Corps
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- This article is about a military unit. For alternate meanings see Corps (disambiguation).
A corps (a word that immigrated from the French language, pronounced like English "core", but originating in the Latin "corpus, corporis" meaning body; plural same as singular) is a large military unit or formation.
In many armies, it refers to a unit of approximately 30,000 troops, composed of two or more divisions, and typically commanded by a lieutenant general. During World War I and World War II, due to the large scale of combat, multiple corps were combined into armies which then formed into army groups. The Red Army, however, did not use corps. Its corps-sized formations were called armies and its army-sized formations were called fronts.
As of 2003, the United States Army has four field corps. The structure of a field corps is not permanent; many of the units that it commands are allocated to it as needed on an ad hoc basis. On the battlefield, the field corps is the highest level of the forces that is concerned with actually fighting and winning the war. (Higher levels of command are concerned with administration rather than fighting, at least in current doctrine.) The corps provides operational direction for the forces under its command. Corps are designated by consecutive Roman numerals. The present active corps in the US Army are I Corps ("eye core"), III Corps, V Corps, and XVIII Airborne Corps; their numbers derive from four of the 30-odd corps that were formed during World War II. It also refers to a grouping of specialized troops such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Marine Corps.
In the British Army and the armies of many Commonwealth countries, a corps is also a grouping by common function (e.g. Intelligence Corps, Royal Logistic Corps, Royal Corps of Signals), performing much the same function as a ceremonial infantry or cavalry regiment, with its own cap badge, stable belt, and other insignia and traditions. The Royal Armoured Corps and the Corps of Infantry are loose groupings of independent regiments, but do not have their own insignia. There is still a corps headquarters for operational control of forces. I Corps of the British Army of the Rhine was redesignated the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps in 1994. It is no longer a purely British formation, although the UK is the 'framework nation' and provides most of the staff for the headquarters. A purely national corps headquarters could be quickly reconstituted if necessary. It was last deployed as the headquarters commanding land forces during the Kosovo War in 1999 and also saw service in Bosnia, commanding the initial stages of the IFOR deployment prior to that in 1996. Otherwise, the only time a British corps headquarters has been operationally deployed since 1945 was II Corps during the Suez Crisis.