British Army during the Victorian Era

A particularly cruel feature of the Army's practices was that fewer soldiers' wives were allowed to accompany a unit overseas (one per eight cavalrymen or twelve infantrymen)[9] than were permitted when serving at home.

[11] During the Napoleonic Wars, a combination of large-scale expansion of the army and intensive campaigning resulting in heavy casualties had meant that many officers were commissioned from the ranks or from middle-class backgrounds.

With the exception of the rifle regiments, the infantry were armed with the Brown Bess musket, essentially the same weapon the Army had used since the early eighteenth century (though a version with a percussion cap firing mechanism replaced the flintlock in 1842).

The British Empire, by the latter end of the 19th century, included colonies (some being populated largely or entirely through settlement by Britain, others populated primarily by indigenous peoples conquered or otherwise subjugated by Britain) that were considered part of the same realm as the UK, dominions (colonies which had attained theoretically equal status to the UK as separate realms within the Empire), and protectorates (foreign territories under British administration).

In Britain, soldiers were involved in aiding the government by suppressing demonstrations and riots organised by political movements such as the Chartists, or those that occurred as the result of industrial or agrarian poverty and unrest.

In Irregular cavalry and infantry units, which were locally recruited from distinct communities or absorbed from the armies of annexed "princely" states, there were usually only seven British officers and Indian personnel had more influence.

In India, after the defiant states of Gwalior and Sindh were overcome in short campaigns, only the Sikh Empire founded by Ranjit Singh remained wholly independent of British control.

Ranjit Singh had died in 1839, his Empire fell into disorder, and a war between the British East India Company and the powerful and increasingly autonomous Sikh Army, the Khalsa, became inevitable.

However, there had been some desperate fighting and the forces of the East India Company under Sir Hugh Gough were spared from defeat at the Battle of Ferozeshah largely by self-interest or treachery among the top leaders of the Khalsa.

The outdated Chinese armies were easily overcome by the British, with the resulting peace treaty ceding Hong Kong to Britain, and damaging the prestige of China.

In part, this was due to the increased general readership of newspapers such as The Times whose reporter, William Howard Russell, vividly highlighted the British Army's failings in his dispatches.

Changes such as outlawing Sati (the ritual burning of widows) and child marriage, were accompanied by prohibitions on Indian religious customs, and were seen as steps towards a forced conversion to Christianity.

The Commission reported its findings in 1862, but Peel and his immediate successors were unable to introduce the necessary legislation to reform the Army due to resistance by entrenched interests connected with the government of India (who wished to retain their own separate "White" military establishment) and by "die-hard" senior officers, headed by the Commander in Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, who opposed any change on principle.

[34] 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 (volunteer cavalry, who had been in existence since the Napoleonic Wars).

Theodore Hoppen says these reforms were: ...at best partial, at worst ineffective....No planning department was established and no chief of staff appointed to set out the purpose and strategy of the army as a whole because politicians, Civil Servants, and soldiers all proved reluctant to take seriously the idea that Britain could ever again be involved in a large scale European war.

This in part resulted from the adoption of steamships to replace sailing ships and later the construction of the Suez Canal, which made the movement of troops between Britain and India a matter of a few weeks rather than several months.

Legislation resulted in General Orders being issued throughout the army which ended barbarous disciplinary measures, such as branding men convicted of desertion or persistent bad conduct (originally carried out to prevent dishonourably discharged soldiers re-enlisting).

He nevertheless greatly improved the common soldiers' conditions by making the basic ration allowance of bread, potatoes and meat free, and also reduced other stoppages e.g. that for hospital care.

[66] Much of the Staff College's syllabus and doctrine was provided by General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, who was praised by foreign military experts such as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, but who was regarded as a theoretician without practical experience by Wolseley and his intimates.

Although some distinguished soldiers, such as Henry Brackenbury and George Henderson, held the post of Director of Intelligence, they were distracted by questions of organisation and tactical doctrine, in which fields they made their major contributions.

The carrying of equipment on crossbelts and shoulder straps, which constricted the chest and restricted movement, was replaced by pouches suspended from the waistbelt and various patterns of "valise", intended to be practical in hot climates and to distribute the weight evenly.

In 1898, during Kitchener's Sudan campaign, the Maxim sections of the Connaught Rangers and North Staffordshire Regiment wore their scarlet frocks at the Battle of Omdurman, and so were the last troops to wear the red coat in action.

Once the Indian Rebellion had been crushed, the only armed opposition to British rule in India came from the Pakhtun inhabitants of the North West Frontier Province adjacent to Afghanistan.

British anxieties over Russian ambitions in Central Asia remained, and were exacerbated by the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) during which Britain sent a fleet through the Dardanelles as a gesture of support for Turkey, and also deployed a division of troops in Malta.

The Dutch-speaking settlers in the Cape objected to British rule and trekked north and east to set up their own republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, although Britain forestalled them in Natal.

Gladstone's government agreed to Boer independence to avoid the expense of a campaign of conquest and subsequent occupation but many British soldiers (including Wolseley and Roberts) were left eager for revenge for their humiliation.

Facing regular Egyptian troops in entrenchments, Wolseley used novel tactics of a night approach march in close column followed by a bayonet assault at dawn to crush the dissident force at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir.

The last potential Anglo-French colonial dispute was resolved shortly afterwards in the Fashoda Incident, when a French expedition withdrew from southern Sudan and France acknowledged Britain's possession.

[84] Although reformers such as Major Henry Havelock and the Canadian Lieutenant Colonel George Denison had long advocated the adoption of mounted infantry tactics, they merely provoked varying degrees of opposition and obstruction from the cavalry's senior officers.

[88] Even before Black Week, concerns over the overall direction of the war had caused the government to mobilise yet more troops, including contingents of volunteers, and appoint Lord Roberts to command in South Africa.