British Army

The **British Army** is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces. As of 2020
, the British Army comprises 80,040 regular full-time personnel and 30,020 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, composed primarily of cavalry and infantry, was originally one of two *Regular* Forces within the British military (those parts of the British Armed Forces tasked with land warfare, as opposed to the naval forces), with the other having been the *Ordnance Military Corps* (made up of the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and the Royal Sappers and Miners) of the Board of Ordnance, which along with the originally civilian Commissariat Department, stores and supply departments, as well as barracks and other departments were absorbed into the British Army when the Board of Ordnance was abolished in 1855 (various other civilian departments of the board were absorbed into the War Office).

The British Army has seen action in major wars between the world's great powers, including the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the First and Second World Wars. Britain's victories in these decisive wars allowed it to influence world events and establish itself as one of the world's leading military and economic powers. Since the end of the Cold War, the British Army has been deployed to a number of conflict zones, often as part of an expeditionary force, a coalition force or part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation.

## References

1. ↑ Quarterly service personnel statistics 1 October 2020 (en).
2. ↑ Williams, Noel T. St John (1 January 1994). Redcoats and courtesans: the birth of the British Army (1660–1690) (en) pp. 1–2. Brassey's (UK).
3. ↑ Walton, Clifford (1 January 1894). History of the British Standing Army. A.D. 1660 to 1700 (en). Harrison and Sons.
4. ↑ Commanding Officers Guide. Manual of Service Law (JSP 830, Volume 1, Chapter 18).
5. ↑ Bill of Rights 1689 (en).
6. ↑ cgsmediacomma-amc-dig-shared@mod.uk, The British Army. The British Army – Higher Command (en).
7. ↑ *NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS*. House of Commons Debate 12 February 1917. Volume 90 cc248-51. British Parliament website
8. ↑ *Unit History: Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance*. Forces War Records
9. ↑ *Board of Ordnance*. Naval History Archive
10. ↑ *THE HONORABLE THE BOARD OF ORDNANCE. 1299—1855*, by J. H. Leslie. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 4, No. 17 (JULY–SEPTEMBER, 1925). Society for Army Historical Research
11. ↑ The Oxford History of the British Empire: The nineteenth century (en). Oxford University Press (1 January 2001).
12. ↑ The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena (en). BRILL (26 December 2007).
13. ↑ cgsmediacomma-amc-dig-shared@mod.uk, The British Army. The British Army – Operations and Deployments (en).

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