The French Armed Forces are the military forces of France. The armed forces consists of four military branches: the Army, Navy, Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander-in-chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth-most powerful military.
The Royal Moroccan Armed Forces are the military forces of the Kingdom of Morocco. They consist of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Royal Gendarmerie, and the Royal Guard.
A militia is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional and/or part-time soldiers; citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel; or, historically, to members of a warrior-nobility class. When acting independently militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces; militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. Local civilian laws often limit militias to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns. Militias may also, however, serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from, particularly in emergencies.
The British Armed Forces are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid.
Foreign Legion most often refers to:
The Home Guard was an armed citizen militia supporting the British Army during the Second World War. Operational from 1940 to 1944, the Home Guard had 1.5 million local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, such as those who were too young or too old to join the regular armed services and those in reserved occupations. Excluding those already in the armed services, the civilian police or civil defence, approximately one in five men were volunteers. Their role was to act as a secondary defence force in case of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany.
The Royal Canadian Legion is a non-profit Canadian veterans' organization founded in 1925. Members includes people who served in the military, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, provincial or municipal police, Royal Canadian Air, Army and Sea Cadets and direct relatives.
The Roman army was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom to the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and its medieval continuation, the Eastern Roman Empire. It is thus a term that may span approximately 2,205 years, during which the Roman armed forces underwent numerous permutations in size, composition, organisation, equipment and tactics, while conserving a core of lasting traditions.
Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the regular army organization. Without standard military unit organization, various more general names are often used; such organizations may be called a troop, group, unit, column, band, or force. Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations, or are members of special military units that employ irregular military tactics. This also applies to irregular infantry and irregular cavalry units.
Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, usually on a part-time basis. Unlike a military reserve force, an auxiliary force does not necessarily have the same degree of training or ranking structure as regular soldiers, and it may or may not be integrated into a fighting force. Some auxiliaries, however, are militias composed of former active duty military personnel and actually have better training and combat experience than their regular counterparts.
The Portuguese Army is the land component of the Armed Forces of Portugal and is also its largest branch. It is charged with the defence of Portugal, in co-operation with other branches of the Armed Forces. With its origins going back to the 12th century, it can be considered one of the oldest active armies in the world.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the British Crown Colony of Ceylon, the government of Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka assured the British King and his government of its continued support.
The Cape Colonial Forces (CCF) were the official defence organisation of the Cape Colony in South Africa. Established in 1855, they were taken over by the Union of South Africa in 1910, and disbanded when the Union Defence Forces were formed in 1912.
The red beret is a military beret worn by many military police, paramilitary, commando, and police forces and should not be confused with the maroon beret worn by airborne troops all around the world.
The British Auxiliary Legion, also called the British Legion or Westminster Legion, existed from 1835 to 1837. It was a British military force sent to Spain to support the Liberals and Queen Isabella II of Spain against the Carlists in the First Carlist War.
The British Colonial Auxiliary Forces were the various military forces of Britain's colonial empire which were not considered part of the British military proper.
The Papal Zouaves were an infantry battalion, later regiment, dedicated to defending the Papal States. Named after the French zouave regiments, the Zuavi Pontifici were mainly young men, unmarried and Catholic, who volunteered to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle against the Italian unificationist Risorgimento.
