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Auxiliaries

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For other uses, see Auxiliary (disambiguation).

An auxiliary force is an organized group supplementing but not directly incorporated in a regular military or police entity. It may comprise either civilian volunteers undertaking support functions or additional personnel directly performing military or police duties, usually on a part-time basis.

Historically the designation "auxiliary" has also been given to foreign or allied troops in the service of a nation at war.[1] In the context of colonial armies locally recruited irregulars were often described as auxiliaries.

Historical usage

Roman auxiliaries

Auxiliaries in the Roman army were recruited from provincial tribal groups who did not have Roman citizenship. As the Roman army of the Republican and early Empire periods was essentially based on the heavy infantry who made up the legions, it favored the recruitment of auxiliaries that excelled in supplementary roles. These included specialists such as missile troops (e.g. Balearic slingers and Cretan archers), cavalry (recruited among peoples such as the Numidians, and the Thracians), or light infantry. Auxiliaries were not paid at the same rate as legionaries, but could earn Roman citizenship after a fixed term of service.

By the 2nd Century AD the auxiliaries had been organised into permanent units, broadly grouped as Ala (cavalry), Cohors (infantry) and Cohors equitata (infantry with a cavalry element). Specialist units of slingers, scouts, archers and camel mounted detachments continued in existence as separate units with a regional recruitment basis.

United Kingdom and British Empire

The Auxiliary Legion 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.

During the Second Boer War Boer auxiliaries were employed by the British Army under the designation of "National Scouts". Recruited in significant numbers towards the end of the war from Afrikaner prisoners and defectors, they were known as hensoppers ("hands-uppers" i.e. collaborators) by their fellow Boers.[2]

The Auxiliary Division was a British paramilitary police unit raised during the Irish War of Independence 1919–21. Recruited from former officers of the British Army who had served during World War I, the Auxiliary Division was a motorized mobile force nominally forming part of the Royal Irish Constabulary.

In 1941 the British Government created an organization of Auxiliary units in southern England who would wage a guerilla war against occupying forces should Britain be invaded by the Nazis. Their average life span was two weeks, and they were ultimately never used in combat. The Auxiliary Units were meant to carry out assaults on German units, along with damaging train lines and aircraft if necessary.

The Royal Auxiliary Air Force was originally an auxiliary of the Royal Air Force, when it was first conceived and formed in 1924. Today the RAuxAF acts as a military reserve; this is reflected in its more common name 'RAF Reserve'.

Other former British military or governmental auxiliary organizations included:

French Africa

France made extensive use of tribal allies (goumiers) as auxiliaries in its North African possessions. During the Algerian War of 1954-62 large numbers of Muslim auxiliaries (Harkis) were employed in support of regular French forces.

Nazi Germany

German paramilitary police forces, called Hilfspolizei or Schutzmannschaft, were raised during World War II and were the collaborationist auxiliary police battalions of locally recruited police, which were created to fight the resistance during World War II mostly in occupied Eastern European countries. Hilfspolizei refers also to German auxiliary police units. There was also a HIPO Corps in occupied Denmark. The term had also been applied to some units created in 1933 by the early Nazi government (mostly from members of SA and SS) and disbanded the same year due to international protests.[3][4][5]

Current military or governmental auxiliaries

Canada

Philippines

Singapore

Sweden

United Kingdom

United States of America

References

  1. ^ Concise Oxford Dictionary, ISBN 0-19-861131-5
  2. ^ Pakenham, Thomas. The Boer War. pp. 542 & 571. ISBN 0-7474-0976-5.
  3. ^ http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T0684~view=extract
  4. ^ Richard Wires (1985). Terminology the Third Reich. Ball State University.
  5. ^ Christopher Ailsby (1998). SS: Hell on the Eastern Front: The Waffen-SS War in Russia, 1941-1945. MBI Pub., Company. pp. 9–. ISBN 978-0-7603-0538-6.

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