History of the British Army

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The history of the British Army spans over three and a half centuries and numerous European, colonial and world wars. From the early 19th century until 1914, the United Kingdom was the greatest economic and imperial power in the world, and although this dominance was principally achieved through the strength of the British Royal Navy, the British Army played a significant role.

In peacetime, Britain has generally maintained only a small professional volunteer army, expanding this as required in time of war, due to Britain's traditional role as a sea power. Since 1745, the army has played little or no role in British domestic politics, and, other than in Ireland, has seldom been deployed against internal threats.

The Army has been involved in many global international conflicts, including the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the two World Wars. Historically, it contributed to the expansion and retention of the British Empire. The 1990s saw the Army become increasing involved in multi-national peacekeeping work and this has continued into the 21st century.

The British Army has long been at the forefront of new military developments. It was the first to develop and deploy the tank, and what is now the Royal Air Force had its origins within the British army.

Origins

The British Army came into being with the merger of the Scottish Army and the English Army, following the unification of the two countries' parliaments and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated existing English and Scottish regiments, and was controlled from London.

Before this event, the essential nature of the British army as a body which was entirely at the service of the Government and not involved in the appointment of that Government, had been determined by prolonged conflict and argument within both countries.

Tudor and Stuart organisation

Prior to the English Civil War in 1642, there was no standing army in England or Scotland except for the monarch's personal bodyguard of Yeomen of the Guard and gentleman pensioners, and a few locally-raised companies to garrison important places such as Berwick or Portsmouth. Troops for foreign expeditions were raised upon an ad-hoc basis in either country by its King, when required. This was a development of the feudal concept of fief (in which a lord was obliged to raise a certain quota of knights, men at arms and yeomanry, in return for his right to occupy land).

In practice, noblemen and professional soldiers were commissioned by the monarch to supply troops, raising their quotas by indenture from a variety of sources. A Commission of Array would be used to raise troops for a foreign expedition, while various Militia Acts directed that (in theory) the entire male population who owned property over a certain amount in value, was required to keep arms at home and periodically train or report to musters.

After the English Tudor queen, Elizabeth I, died childless, the Scottish Stuart, King James VI, found himself also King James I of England, and moved to London. His heir, Charles I, found himself embroiled in war over his attempt to rule England without a parliament. This led to various Royalist and Parliamentary armies being raised to battle for the control of England in the English Civil War.

Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration

After two years of ruinous but indecisive campaigning, Parliament created the New Model Army, the first professional standing army in British history. From its foundation, the Army adopted social and religious policies which were increasingly at odds with those of Parliament. The Army's senior officers (the "Grandees") formed another faction, opposed both to Parliament and to the more extreme radicals (Levellers and dissenting Nonconformist sects) within the lower ranks. After the war ended with the defeat of the Royalists, Parliament tried to assert its control over the Army (as the New Model was becoming in name and fact), but could not sustain its authority. The Army mutinied, and started to march on London.

In 1648, the Second English Civil war began, with royalist uprisings and an invasion by a Scottish army now opposed to Parliament. Both royalists and Scots were decisively defeated. In the aftermath of the war, Parliament was made subserviant to the wishes of the Army Council, whose leading political figure was Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell deprived both England and Scotland of a monarch when he had Charles I beheaded. When the Scots proclaimed his son, also named Charles Stuart, King of Scots on 4th February, 1649, Cromwell invaded the country in an attempt to depose the uncrowned King and to force the authority of the Army Council upon Scotland. Scottish armies suffered defeats at Dunbar and Worcester. Scotland was subjugated and many Scottish prisoners of war were shipped to English colonies in America, effectively as slaves.

The ensuing Protectorate saw rule by an Army Council dominated by Oliver Cromwell, and a brief period of direct military rule by Major Generals.

Following Cromwell's death, the Restoration of Charles II saw the immediate disbandment of the New Model Army. Both sides in the Cavalier Parliament expressed a distaste and distrust of standing armies. The Whigs (the descendants of the parliamentarians) feared that the monarch might use it as an instrument of tyranny while the Tories (the descendants of the cavaliers) remembered that The New Model Army had forced through a social revolution and had confiscated their property. Both sides felt that there was no need for a standing army, for the first line of defence was surely the Royal Navy, and the second the militia. These prejudices dominated domestic politics until the early nineteenth century.

From the Restoration to the "Glorious Revolution"

However, some kind of professional force soon reappeared. On January 26, 1661 Charles II issued the Royal Warrant that created the genesis of what would become the British Army, although the Scottish and English Armies would remain two separate organisations until the unification of England and Scotland in 1707. The small force was represented by but a few regiments. One was the Royal Scots, which had its genesis in the force that served his father, and recruited from Scots soldiers formerly in service with the Swedes and French. This remains the oldest regiment in the British army (known as 'Pontius Pilate's Bodygard'). Other regiments were raised to garrison Tangiers, which was the Queen's dowry.

After Charles died, it was feared that Charles's brother James was attempting to use the standing army both to retain power in the face of Parliamentary opposition and even impose Roman Catholicism. On James's overthrow, in an effort to control the powers of the monarch, the English Parliament had passed the Bill of Rights 1689 to prevent a standing army in peacetime without the consent of Parliament. To this day, annual continuation notices are required for the British Army to remain legal. (On paper, this also guarantees representative government as Parliament must meet at least once a year to ratify the Order in Council renewing the Army Act (1955) for a further year).

The effect of these constitutional developments was to ensure that the Army was under the control of the Government. The Monarch might be titular Commander in Chief, but could not order the army to perform any unconstitutional act. (The last King to lead his troops into battle was George II at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743.)

Eighteenth century

Units had originally been known by the names of their colonels, such as Sir John Mordaunt's Regiment of Foot, but in 1751 a numeral system was adopted, with each regiment gaining a number in accordance with their rank in the order of precedence, so John Mordaunt's Regiment became the 47th Regiment of Foot.

From the late seventeenth century onwards, the British army was to be deployed in three main areas of conflict, one of which was effectively ended in 1746. The major theatre was often the continent of Europe. Not only did Britain's monarchs have dynastic ties with Holland or Hanover, but Britain's foreign policy often required intervention to maintain a balance of power in Europe.

Within England and especially Scotland, there were repeated attempts by the deposed House of Stewart to regain the throne, leading to severe uprisings. These were often related to European conflict, as the Stuart Pretenders were aided and encouraged by Britain's continental enemies for their own ends. After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, these rebellions were crushed.

Finally, as the British empire expanded, the army was increasingly involved in service in the West Indies, North America and India. Troops were increasingly recruited locally, sometimes as part of the British army or on other occasions (as in the case of troops raised by the British East India Company) separate, but cooperating with it.

Troops sent to serve overseas could expect to serve there for years, in an unhealthy climate far removed from the comforts of British society. This led to the army being recruited from among the elements of society with the least stake in it; the very poorest or worst-behaved. The red-coated soldier, "Thomas Lobster", was a much-derided figure.

Seven Years War

The Seven Years' War, which took part from 1755 to 1763, has sometimed been described as the first true world war, in that conflict took part in almost every continent and on almost all the oceans. Although there were early setbacks, British troops eventually were victorious in every theatre.

Britain's main enemy was France, as was usual. The war can be said to have started in North America, where it was known as the French and Indian War. The early years saw several British defeats. Partly through the naval superiority gained by the Royal Navy, Britain was able to deploy superior strength in North America, eventually winning a decisive battle at Quebec.

Similarly in India, after a prolonged struggle, the French armies and those of the most powerful Indian rulers were defeated, allowing the steady expansion of British-controlled territory.

In Europe, although Britain's allies (chiefly Prussia) carried the main burden of the struggle, British troops eventually played an important role at the decisive Battle of Minden.

Aftermath

The result of this war was to leave Britain as the dominant imperial power in North America, and the only European power east of the Mississippi (although it would return southern Florida to Spain). There was increasing tension between the British government and its officials in North America, and the settlers, who felt that British military strategy and economic policy was both self-serving and badly planned.

With the defeat of France, the British government no longer sought actively to curry the favour of native nations, and a wave of British settlers was unleashed by the war, migrating west across the Appalachians. This pressure on native lands eventually led to Pontiac's War, a bitter campaign that inflamed the borders of the American colonies.

Although the British Army ultimately was victorious, the British Government's response was to mollify the native nations by demarking the Appalachians as the westward limit for European settlement. This enraged both wealthy citizens of the colonies, like George Washington, engaged in land speculation (enriching themselves by selling native land), and the poor, who were bent on pushing westward to claim native land as their prize in the war with France. The British government's belated attempts to protect native Americans was one of several factors that led the thirteen American colonies to launch the secessionist American War of Independence.

American War of Independence

The American War of Independence began in 1775 when the Thirteen Colonies rose up against British rule. Many Americans, however, sought to remain with the British Empire and duly fought for the British, and were known as Loyalists. Five American units were placed on the regular establishment, known as the American Establishment (formed in 1779) though there were many other Loyalist units.

Because the British army was understrength at the outset of the war, the army hired the armed forces of several German states, referred to generically as "Hessians", to fight in North America, further aggravating the Revolutionaries' grievances.

When the war ended in 1783 with defeat, and the independence of America, many of the Loyalist fled north to Canada, where many subsequently served with the British Army. The Army itself had established many British units during the war, to serve in North America or provide replacements for garrisons. All but three (the 23rd Dragoons and two Highland infantry regiments, the 71st and 78th Foot) were disbanded immediately after of the war.

The Army was forced to adapt its tactics to the poor communications and forested terrain of North America. Large numbers of light infantry (detached from line units) were organised, and the formerly rigid drills of the line infantry were modified to a style known as "loose files and an American scramble". While the British defeated the colonists in most of the set-piece battles of the war, none of these had any decisive result, whereas the British defeats at the Battle of Saratoga and Siege of Yorktown adversely affected British morale, prestige and manpower.

Napoleonic Wars

Although the rigid parade-ground tactics were reintroduced after the end of the American War of Independence, by the turn of the 19th Century, the Army was beginning to embrace new technology and new tactics. Experience in the American wars led to the introduction of light infantry units and riflemen. These skirmishers allowed a field Army to act in a fluid manner, rather than as rigid formations, which was still the predominant method of fighting during that period.

The first light infantry regiments were the 43rd and 52nd Foot in 1803, though they were still armed with muskets. An Experimental Corps of Riflemen was formed in 1800, armed with the Baker rifle. It was brought into the line as the 95th Regiment of Foot in 1802 (The Rifle Brigade from 1816). Other rifle-armed units were the 5th Battalion of the 60th Regiment, and some of the light units of the King's German Legion. The rifle-armed units saw extensive service, most prominently in the Peninsular War where the mountainous terrain saw them in their element.

The French Revolutionary Wars saw the Army take part in many campaigns against the French and countries conquered by them. Although a British army which fought on the continent was defeated after being shown to be inadequately prepared (an episode which may have led to the derisory childrens' rhyme, The Grand Old Duke of York), and another force suffered severe losses to yellow fever and other diseases in the West Indies, British troops captured important overseas territories in the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent (including Ceylon). A British army also fought a successful campaign in 1801 to expel invading French troops in Egypt.

After a brief interlude, the Peace of Amiens, with Napoleon as leader of France, the Napoleonic Wars began in 1803. As in the previous war with France, the Army saw service in many campaigns, including the capture of the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa, an abortive (initially unauthorised) invasion of Spanish-South America and further wars and campaigns in the Indian sub-continent and Caribbean.

The most important campaign the Army fought during the conflict was the Peninsular War in Portugal and Spain. After the French had invaded Portugal and Spain, the British landed in Portugal to help them in their uprising against the French in 1808. The British were commanded by Lieutenant-General Arthur Wellesley (later 1st Duke of Wellington) and he achieved a number of important victories over the French but was nevertheless superseded as commander.

After Sir John Moore was killed at the Battle of Corunna in January 1809, Wellesley returned as Commander-in-Chief. With the help of the Portuguese and Spanish (including guerrillas), the British fought many bloody battles against the French who had invaded Portugal twice, being pushed out both times, and the British also having to retreat from Spain a number of times until, in May 1813, a renewed offensive saw the French pushed back in Spain, and the British successfully entered France itself in October 1813.

With the British now firmly in France and the French experiencing defeats elsewhere, Napoleon was forced into exile in April 1814. He returned to France and regained power but was defeated at Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 by a British, Belgian, Dutch, and Prussian force under the command of the Duke of Wellington.

The Army also saw service in the War of 1812 against the newly formed USA, a conflict not directly related to the Napoleonic Wars, but brought about largely by the conflict's disruption of American trade. Several units were raised in Canada, but disbanded after the war.

The British Empire had increased in size during the war, through the capture of French and Dutch colonies, and was continuing to do so. The Government however implemented heavy cuts on the Armed Forces, with many units being disbanded, including the émigre units such as the King's German Legion and Royal Corsican Rangers formed from refugees from countries occupied by France. The cuts proved too severe and a number of new regiments were raised. Though the Royal Navy played an extremely prominent part in the expansion and maintenance of the Empire, the Army's contribution was vital. One of the most important contributions was its participation in the many wars during the expansion of British power in the Indian sub-continent, eventually culminating in the establishment of most what is modern-day India by the 1850s. The Army also saw increasing service in Africa and in the Far East, including the First Opium War between 1839-42, a war ostensibly provoked for trade reason.

The later nineteenth century

Organisation

From the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of the Crimean War, the British army's organisation, and to an extent its personnel, remained largely unchanged. The Duke of Wellington remained as Commander-in-Chief until 1852 (except when serving as Prime Minister). His successors were men who had served him closely. None of these saw any need for reform of the existing system.

Soldiers enlisted either for life, or for a period of ten or twelve years, at the end of which most soldiers were so little skilled for civilian life that they immediately re-enlisted. The long-term effect of this was to produce regiments with a large number of veteran soldiers, but no reserves which could be called upon to reinforce the regular army. At the same time, the system of Sale of commissions (and abuses of it) worked against either the proper training of officers or any rapid turnover.

The Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny (1857-58) greatly stretched the army, to the extent that Canadian volunteers raised a regiment for the British Army, titled the 100th (or Prince of Wales's Royal Canadians) Regiment of Foot, for service in India; it did not, however, see service there.

In the aftermath of the Mutiny, control of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown. The so-called "European" regiments of the East India Company, consisting of three cavalry and nine infantry regiments, were transferred to the British Army. There were also many troops and batteries of artillery that became incorporated into the Royal Regiment of Artillery. There were objections, later termed the "White Mutiny" by East India Company troops who objected to the measure. These were suppressed without difficulty.

Volunteer movement

At the peak of the British Empire, the middle and upper classes were often 'militaristic', usually seeking to join the armed forces to increase their social standing, especially the Yeomanry regiments. In 1858, there was an assassination attempt on Napoleon III, ruler of France, by Felice Orsini which was linked to Britain. In spite of the fact Britain had only just been in a war against Russia with France as its ally, there was now an increased fear of war breaking out.

This saw a surge in interest in the more affluent communities in creating volunteer units, known as 'Volunteer Rifle Corps'. There were many such corps formed all over the United Kingdom. One of the most prominent was the Artists' Rifles (originally known as the 38th Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps) established in 1860 by the art student Edward Starling.

Cardwell reforms

In the early 1870s, the Cardwell reforms, named after the Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell, saw radical reforms of the armed forces implemented in the aftermath of the inadequacies found in the Crimean War. An Enlistment Act saw a change in the terms of enlistment, which could at last produce some trained reserves, and also made soldiering a more tempting career. A Localisation Scheme resulted in the pairing of single-battalion regiments via administrative depots on a county-based system.

Administrative reforms included the abolition of the Purchase of commissions, replacing it with advancement by seniority and merit, and the end of barbarous disciplinary measures and other anachronistic practices.

Childers reforms

The Childers reforms, which came into effect on 1 July 1881, continued the earlier reforms which strengthened regiments' county affiliations by discarding the numeral system and combining most of the single-battalion regiments into two-battalion regiments with, for the most part, county names in their titles. This created a force of 69 Line Infantry regiments, consisting of 48 English, 10 Scottish, 8 Irish, and 3 Welsh regiments.

Another aspect of the reforms included the further integration of the militia into the regular regimental system, becoming additional numbered battalions of the regiments, and the establishment of a reserve force. These changes, and the others that were implemented, bore the Army in good stead for the two World Wars it would experience in the 20th Century.

For a list of the regiments that were established on 1 July, see List of British Army regiments (1881).

Army leadership

For almost half a century from the end of the Crimean War, the Commander in Chief of the army was Queen Victoria's cousin, the Duke of Cambridge. Although not an absolute reactionary, his generally conservative principles and snobbishness were often to provide an easy target for critics and satirists.

Much of the actual conduct of operations (both in its planning at the War Office and in the field) was carried out by General Garnet Wolseley, the Adjutant General from 1871 onwards. Although he supported the Liberal governments' reforms of the army, he was bitterly opposed to their foreign and imperial policies, which he believed to be indecisive and ineffectual.

Wolseley was instrumental in promoting a circle of officers, the Wolseley ring, or "Africans" to positions of influence. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there was increasing rivalry and tension between the Wolseley ring and the rival Roberts ring or "Indians", proteges of General Frederick Roberts and whose experience was largely gained with the British Indian Army or with British units in India. The quarrel between the factions was perhaps never resolved, until most of the officers involved had retired from the army.

Dress and equipment

Although British troops have often been portrayed in films as toiling in hot climates in heavy scarlet serge uniforms, officers from the end of the Crimean War onwards generally took a far more practical approach. Wolseley had lightweight grey linen uniforms purpose-made for his expeditions in Ashanti and Sudan. In India, almost all troops soon copied the neutral khaki (an Urdu word meaning "dust") uniforms first adopted by Indian irregular units. Probably the last war in which British troops wore scarlet (and carried their colours into action) was the First Anglo-Boer war, where their uniforms made an easy aiming mark for Boer riflemen. Khaki became the official colour for campaign dress in 1892, but scarlet had been superseded long before that date.

Likewise, faced with campaigns in harsh environments far from any convenient lines of communication, British leaders insisted that the primary quality of any equipment should be robustness. Sometimes, this resulted in the British army apparently lagging behind its contemporaries in Europe. Nevertheless, new rifles, guns and technical equipment such as field telegraphs were steadily introduced; sometimes the issue of a weapon was not even complete before it was superseded by another model.

Haldane reforms

The Second Boer War (1899-1902) provided further impetus for the expansion of the Army -- which had already been expanding in size during the last years of the 19th Century -- including the creation of the Irish Guards in 1900 in honour of the distinguished service of Irish regiments during that conflict, and the Royal Garrison Regiment, created to fill the void of units departing for South Africa.

After the end of the war, further reforms took place, known as the Haldane reforms after Secretary of State for War Richard Burdon Haldane. These included the formal establishment of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in anticipation of a war on the European continent. A part-time volunteer organisation, known as the Territorial Force, was also created, encompassing the reserve units of the Army with militia units being transferred to the newly created Special Reserve.

Re-equipment with up-to-date weapons and equipment followed the increasing pace of technology. An Air Battalion was formed in the Royal Engineers in 1911, becoming the Royal Flying Corps the following year. The RFC remained part of the Army until 1918 when it was separated to form the Royal Air Force.

Operations

India

For the first half of the nineteenth century, most of Britain's wars involved expansion in India, and as a result of conflicts on India's borders, into Burma. Concern over Russian expansionism prompted an expedition into Afghanistan. Complacency and poor leadership resulted in a heavy defeat. Although this was avenged and Kabul recaptured, British prestige in India was affected. The British withdrew from Afghanistan having stored up resentment and disorder.

A short campaign secured the conquest of Sindh. Then, in 1839, Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab, the last major independent state within India, died. The Punjab fell into disorder, and a war between the East India Company and the powerful Sikh Army, the Khalsa became almost inevitable. The First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845 resulted in the defeat of the Khalsa and a British takeover of much of the administration of the Punjab. The war had seen some desperate fighting and some near-defeats, from which the British army under Sir Hugh Gough were spared by self-interest or treachery among the top leaders of the Khalsa.

The Sikhs remained restive under British control, and a rebellion broke out in 1848. The British army sent to suppress it was once again under Gough, and once again suffered several reverses, before crushing the revolt at Multan and Gujarat. The annexation of the Punjab left no independent Indian state capable of withstanding the East India Company.

Crimean War

Britain's first major war in Europe since Waterloo, the Crimean War, began in 1854 after Britain and France declared war on Russia in alliance with Turkey, fearing Russian domination of the Mediterranean and encroachments in Central Asia. Throughout the war there were evident shortcomings in the army's administration, logistics and leadership. The army suffered heavy casualties from disease and exposure, and in actions such as the Battle of Balaklava and the failed storming of Sevastopol.

In the immediate aftermath of the war the Victoria Cross, which became the highest award for bravery in the face of the enemy, was created.

The Indian Mutiny

Within a year of the end of the Crimean War, the Indian soldiers of the East India Company's Bengal Army mutinied. Their loyalty had been under threat for years, as they feared that British reforms and modernisation were striking at their society and religion. The mutinies sparked widespread rebellion and unrest. The uprisings were marked with attacks on British officers and administrators and their families, and some massacres.

Because the rebels lacked coordinated leadership, it was possible for the British to suppress revolts in some parts of the country early, and also defend some vital positions such as Laknao. Another vital success was the capture of Delhi, in which British troops were greatly aided by Gurkha, Punjabi and Sikh troops. As British reinforcements arrived in India, the rebellion was steadily suppressed, sometimes with great brutality.

Colonial campaigns

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Army increasingly concentrated on policing the Empire in its many distant outposts while also helping to expand it. The Army was used to intervene in other nations, mostly for British interests such as trade. In Canada, Irish-American ex-Union Army soldiers launched a number of encroachments into Canadian territory in 1866 and 1870, known as the Fenian Raids. These actions saw an increasing assertiveness in Canada, with Canadian units being the primary defenders.

North-west Frontier

A persistent feature of British policy was a nervousness amounting almost to paranoia about Russian expansion in Central Asia and influence in Afghanistan (see The Great Game). This led to the outbreak of the Second Afghan War in 1878. As with the first Afghan war, the British army won victories, but withdrew from the country having achieved no permanent settlement. There were several expeditions against the Pakhtun tribes on the frontier between India and Afghanistan.

Africa

There were several campaigns in Africa before the end of the 19th Century, during a period of time known as the "scramble for Africa". There was a punitive expedition in 1868 to Abyssinia and another to Ashanti in 1874. In 1879, the Anglo-Zulu War began, signifying further British expansion in southern Africa. The early days of the war saw a disaster at the Isandlwana, redeemed in the view of many by a famous defence at Rorke's Drift. The war ended with the defeat and subjugation of the Zulus. Shortly afterwards, the Boer republic of the Transvaal gained its independence after the First Anglo-Boer War, after defeating a British force at the Battle of Majuba.

In Egypt, Britain was concerned to retain control over the Suez Canal, vital for links to India. A political crisis, the Urabi Revolt, led Britain to intervene. After crushing the dissident force at the Battle of Tel al-Kebir, Britain established control over much of Egypt's policy. This also forced Britain to intervene in Egypt's nominal dependency, the Sudan. Originally sent to superintend a withdrawal, General Charles George Gordon chose instead to defend Khartoum against the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed. A relief expedition across the deserts of northern Sudan arrived too late.

Several years later, having constructed railways and fleets of steamers, the British again advanced into the Sudan under General Kitchener. The forces of the Khalifa Adbullah, successor to the Mahdi, were bloodily defeated at the Battle of Omdurman.

The Second Anglo-Boer War began in 1899 after tension between the British and the two Dutch Boer republics culminated in the Boers declaring war against the British. Though it was a relatively minor war in comparison to what awaited the British in 1914, many tactics, technology and equipment used during the war helped the British gain experience for the forthcoming World War. However, future inadequacies had been discovered in the Army during the war, and like the Crimean War, most of the Army's deaths were due to disease.

The war also saw the present and future Dominions — Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa — become increasingly independent and assertive, all having had troops fight the Boers. The British eventually withdrew from all of these countries and the Dominions forces took over its duties. The Army garrisons in Australia and New Zealand had already been withdrawn in 1870. The last British battalion to leave Canada was the 5th Battalion, The Royal Garrison Regiment in 1905 when it departed Halifax, Nova Scotia, which it had been garrisoning.

There were many other small wars that the Army took part in just before WWI, nearly all being in Africa, with the exception of the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and an expedition to Tibet in 1904.

World War I (1914-18)

Organisation

At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the British Army was a small, professional force of 247,000 soldiers, over half of which were posted overseas in garrisons throughout the British Empire. The regular Army was supported by 224,000 reservists and 269,000 soldiers of the Territorial Force. The size of the Army was in stark contrast to the Royal Navy which was the largest navy in the world, while many of the Army's continental counterparts, such as the French and German Armies (both of whom employed conscription) numbered nearly 1 million troops and were part of highly militarised societies.

Under the Entente Cordiale, the British Army's role in a European war was to embark the 120,000 soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), arranged in six infantry and one cavalry divisions, to cooperate with the French Army. Kaiser Wilhelm was famously dismissive of the BEF, on 19 August issuing his order to "exterminate... the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army." — in later years the survivors of the regular army dubbed themselves "The Old Contemptibles". By the end of 1914, after the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres, the old regular British Army had been effectively wiped out, but was extremely effective at stopping the German advance.

As the regular Army declined, the numbers were made up, first by the Territorials, followed by the volunteers of Lord Kitchener's New Army, known as Kitchener's Army. By the end of August 1914, he had raised six new divisions, rising to 29 divisions by March 1915. The Territorial Force also expanded, raising second- and third-line battalions and forming eight additional divisions on top of its peacetime strength of 14 divisions. By January 1916 when conscription was introduced, 2.6 million men had volunteered for service and a further 2.3 million were conscripted before the end of the war.

A prominent feature of the early months of volunteering was the formation of Pals battalions, whole units recruited from the same town or workplace, such as the Grimsby Chums. Many of these pals who had lived and worked together, now joined up and trained together, only to die together on the first day on the Somme, leaving entire communities shattered.

During the war, most new infantry battalions were raised within existing regiments; the Northumberland Fusiliers were most prolific, fielding 51 battalions. However, some new regiments were created, such as the fifth regiment of the Foot Guards, the Welsh Guards, created in 1915 to honour the distinguished actions of the Welsh regiments in the war.

The war also saw the British having an increasing reliance upon the Dominion and Empire troops, many of whom volunteered to serve in the British Army out of a perception that Britain was the 'Motherland'. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment and British West Indies Regiment were both formed in 1915, the latter of which was made up of volunteers from the Caribbean who had arrived in Britain. Both regiments were disbanded in 1919. There were also existing regiments like the West India Regiment and West Africa Regiment (both disbanded by the end of the 1920s). At various times on the Western Front, Australia, Canada and India provided corps, New Zealand a division and South Africa a brigade, all of which were attached to British armies.

In August 1914, the Army's Royal Flying Corps dispatched 63 aircraft to France in support of the BEF. The aggressive doctrine of RFC commander, General Hugh Trenchard, and periods of technical inferiority such as the Fokker Scourge of 1916 and Bloody April in 1917 resulted in high casualty rates amongst aircrews. At the start of 1918, the RFC numbered nearly 4,000 aircraft, including capable fighters such as the Sopwith Camel and S.E.5a. On 1 April 1918, the RFC merged with the Royal Naval Air Service, forming the independent Royal Air Force.

Equipment

The British Army were pioneers in some aspects of military technology, having adopted the first machine gun, the Maxim, in 1889 and by 1912 it possessed the Vickers machine gun. Both infantry and cavalry were equipped with the Lee-Enfield rifle (first introduced in 1895) with which the professionals of the regular Army could fire 15 aimed rounds per minute. However, in 1914 the Army was ill-prepared for large-scale continental warfare and ill-equipped for the environment of trench warfare, in particular short of grenades and mortars. Artillery suffered from a shortage of shells and initially supply only improved at the expense of quality. The Army adopted chemical weapons, usually in response to German innovations, and often lagged markedly, taking over a year to deploy their own mustard gas agent.

The British Army reacted to these shortcomings, introducing the Mills bomb as the standard grenade, producing over 70 million in the final three years of the war, and the versatile Stokes mortar, the predecessor the modern mortar (though this was too late to make an impact on the war). The role of the machine gun expanded throughout the war, dramatically increasing the firepower to the infantry. Platoons were equipped with the light Lewis gun while the independent machine gun companies of the Machine Gun Corps, established on 22 October 1915, operated the heavy Vickers. As the war progressed, the artillery grew in sophistication, employing the creeping barrage for protection of advancing infantry, developing sound-ranging and flash-detection techniques for counter-battery fire, and learning how to predict the fall of shells without needing to register the guns on their target.

The Army pioneered the use of the tank; operated by the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps, the Mark I tank first saw service on the Somme in September 1916. In July 1917, the Tank Corps was formed from the Heavy Branch and was the only corps created in the war to survive past the 1920s, becoming the Royal Tank Corps in 1922, then Royal Tank Regiment in 1939.

Operations

The most important theatre was the Western Front but the British Army fought in almost every theatre of the First World War. In the four years of the war, the British Army had suffered nearly 2.5 million casualties; 662,000 men killed, 140,000 missing and 1.65 million wounded.

Western Front

Under the command of Field Marshall Sir John French, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began to deploy to France within days of the declaration of war. The first encounter with the Germans came at Mons on 23 August 1914 after which the Allies began the Great Retreat, not stopping until at the outskirts of Paris. The BEF had small role in halting the German advance at the Marne before participating in the Aisne counter-offensive which was followed by a period known as the "