page_title: British Army
section_title: British Empire (1700–1914)
hierarchical_section_title: British Army / History / British Empire (1700–1914)
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting of the Battle of Rorke's Drift which took place in Natal during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. De Neuville based the painting on eye witness accounts and it depicts several events of the battle occurring at once. Defenders depicted in the painting: Lieutenant John Chard (to the right at the barrier in pale breeches with rifle) Corporal Scammell of the Natal Native Contingent incorrectly shown in the uniform of the 24th or Corporal William Allen (handing cartridges to Chard) Corporal Ferdinand Schiess (wearing a bandoleer and stabbing a Zulu at the barrier with his bayonet) Chaplain George Smith (bearded man handing out cartridges from a haversack) Acting Assistant Commissary James Dalton (sat in foreground with a wounded shoulder) Surgeon James Reynolds (attending to Dalton's wound) Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (standing in the centre of the painting pointing to his left) Private Frederick Hitch (standing behind Bromhead) Private Henry Hook (carrying Private John Connolly on his back away from the burning hospital) Assistant Commissary Walter Dunne (to the left holding a biscuit box) (Sources: David, Saul [2005] Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 ISBN 9780141015699; Knight, Ian [1996] Rorke's Drift 1879: 'Pinned Like Rats in a Hole' ISBN 9781855325067)
context_page_description: The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2019, the British Army comprises just over 79,300 trained regular personnel and just over 27,200 trained reserve personnel.
  The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with an antecedent in the English Army that was created during the Restoration in 1660. The term British Army was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 requires parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff.
  The British Army has seen action in major wars between the world's great powers, including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the First and Second World Wars.
context_section_description: After 1700 British continental policy was to contain expansion by competing powers such as France and Spain. Although Spain was the dominant global power during the previous two centuries and the chief threat to England's early transatlantic ambitions, its influence was now waning. The territorial ambitions of the French, however, led to the War of the Spanish Succession and the Napoleonic Wars.
  Although the Royal Navy is widely regarded as vital to the rise of the British Empire, the British Army played an important role in the formation of colonies, protectorates and dominions in the Americas, Africa, Asia, India and Australasia. British soldiers captured strategically important territories, and the army was involved in wars to secure the empire's borders and support friendly governments. Among these actions were the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the New Zealand Wars, the Australian frontier wars, the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the first and second Boer Wars, the Fenian raids, the Irish War of Independence, interventions in Afghanistan (intended to maintain a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire) and the Crimean War (to keep the Russian Empire at a safe distance by aiding Turkey). Like the English Army, the British Army fought the kingdoms of Spain, France (including the Empire of France) and the Netherlands for supremacy in North America and the West Indies. With native and provincial assistance, the army conquered New France in the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War and suppressed a Native American uprising in Pontiac's War. The British Army was defeated in the American Revolutionary War, losing the Thirteen Colonies but retaining The Canadas and The Maritimes as British North America, as well as Bermuda (originally part of Virginia, and which had been strongly sympathetic to the rebels early in the war).
  The British Army was heavily involved in the Napoleonic Wars, participating in a number of campaigns in Europe (including continuous deployment in the Peninsular War), the Caribbean, North Africa and North America. The war between the British and the First French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte stretched around the world; at its peak in 1813, the regular army contained over 250,000 men. A coalition of Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies under the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal von Blücher finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815.
  The English were involved politically and militarily in Ireland since receiving the Lordship of Ireland from the pope in 1171. The campaign of English republican Protector Oliver Cromwell involved uncompromising treatment of the Irish towns (most notably Drogheda and Wexford) which supported the Royalists during the English Civil War. The English Army (and the subsequent British Army) remained in Ireland primarily to suppress Irish revolts or disorder. In addition to its conflict with Irish nationalists, it was faced with the prospect of battling Anglo-Irish and Ulster Scots in Ireland who were angered by unfavourable taxation of Irish produce imported into Britain. With other Irish groups, they raised a volunteer army and threatened to emulate the American colonists if their conditions were not met. Learning from their experience in America, the British government sought a political solution. The British Army fought Irish rebels—Protestant and Catholic—primarily in Ulster and Leinster (Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen) in the 1798 rebellion.
  In addition to battling the armies of other European empires (and its former colonies, the United States, in the War of 1812), the British Army fought the Chinese in the first and second Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion, Māori tribes in the first of the New Zealand Wars, Nawab Shiraj-ud-Daula's forces and British East India Company mutineers in the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the Boers in the first and second Boer Wars, Irish Fenians in Canada during the Fenian raids and Irish separatists in the Anglo-Irish War. The increasing de
caption: In the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift, a small British force repelled an attack by overwhelming Zulu forces; eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for its defence.
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