A Cantonment is defined as "a temporary or semi-permanent military quarters. The word cantonment is derived from the French word canton meaning corner or district. In Southern Asia, the term cantonment also describes permanent military stations. Cantonments can be found in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Ghana and Sri Lanka. In United States military parlance, a cantonment is an essentially permanent residential (i.e. barracks) section of a fort or other such military installation. See, for example Fort Hood."
Now obviously given the broadest use of the term it can mean any quarters taken up by the military for more than a short period - so winter quarters would be an obvious usage. But essentially any unit (of whatever size) that set up home in a village would be in cantonment - at least that is how read it.
The campaign I ran when at school led to my group (a mixed bunch of REMFs who had escaped Kalicsz in an ambulance and a Humvee) evicting the Soviet marauders from Niepolimice and then settling down there. They took over a couple of empty properties and renovated them (which required some scavenging trips), planted food (more scavenging and trading for seed and livestock), trained the local militia, established links with the outlying farms and nearby villages and helped the villagers establish craft industries. The principle strategy was similar to the one ISAF is attempting to apply in Afghanistan - provide security and employment so local people are confident enough to settle in the villages, once the area around the village is secure then expand the process to the next village like an inkblot spreading on the page. They didn't run the village but needed to co-operate with the locals to achieve what they wanted.
I saw the Krakow ORMO as simply the same thing writ large - in my campaign the players co-operated with the Krakow ORMO by providing a network of villages and farms linked by radio net - these reported what strangers they saw to each other and co-operated with one another to deal with threats. The area between the villages became more secure as a result, which encouraged people to move back, which made the area more secure in a kind of virtuous circle. Essentially they provided security to to the area East of Krakow for the ORMO relieving some of the pressure caused by the refugees on Krakow. My team also traded with the ORMO by producing large quantites of fodder beet for use by the draft animals in Krakow in return for a large still (the large still allowed greater efficiency in producing fuel, which in turn allowed some more processing of food). Each improvement in safety and quality of life in turn led to a small increase in the population of Niepolimice, which led to more recruits for the militia, and hence slightly improved security.
It was good fun.
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