HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A commissariat is a department or organization commanded by a
commissary A commissary is a government official charged with oversight or an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop. In many countries, the term is used as an administrative or police title. It often c ...
or by a corps of commissaries. In many countries,
commissary A commissary is a government official charged with oversight or an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop. In many countries, the term is used as an administrative or police title. It often c ...
is a police rank. In those countries, a commissariat is a police station commanded by a commissary. In some armies, commissaries are logistic officers. In those countries, a commissariat is a department charged with the provision of supplies, both food and forage, for the troops. The supply of military stores such as
ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...
is not included in the duties of a commissariat. In almost every army the duties of transport and supply are performed by the same corps of departmental troops.


British Army


17th century

When
James II James II may refer to: * James II of Avesnes (died c. 1205), knight of the Fourth Crusade * James II of Majorca (died 1311), Lord of Montpellier * James II of Aragon (1267–1327), King of Sicily * James II, Count of La Marche (1370–1438), King C ...
mustered an army on Hounslow Heath in 1685, he appointed a certain John Shales as Commissary General of provisions, responsible for sourcing, storing and issuing food for the troops and
forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also us ...
for the horses. In addition he was to license and regulate
sutler A sutler or victualer is a civilian merchant who sells provisions to an army in the field, in camp, or in quarters. Sutlers sold wares from the back of a wagon or a temporary tent, traveling with an army or to remote military outposts. Sutler wago ...
s, to procure wagons, carriages, horses and drivers when required for transport and to account for all payments to the Lord High Treasurer and the Paymaster-General of His Majesty's Forces. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Shales was reappointed Commissary-General (though he was subsequently accused of mismanagement and replaced).


18th century

After 1694 the appointment lapsed, though it was reinstated subsequently from time to time on a more geographically-specific basis, for a particular expedition, theatre of war or colonial garrison. Otherwise, in the eighteenth century, arrangements for supply and transport tended to be devolved to individual regiments, who would work with a combination of civilian contractors and other agencies. The only centralized control at this time was that exercised by
HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ec ...
, which ultimately authorised expenditure. In 1793, however, with Britain at war with France, a Commissary-General for Britain was once again appointed and in 1797 a number of District Commissaries were engaged and made accountable to him: the beginnings of a more permanent Commissariat; his remit, however, was limited to the British mainland (and even there some areas, including barracks, were separately administered). Away from Britain's shores, the army was provided for independently as before.


19th century

In 1809 things began to change with the appointment of a Commissary-in-chief to superintend both the home and foreign Commissariat services. The Commissariat was still a department of HM Treasury and its personnel were uniformed civilians (though they were subject to military discipline). It now supplied food, fuel and forage for all troops, as well as certain other equipment including barrack stores. The main items outside its remit were arms and ammunition, which were the responsibility of the Board of Ordnance. The Commissariat's officers held ranks ranging from Commissary-General (equivalent to a Brigadier-General in the Army) to Deputy Assistant Commissary-General (equivalent to a
Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
) with Commissary Clerks akin to NCOs. Under the Treasury the Commissariat was organised into two branches: Stores and Accounts. Transport (albeit nominally a responsibility of the Stores Branch) was something of a poor relation; this in part led to the Commander-in-chief establishing a separate Royal Waggon Train. After the end of the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
the office of Commissary-in-chief was abolished and the Treasury moved to consolidate the department's remit. In 1822 the Stores Branch (along with its warehouses and staff both at home and abroad) was transferred to the Board of Ordnance, which also took on responsibility for provision of food, forage and fuel to troops in England ten years later. Thereafter the Commissariat Department became principally a financial office: its fund (the Commissariat Chest) was used to provide a form of
banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...
service for public services in the Colonies; in the words of a Treasury memorandum laid before Parliament in 1841: Provision of food, forage and fuel for the army abroad remained a (albeit secondary) responsibility of the Commissariat at this time. In its much reduced form, the Commissariat infamously struggled to deal with the complexities of supplying the Army during
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included t ...
; in December 1854 control of the military functions of the Commissariat were transferred to the
War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MoD ...
. The Commissariat remained a uniformed civilian service until 1869, when its officers transferred to the new Control Department as commissioned Army officers. The supply organization of the British Army then went through a number of incarnations, including the Commissariat and Transport Department, Staff and Corps, before becoming the Army Service Corps in 1888.


In popular culture

In the " Major General's Song" in ''
The Pirates of Penzance ''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879 ...
'' by
Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which '' H.M.S. ...
, the Major-General boasts that when, among many other bits and pieces of seemingly elementary or irrelevant information, he "know(s) precisely what is meant by commissariat", he will be the best officer the army has ever seen (satirizing 19th century British officers' lack of concrete military knowledge). That line can perhaps also be read in a second and very different way; since that work was first performed in 1878, when the Army's Commissariat was at the height of change, as outlined in the paragraph above, the suggestion that the Major-General did not know precisely what the term meant may perhaps have been also a very pointed satirical allusion to that rapidly changing situation.


Penal colonies in Australia

In the penal colonies of
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
and
Van Dieman's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...
(now
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
), the Commissariat Department also had responsibility for the needs of convicts and, in the early days, provisions sold by storekeepers, as well as for military garrisons and naval victualing.This practice dated from the inception of the colony in 1788, before the colony was self-sufficient in food production. The Governors of the colonies were military men, and the administration of stores was performed by commissary officers. After 1855, the Commissariat Department only had responsibility for the provisions of military forces, the few remaining convicts, and lunatics. It was abolished, in New South Wales, in 1870 when the last British military forces departed. Similar arrangements applied in the Moreton Bay penal colony (originally part of New South Wales) and
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...
.


Soviet Army and modern Russian Army

Military commissariats of the
Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...
and modern Russian Army is а local military administrative agency that prepares and executes plans for military mobilization, maintains records on military manpower and economic resources available to the armed forces, provides pre-military training, drafts men for military service, organizes reserves for training, and performs other military functions at the local level.


Religious usage

Among
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
religious order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious pract ...
s, the term ''Commissariat'' refers to a division of the Order which is a semi-autonomous body. It is considered less viable than a full
Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
, but with potential to develop into such, or it serves a group within the Order who are best served separately than in a Province into which they would otherwise be forced, e.g., due to language divisions. As with military usage, the Religious Superior of the division is referred to as the Commissary. The term is most commonly used among
Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
Orders and also among Indian Zoroastrians.


See also

* Commissaire de police *
Commissariat de l'armée de terre The Commissariat de l'armée de terre (CAT) is the commissariat branch of the French Army. Its equivalent for the French Navy is the Commissariat de la marine (SCM) and for the French Air Force the Service de l'administration générale et des fi ...


References

{{Authority control Military logistics Military supporting service occupations History of the British Army Organisation of Catholic religious orders