A private army (or private military) is a

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

force consisting of armed combatants who owe their allegiance to a private person, group, or organization, rather than a nation or state.

History

Private armies may form when land owners arm household retainers for the protection of self and property in times of strife and where and when central government is weak. Such private armies existed for example in the Roman Empire following the collapse of central authority. The dynamics at play in such circumstances can be observed in modern-day Colombia: on the one hand there are those forces affiliated with the

drug cartel A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the l ...

s, existing to protect their criminality, and on the other those of the landlords created to resist kidnappings and

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

, i.e. the

Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia The United Self-Defences of Colombia (''Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia'', or AUC, in Spanish) was a Colombian far-right paramilitary and drug trafficking group which was an active belligerent in the Colombian armed conflict during the period ...

. In many places these private household retainers evolved into

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

like structures, formalising obligations and allegiances and becoming

household troops Household Division is a term used principally in the Commonwealth of Nations to describe a country's most elite or historically senior military units, or those military units that provide ceremonial or protective functions associated directly wit ...

, and in some cases gaining the strength to allow them to usurp power from their nominal

suzerain Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...

or create new sovereign states. Private armies may also form when co-religionists band together to defend themselves from real and perceived persecution and to further their creed, for example the Hussites, Mormon Nauvoo Legion and the

Mahdi Army The Peace Companies ( ar, سرايا السلام, or Saraya al Salam) are an Iraqi armed group linked to Iraq's Shia community. They are a 2014 revival of the Mahdi Army ( ''Jaysh al-Mahdī'') that was created by the Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada a ...

in Iraq; because of their nature such militias are formed by or fall under the influence of charismatic leaders and can become instruments of personal ambition.

Examples

* Sōhei: the warrior monks of Japan owed their loyalty not to the state or even the Emperor but to their monasteries. * Victual Brothers, a pirate brotherhood that for a time became a power in the Baltic. *The

Presidency armies The presidency armies were the armies of the three presidencies of the East India Company's rule in India, later the forces of the British Crown in India, composed primarily of Indian sepoys. The presidency armies were named after the presiden ...

of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

, and the armed forces of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. Both possessed powerful armies and navies, administrating areas many times the size of their homelands. *The militaries of the Indian

Princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

s, during the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

, which were mainly for ceremonial duties, protection of their princes, and internal security within their states. * Atholl Highlanders, modern Europe's only legal private army, now purely ceremonial. *German ''

Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, rega ...

'' after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

were usually only loyal to their commanders, and not to the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...

. *The Mongoose Gang was a private army or militia which operated from 1967 to 1979 under the control of Sir Eric Gairy, the Premier and later Prime Minister of

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pet ...

. *The Kadyrovtsy in Chechnya under President Ramzan Kadyrov * The Royal Johor Military Force of the state of

Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the northwest. Johor shares mariti ...

and the private

royal guard A royal guard is a group of military bodyguards, soldiers or armed retainers responsible for the protection of a royal person, such as the emperor or empress, king or queen, or prince or princess. They often are an elite unit of the regular arm ...

Sultan of Johor The Sultan of Johor is a hereditary seat and the sovereign ruler of the Malaysian state of Johor. In the past, the sultan held absolute power over the state and was advised by a ''bendahara''. Currently, the role of ''bendahara'' has been tak ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

References

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History

Examples

See also

References