Hatun (whose name means Water developed personal troops to be loyal to him, with a slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was built by kidnapping Christian children, especially from the far areas of his empire, in a system known as the devşirme Devşirme or devshirme was the practice by which the Ottoman Empire conscripted boys from Christian families, who were taken from their families by force, converted to Islam, trained and enrolled in one of the four imperial institutions: the Palace, the Scribes, the Religious and the Military (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"). The captive children were persuaded to convert to Islam Islam (Arabic: الإسلام‎ al-’islām, pronounced [ʔislæːm] [note 1]) is a strictly monotheistic religion articulated by the Qur’an, a text considered by its adherents to be the verbatim word of God (Arabic: الله‎, Allāh), and by the Prophet of Islam Muhammad's teachings and normative example (which is called the Sunnah in. The Sultans had the young boys trained over several years. Those who showed special promise in fighting skills were trained in advanced warrior skills, put into the sultan's personal service, and turned into the Janissaries The Janissaries comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards. The force was created by the Sultan Murad I from Christian male children levied through the devşirme system from conquered countries in the 14th century and was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 with the Auspicious Incident, the elite branch of the Kapıkulu. Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and upper-level officials of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha Pargalı İbrahim Pasha — also called Frenk İbrahim Pasha — an Albanian was the first Grand Vizier appointed by Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire (r. 1520 to 1566). In 1523, he replaced Piri Mehmed Pasha, who had been appointed in 1518 by Süleyman I's father, the preceding sultan Selim I, and remained in office for 13 years. He and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way.^[10] By 1609 the Sultan's Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000.^[11] As European Christian states increased in military power, they were able to stem and eventually repel most of the Islamic riazzas (invasions) into the European heartland.

The Sultan began turning to the Barbary Pirates The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were an alliance of Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa from the time of the Crusades until the early 19th century. Based in North African ports such as Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Salé, and other ports in Morocco, they sailed mainly along the. Their attacks on ships off the coast of Africa or in the Mediterranean, and capture of people for ransom or sale provided some captives for the Sultan's system. Eventually the Sultan turned to foreign volunteers from the warrior clans of Circassians Circassians are a North Caucasian nation and an ethnic group who belong to one of the oldest indigenous peoples of the Caucasus and are among the original inhabitants of the Caucasus. They dwelled and inhabited the whole Northwestern region of the Caucasus and were once among the majority living in the Caucasus before the Russian conquest of the in southern Russia to fill his Janissary armies. As a whole the system began to break down. The loyalty of the Jannissaries became increasingly suspect. Mahmud II Mahmud II (20 July 1785 – 1 July 1839) was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born at Topkapi Palace, Constantinople, the son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I. His reign is notable mostly for the extensive legal and military reforms he instituted. His mother was Valide Sultan Naksh-i-Dil Haseki Sultan (there forcibly disbanded the Janissary corps in 1826.^[12][13]

Similar to the Janissaries in origin and means of development were the Mamluks of Egypt in the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in. The Mamluks A Mamluk (Arabic: مملوك , مماليك mamālīk (plural), "owned"; also transliterated mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke) was a soldier of slave origin who had converted to Islam. The "mamluk phenomenon," as David Ayalon has called it, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long- were usually captive non-Muslim Iranian and Turkish children who had been kidnapped or bought as slaves from the Barbary coasts. The Egyptians assimilated and trained the boys and young men to become Islamic soldiers who served the Muslim caliphs The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word خليفة Khalīfah (help·info) which means "successor" or "representative". The early leaders of the Muslim nation following Muhammad's ( and the Ayyubid The Ayyubids were a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, centered in Cairo and Damascus that ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries CE. The Ayyubid family, under the brothers Ayyub and Shirkuh, originally served as soldiers for the Zengids until they gradually gained independence from them under Saladin, Ayyub's son sultans during the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in. The first mamluks served the Abbasid The Abbasid caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus caliphs in 9th century Baghdad Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated between 7 and 7.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt). Over time they became a powerful military caste A caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike. On more than one occasion, they seized power, for example, ruling Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula from 1250–1517.

From 1250 Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula had been ruled by the Bahri dynasty The Bahri dynasty or Bahriyya Mamluks was a Mamluk dynasty of mostly Kipchak Turkic origin that ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1382 when they were succeeded by the Burji dynasty, another group of Mamluks. Their name means 'of the sea', referring to the location of their original residence on Al-Rodah Island in the Nile (Bahr al-Nil) in Cairo at the of Kipchak Kipchaks (Turkic: Kypchak, Kıpçak) were an ancient Turkic people who, it is thought, originally formed part of the group of Kimäks in Siberia along the middle reaches of Irtysh or along the Ob. Around the middle of the 11th century, they split off from the bulk of the Kimaks and departed in the direction of Europe, where they formed a origin. Slaves from the Caucasus served in the army and formed an elite corp of troops. They eventually revolted in Egypt to form the Burgi dynasty. The Mamluks' excellent fighting abilities, massed Islamic armies, and overwhelming numbers succeeded in overcoming the Christian Crusader fortresses in the Holy Land. The Mamluks were the most successful defense against the Mongol Ilkhanate of Persia and Iraq from entering Egypt.^[14]

On the western coast of Africa, Berber Muslims captured non-Muslims to put to work as laborers. They generally converted the younger people to Islam and many became quite assimilated. In Morocco, the Berber looked south rather than north. The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail, called "the Bloodthirsty" (1672–1727), employed a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard. He used them to coerce the country into submission.^[15]

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