The Haldane Reforms were a series of far-ranging reforms of the British Army made from 1906 to 1912, and named after the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane. They were the first major reforms since the "Childers Reforms" of the early 1880s, and were made in the light of lessons newly learned in the Second Boer War.
Sir Richard Haldane
The Expeditionary Force on service: men of 4th/Royal Fusiliers resting before the Battle of Mons, 22 August 1914
A company of the Liverpool Scottish, a Territorial unit, on parade after mobilisation in September 1914
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Naval Service and the Royal Air Force. As of 1 January 2024, the British Army comprises 75,166 regular full-time personnel, 4,062 Gurkhas, 26,244 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,557 "other personnel", for a total of 110,029.
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell
Lord General Thomas Fairfax, the first commander of the New Model Army
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was one of the first generals in the new British Army and fought in the War of the Spanish Succession. He was a noted ancestor of Sir Winston S. Churchill, later famous Prime Minister during World War II.
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.