<論説>一九世紀イギリスの売官制 : 陸軍士官の任官・昇任・退官

Abstract

イギリス陸軍士官の任用制度は、一九世紀後半の一八七一年にいたるまで、その多くの部分が、なお、中世後期に起源する売官制によって支えられていた。このことは、当時のイギリスが経済の最先進国であったことを考えると、何か奇異に感じられるが、当時のこの国の軍事制度が依拠していたまぎれもない一つの現実であった。この前近代的な陸軍士官職の売官制は、イギリス吏研究の専門家の問では、今日までそれなりに注目され、また、それなりに論じられてもきたが、その専門家たちの研究・述作においても、この制度の仕組みそのものが詳述されることは、意外と少なかった。本論は、そのような研究史を踏まえ、このところ筆者が進めている一九世紀イギリス軍制史研究の一環として、これまでその割になおざりにされてきたこの売官制の仕組みそのものを、一九世紀中葉の時点を中心に取り上げ、その歴史的特質の一端を明らかにしょうとするものである。

Until 1871 the recruitment and promotion of British army officers had been handled through the sale of commissions, a system which dated back to the Middle Ages. This may seem strange if one considers that at that time Britain was said to be the most advanced country in the world, but it is nonetheless true. As Britain did not experience the so-called " bourgeois revolutions " of the 18th and 19th centuries, many of the institutions of the ancien regime persisted until late in the 19th century, especially within the government. The purchase system for army officers' commissions is, therefore, only one example of these. Thanks to the continued existence of such institutions, the landed peers and gentry could continue to hold on to their traditional power in the government. It may not be said that the purchase system has attracted much scholary attention, but certainly there have always been some scholars very much interested in it. Until about 1960 their attention was mostly concentrated on the abolition of the purchase system, brought about in 1871 by legislative action. They generally regarded the abolition as an epoch-making and radical reform and were apt to overestimate the changes that resulted from it. However, since the 1960s its evaluation by historians has completely changed. Nowadays they neither regard the abolition of the purchase system as epoch-making nor radical, because scholarly work since then has clearly shown that the governing power of the traditional peers and gentry was not diminished drastically by the abolition, and that they maintained their stronghold in the army up to the first half of the 20th century. Thus, sound research on the purchase system has steadily accumulated, but strange to say, few works have tried to clarify the mechanism of the system itself. I have been unable to discover the reason why, although one reason is perhaps that it is too complicated. Nevertheless, clarifying at least the principal aspects of its workings is indispensable to understanding the historical significance of the purchase system as a whole. For this reason I have endeavored in this paper to explain the mechanism of this system as comprehensively as possible.