By December, the British army had seen several defeats in battle, and was unable to lift the sieges of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley as fast as had been communicated to the public.

The government realised they needed considerably more troops to win the war, and larger parts of the regular army, militia and yeomanry regiments were sent to South Africa.

The following letter appeared in newspapers at the time, signed by Sir Arthur Bigge, Private Secretary to the Sovereign: Osborne, Feb 17, 1900 To Field-Marshal the Viscount Wolseley KP, Commander in Chief My Dear Lord Wolseley As so large a proportion of the Army is now in South Africa, the Queen fully realizes that necessary measures must be adopted for home defence.

Arthur Bigge[1]Shortly thereafter, Royal Reserve battalions were formed from veteran soldiers in the United Kingdom for Home Service.

The garrison of the third Imperial fortress, 21-square mile Bermuda, which had been part of British North America and linked militarily with a fourth Imperial fortress, Nova Scotia, until the Confederation of Canada had transferred military control of that province, other than a small defensive British Army garrison for the Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax (from 1902 to 1905, the 5th Battalion, Royal Garrison Regiment]) 'til that transferred to the new Royal Canadian Navy along with the Esquimalt Royal Navy Dockyard in British Columbia in 1905) to the new Dominion government, had included two regular infantry battalions supported by three companies of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, before the Second Boer War (with a third regular battalion added during the war to guard prisoner-of-war camps on the islands of the Great Sound), and in the post war economy was reduced to one.