Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890 and was the first Chancellor of the German Empire between 1871 and 1890. In 1862, King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a position he would hold until 1890, with the exception of a short break in 1873, he provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark and France. Following the victory against Austria, he abolished the supranational German Confederation and instead formed the North German Confederation as the first German national state in 1867, leading it as Federal Chancellor; this aligned the smaller North German states behind Prussia. Receiving the support of the independent South German states in the Confederation's defeat of France, he formed the German Empire in 1871, unifying Germany with himself as Imperial Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia at the same time.
The new German nation excluded Austria, Prussia's main opponent for predominance among the German states. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germany's position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace. For historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was Bismarck who "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for twenty years after 1871, devoted himself and to maintaining peace between the powers". However, his annexation of Alsace-Lorraine gave new fuel to French nationalism and promoted Germanophobia in France; this helped set the stage for the First World War. Bismarck's diplomacy of realpolitik and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor". German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy, he disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. Juggling a complex interlocking series of conferences and alliances, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain Germany's position and used the balance of power to keep Europe at peace in the 1870s and 1880s.
A master of complex politics at home, Bismarck created the first welfare state in the modern world, with the goal of gaining working class support that might otherwise go to his Socialist enemies. In the 1870s, he allied himself with the Liberals and fought the Catholic Church in what was called the Kulturkampf, he lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forming a powerful Centre party and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck reversed himself, ended the Kulturkampf, broke with the Liberals, imposed protective tariffs, formed a political alliance with the Centre Party to fight the Socialists. A devout Lutheran, he was loyal to his king, who argued with Bismarck but in the end supported him against the advice of his wife and his heir. While the Reichstag, Germany's parliament, was elected by universal male suffrage, it did not have much control of government policy. Bismarck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a traditional Junker elite that consisted of the landed nobility in eastern Prussia.
Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck controlled domestic and foreign affairs, until he was removed by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, at the age of seventy-five. Bismarck – a Junker himself – was strong-willed and overbearing, but he could be polite and witty, he displayed a violent temper, he kept his power by melodramatically threatening resignation time and again, which cowed Wilhelm I. He possessed not only a long-term national and international vision but the short-term ability to juggle complex developments; as the leader of what historians call "revolutionary conservatism", Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists. Many historians praise him as a visionary, instrumental in uniting Germany and, once, accomplished, kept the peace in Europe through adroit diplomacy. Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, a wealthy family estate situated west of Berlin in the Prussian province of Saxony, his father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bismarck, was a Junker estate owner and a former Prussian military officer.
He had two siblings: his younger sister Malwine. The world saw Bismarck as a typical Prussian Junker, an image that he encouraged by wearing military uniforms. Bismarck was well cosmopolitan with a gift for conversation. In addition to his native German, he was fluent in English, Italian and Russian. Bismarck was educated at Johann Ernst Plamann's elementary school, the Friedrich-Wilhelm and Graues Kloster secondary schools. From 1832 to 1833, he studied law at the University of Göttingen, where he was a member of the Corps Hannovera, enrolled at the University of Berlin. In 1838, while stationed as an army reservist in Greifswald, he studied agriculture at the University of Greifswald. At Göttingen, Bismarck befriended the American student John Lothrop Motley. Motley, who became an eminent historian and diplomat while remaining close to Bismarck, wrote a novel in 1839, Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial, about l
Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power; the Prussian Army had its roots in the core mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648. Elector Frederick William developed it into a viable standing army, while King Frederick William I of Prussia increased its size and improved its doctrines. King Frederick the Great, a formidable battle commander, led the disciplined Prussian troops to victory during the 18th-century Silesian Wars and increased the prestige of the Kingdom of Prussia; the army had become outdated by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, France defeated Prussia in the War of the Fourth Coalition. However, under the leadership of Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Prussian reformers began modernizing the Prussian Army, which contributed to the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Conservatives halted some of the reforms and the Prussian Army subsequently became a bulwark of the conservative Prussian government.
In the 19th century the Prussian Army fought successful wars against Denmark and France, allowing Prussia to unify Germany and to establish the German Empire in 1871. The Prussian Army formed the core of the Imperial German Army, replaced by the Reichswehr after World War I; the army of Prussia grew out of the united armed forces created during the reign of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. Hohenzollern Brandenburg-Prussia had relied upon Landsknecht mercenaries during the Thirty Years' War, in which Brandenburg was devastated. Swedish and Imperial forces occupied the country. In the spring of 1644, Frederick William started building a standing army through conscription to better defend his state. By 1643–44, the developing army numbered only 5,500 troops, including 500 musketeers in Frederick William's bodyguard; the elector's confidant Johann von Norprath recruited forces in the Duchy of Cleves and organized an army of 3,000 Dutch and German soldiers in the Rhineland by 1646. Garrisons were slowly augmented in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia.
Frederick William sought assistance from France, the traditional rival of Habsburg Austria, began receiving French subsidies. He based his reforms on those of the War Minister of King Louis XIV of France; the growth of his army allowed Frederick William to achieve considerable territorial acquisitions in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, despite Brandenburg's relative lack of success during the war. The provincial estates desired a reduction in the army's size during peacetime, but the elector avoided their demands through political concessions and economy. In the 1653 Brandenburg Recess between Frederick William and the estates of Brandenburg, the nobility provided the sovereign with 530,000 thalers in return for affirmation of their privileges; the Junkers thus cemented their political power at the expense of the peasantry. Once the elector and his army were strong enough, Frederick William was able to suppress the estates of Cleves and Prussia. Frederick William attempted to professionalize his soldiers during a time when mercenaries were the norm.
In addition to individually creating regiments and appointing colonels, the elector imposed harsh punishments for transgressions, such as punishing by hanging for looting, running the gauntlet for desertion. Acts of violence by officers against civilians resulted in decommission for a year, he developed a cadet institution for the nobility. Field Marshals of Brandenburg-Prussia included John George II, Spaen and Sparr; the elector's troops traditionally were organized into disconnected provincial forces. In 1655, Frederick William began the unification of the various detachments by placing them under the overall command of Sparr. Unification increased through the appointment of Generalkriegskommissar Platen as head of supplies; these measures decreased the authority of the mercenary colonels, so prominent during the Thirty Years' War. Brandenburg-Prussia's new army survived its trial by fire through victory in the 1656 Battle of Warsaw, during the Northern Wars. Observers were impressed with the discipline of the Brandenburger troops, as well as their treatment of civilians, considered more humane than that of their allies, the Swedish Army.
Hohenzollern success enabled Frederick William to assume sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia in the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau, by which Brandenburg-Prussia allied itself with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite having expelled Swedish forces from the territory, the elector did not acquire Vorpommern in the 1660 Treaty of Oliva, as the balance of power had been restored. In the early 1670s, Frederick William supported Imperial attempts to reclaim Alsace and counter the expansion of Louis XIV of France. Swedish troops invaded Brandenburg in 1674 while the bulk of the elector's troops were in winter quarters in Franconia. In 1675 Frederick William surrounded Wrangel's troops; the elector achieved his greatest victory in the Battle of Fehrbellin. After Sweden invaded Prussia in late 1678, Frederick William's forces expelled the Swedish invaders during "the Great Sleigh Drive" of 1678–79. Frederick William built the Hohenzollern army up to a peacet
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, protectorates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km2, 24% of the Earth's total land area; as a result, its political, legal and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" was used to describe the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, in the process established large overseas empires.
Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England and following union between England and Scotland in 1707, Great Britain, the dominant colonial power in North America, it became the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. Unchallenged at sea, British dominance was described as Pax Britannica, a period of relative peace in Europe and the world during which the British Empire became the global hegemon and adopted the role of global policeman.
In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain. The British Empire expanded to include most of India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its own colonies, its dominance of much of world trade meant that it controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia and Latin America. During the 19th century, Britain's population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the British government under Benjamin Disraeli initiated a period of imperial expansion in Egypt, South Africa, elsewhere. Canada and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied upon its empire.
The conflict placed enormous strain on the military and manpower resources of Britain. Although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent after World War I, Britain was no longer the world's pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britain's colonies in East and Southeast Asia were occupied by Japan. Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger decolonisation movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire; the Suez Crisis confirmed Britain's decline as a global power. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire. Fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states.
The United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to discover a route to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the European discovery of America, but he made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland, mistakenly believing that he had reached Asia, there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was heard of his ships again. No further attempts to establish English colonies in the Americas were made until well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, during the last decades of the 16th century. In the meantime, the 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of England is an Empire".
The subsequent Protestant Reformation turned Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 1562, the English Crown encouraged the privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa with the aim of breaking into the Atlantic slave tr
Shako
A shako is a tall, cylindrical military cap with a visor, sometimes tapered at the top. It is adorned with some kind of ornamental plate or badge on the front, metallic or otherwise, has a feather, plume, or pompom attached at the top; the word shako originated from the Hungarian name csákó, a part of the uniform of the Hungarian hussar of the 18th century. Other spellings include chako, czako and tschako. From 1800 on the shako became a common military headdress, worn by the majority of regiments in the armies of Europe and the Americas. Replacing in most instances the light bicorne, the shako was considered an improvement. Made of heavy felt and leather, it retained its shape and provided some protection for the soldier's skull, while its visor shaded his eyes; the shako retained this pre-eminence until the mid-19th century, when spiked helmets began to appear in the army of Prussia, which influenced armies of the various German States, the more practical kepi replaced it for all but parade wear in the French Army.
The Imperial Russian Army substituted a spiked helmet for the shako in 1844-45 but returned to the latter headdress in 1855, before adopting a form of kepi in 1864. Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, military fashions changed and cloth or leather helmets based on the German headdress began to supersede the shako in many armies. Although the mid-19th century shako was impressive in appearance and added to the height of the wearer, it was heavy and by itself provided little protection against bad weather as most models were made of cloth or felt material over a leather body and peak. Many armies countered this by utilising specially designed oilskin covers to protect the shako and the wearer from heavy rain while on campaign; the shako provided little protection from enemy action as the most it could offer was in giving partial shielding of the skull from enemy cavalry sabres. During the period of general peace that followed the Napoleonic Wars, the shako in European armies became a showy and impractical headdress, best suited for the parade ground.
As an example, the "Regency" officers' shako of the British Army of 1822 was eight and a half inches in height and eleven inches across at the crown, with ornamental gold cords and lace. Lt. Col. George Anthony Legh Keck can be seen in a portrait from 1851 wearing a'broad topped' shako, topped by a twelve-inch white plume and held in place by bronze chin scales; the "Regency" shako was followed in the British Army by a succession of models —"Bell-topped", "Albert", "French" and "Quilted" — until the adoption of the Home Service helmet, in 1877. The "stovepipe" shako was a cylindrical type with a brass badge attached to the front; the stovepipe was used by the infantry of the British Army from around 1799, its use was continued until the end of the Peninsular War. From on it was used only by the light infantry; the "Belgic" shako was a black felt shako with a raised front introduced in the Portuguese Marines in 1797 and in the Portuguese Army in 1806, as the barretina. It was adopted by the British Army replacing the stovepipe shako in 1812, but was not introduced until 1815.
The Belgic shako was decorated with silver or gold lace for officers, according to regimental practice. The kiwa was a style of shako introduced into the Imperial Russian Army in 1812; this style of shako was worn by the Black Brunswickers alongside shakos of the Austrian pattern. The bell-top shako was a large and elaborate type which became popular in the 1820s and 1830s when there was little warfare between the major European powers and practicality on the battlefield became less important than appearance on the parade ground, it featured a crown that flared outwards towards the top, giving a distinctive bell shape, was adorned with decorative cords and plumes. The Albert shako was a British design introduced in 1844, intended to be more practical than previous models, it featured a lower crown that tapered inwards at the top, a second peak at the back intended to protect the wearer's neck from the sun. It is named after Prince Albert who designed it, it was not popular, during the Crimean War a round "undress cap" was worn instead.
It was replaced by a smaller, lighter version, but the shako was superseded for most regiments by the home service helmet in 1878. The Bengal Native Infantry of the British East India Company's army worn a version of the bell-top shako as described above, although lacking a vizor or peak. Portrayed in contemporary illustrations as being worn by mutinous sepoys during the Great Indian Rebellion of 1857, this headdress was replaced by the Kilmarnock cap ten years before. In 1914, the shako was still being worn in France. In Belgium the shako was official field dress for line infantry, chasseurs à pied, transport/ambulance, fortress artillery, mounted chasseurs, although after the outbreak of war it was discarded in favour of the "undress" cap. In Denmark it remained part of the full dress of Guard Hussars.
Pith helmet
The pith helmet known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, sola topee or topi, is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of sholapith. Pith helmets were worn by European travelers and explorers, in the varying climates found in Africa, Southeast Asia, the tropics, but have been used in many other contexts, they were issued to European military personnel serving overseas "in hot climates" from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The pith helmet was first worn by Spanish forces during the colonial era of the Spanish East Indies, was adopted by the French in Indochina due to its effectiveness in protecting from damp and humid weather. Subsequently, it was worn by non-indigenous officers commanding locally recruited troops in the colonial armies of France, Spain, Italy, Imperial Germany and the Netherlands, as well as civilian officials in their territories; as such it became something of a symbol of colonial rule. Helmets of a similar style but without true pith construction continued to be used as late as World War II by European and American military personnel.
Such was the popularity of the pith helmet that it became a common civilian headgear for Westerners in the tropics from the end of the 19th century. The civilian pith helmet was less decorative and more practical, not as tall as the military counterpart, with a wide brim all round, it was worn by men and women and young, both in formal and casual occasions, until the Second World War. After the war, the Viet Minh of Vietnam copied the pith helmet from the former French colonizer, adopted it as their own. Today it is still worn by both civilians and the military in Vietnam. For military use, helmets of this type had begun to prove clumsy and conspicuous in the field, after World War II they ceased to be worn on active service. Outside Vietnam the pith helmet is now worn by certain units of the British, Canadian and Thai military, the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince of Monaco, on ceremonial occasions. Similar sun helmets are still worn today by some mail carriers of the U. S. Postal Service.
The pith helmet has seen use as a form of identification by U. S. Marine Corps marksmanship instructors at Parris Island, San Diego, fleet ranges, similar to the campaign hat worn by drill instructors; these Marines wear black metal USMC insignia on the front of their pith helmet if they are marksmanship coaches, or gold if they are marksmanship trainers and block NCOs. A pith helmet derives from either the sola plant, Aeschynomene aspera, an Indian swamp plant, or from Aeschynomene paludosa. In the narrow definition, a pith helmet is technically a type of sun helmet made out of pith material. However, the pith helmet may more broadly refer to the particular style of helmet. In this case, a pith helmet can be made out of fibrous, or similar material. Whatever the material, the pith helmet is designed to face from the sun. Pith helmets were used by the Spanish military, which used the term salacot. Crude forms of pith helmet had existed as early as the 1840s, but it was around 1870 that the pith helmet became popular with military personnel in Europe's tropical colonies.
The Franco-Prussian War had popularized the German Pickelhaube, which may have influenced the distinctive design of the pith helmet. Such developments may have merged with a traditional design from the salakot; the alternative name salacot appears in Spanish and French sources. During the Philippine–American War, President Emilio Aguinaldo and the Philippine Revolutionary Army used to wear the pith helmet borrowed from the Spaniards alongside the straw hat and the native salakot. Made of pith with small peaks or "bills" at the front and back, the helmet was covered by white cloth with a cloth band around it, small holes for ventilation. Military versions had metal insignia on the front and could be decorated with a brass spike or ball-shaped finial; the chinstrap would be either brass chain, depending on the occasion. The base material became the more durable cork, although still covered with cloth and still referred to as "pith" helmet. During the Anglo-Zulu War, British troops dyed their white pith helmets with tea for camouflage.
Soon khaki-coloured pith helmets became standard issue. While this form of headgear was associated with the British Empire, all European colonial powers used versions of it during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the French tropical helmet was first authorised for colonial troops in 1878. The Dutch wore the helmet during the entire Aceh War and the United States Army adopted it during the 1880s for use by soldiers serving in the intensely sunny climate of the Southwest United States, it was worn by the North-West Mounted Police in policing North-West Canada, 1873 through 1874 to the North-West Rebellion and before the stetson in the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898. European officers commanding locally recruited indigenous troops, as well as civilian officials in African and Asian colonial territories, used the pith helmet. Troops serving in the tropics wore pith helmets, although on active service they sometimes used alternatives such as the wide-brimmed slouch hat worn by US troops in the Philippines and by British empire forces in the stages of the Boer War.
In what was the British Empire, sun helmets made of pith first appeared in Ind
Chilean Army
The Chilean Army is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 50,000 army is organized into a special operations brigade and an air brigade. In recent years, after several major re-equipment programs, the Chilean Army has become the most technologically advanced and professional army in Latin America; the Chilean Army is supplied with equipment from Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Israel and Spain. The National Army of Chile was created on December 2, 1810, by order of the First National Government Junta; the army was involved in the Independence War, fought against royalist troops in battles such as Yerbas Buenas, San Carlos, Rancagua and Maipú. During this period, national figures such as José Miguel Carrera, Bernardo O'Higgins and Argentinian General José de San Martín commanded the army toward definitive victory over the Spanish forces achieving independence for the country; the Army's first commander-in-chief was José Miguel Carrera. After obtaining independence from Spain, the newly formed Republic reorganized its military structure by creating the Military Academy of Chile, founded by General O'Higgins in 1817.
Diego Portales set up a civil militia, the Guardia Nacional, to end one of the worst stages of militarism in Chilean history. The militia was created in 1825 Portales developed this parallel army to compensate the army's might; the Chilean Conscription Law of 1900 marked the beginning of the end of the Guardia Nacional. During the War of the Pacific, many high-ranking officers won valuable insights into the state of the army and became aware that the army required rebuilding. Losses, material destruction, organizational flaws regarding strategic planning and officer training, were noted by officers like Emilio Sotomayor and Patricio Lynch, who approached President Santa María arguing the need of good schools and technical departments for the military. Other factor that supported the emulation, the deliberate systematic imitation of the military technology and doctrine of one country by another was the danger of war with Argentina; the emulation was backed by a broad coalition of military leaders.
Chile hired a French military training mission in 1858, the Chilean legation in Berlin was instructed to find a training mission during the War of the Pacific in 1881. But large-scale emulation of the Prussian Army began in 1886 with the appointment of Captain Emil Körner, a graduate of the renowned Kriegsakademie in Berlin. Appointed were 36 Prussian officers to train officer cadets in the Chilean Military Academy; the training occurred in three phases. The emulation was focused in armaments, officer recruitment and instruction, general staff organization as well as military doctrine, it was extended into military logistics and medical services, retirement, salary regulation and uniforms, marching styles, helmets and military music. Armaments: Prior to 1883, the army was equipped with a variety of rifles French and Belgian origin. From 1892 to 1902, the Chilean-Argentine Arms Race, marked the peak of Chilean arms purchase. 100,000 Mauser rifles and new Krupp artillery was bought for 3,000,000 DM in 1893, 2,000,000 DM in 1895 and 15,000,000 DM in 1898.
Ammunition factories and small arms manufacturing plants were established. Conscription: Like others armies in South America, Chile had had a small army of long-term service officers and soldiers. In 1900 Chile became the first country in Latin America to enforce a system of compulsory military service, whereby training five to eighteen months, took place in zones of divisional organization in order to create a solid military structure that could be doubled with well-trained and combat-ready reserve forces. Budgetary restrictions prevented the full impact of the law: the service fell disproportionately on the lower classes, no more than 20% of the contingent was incorporated annually, former conscripts were not retrained periodically. Officer education and training: The beginning of the German mission were dedicated exclusively to the organization and implementation of a standardized, technically oriented military education with the essence of Moltke's German military system of continuous study of artillery, cartography, topography, tactics, etc. for a modern and technically trained officer corps.
In 1886, the "Academia de Guerra" was founded "to elevate the level of technical and scientific instruction of army officers, in order that they be able, in case of war, to utilize the advantages of new methods of combat and new armaments." The best alumni were candidates for general staff service. By the mid-1890s Körner organized the courses for a Noncommissioned Officers' School. During the 1891 Chilean Civil War Körner was removed from duty by José Manuel Balmaceda, he and his followers set sail north to join the Congressional forces in Iquique. He became chief architect of the new army and, though Estanislao del Canto formally was commander-in-chief, Körner led the rebel forces in the major clashes of the civil war. Chile had had a General Staff during the War of the Pacific. Körner turned his attention to a permanent institution in 1893-94 that should replace the old "Inspector General del Ejército", but with control over military affairs in peacetime and wartime, it had four sections: Instruction and Discipline, Military
Household Cavalry
The Household Cavalry is made up of the two most senior regiments of the British Army, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals. These regiments are divided between the Armoured Regiment stationed at Combermere Barracks in Windsor and the ceremonial mounted unit, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, garrisoned at Hyde Park Barracks in London; the Household Cavalry is the Queen's official bodyguard. The British Household Cavalry is classed as a corps in its own right, consists of two regiments: the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals, they are the senior regular regiments in the British Army, with traditions dating from 1660, act as the Queen's personal bodyguard. They are guards regiments and, with the five foot guard regiments, help constitute the seven guards regiments of the Household Division; the Household Cavalry as a whole is split into two different units that fulfil distinct roles. These are both joint units. Like other Cavalry formations, the Household Cavalry is divided into squadrons.
The whole corps is under the command of the Commander Household Cavalry, who holds the Royal Household appointment of Silver Stick in Waiting. He is a Colonel, is assisted by a retired lieutenant colonel as Regimental Adjutant; the current Commander is Colonel S H Cowen RHG/D. The first unit is the Household Cavalry Regiment, it has an active operational role as a Formation Reconnaissance Regiment, serving in armoured fighting vehicles, which has seen them at the forefront of the nation's conflicts. The regiment serves as part of the Royal Armoured Corps, forms one of five formation reconnaissance regiments in the British Army's order of battle; the HCR has four operational squadrons, three of which are traditional medium reconnaissance squadrons equipped with the combat vehicle reconnaissance or CVR range of vehicles and the fourth is referred to as Command and Support Squadron and includes specialists, such as Forward Air Controllers. One of HCR's squadrons is assigned to the airborne role with 16 Air Assault Brigade as of 2003.
The Regiment is based at Combermere Barracks, one mile from Windsor Castle. The men of the Household Division have sometimes been required to undertake special tasks as the Sovereign’s personal troops; the Household Cavalry were called to Windsor Castle on 20 November 1992 to assist with salvage operations following the'Great Fire'. The second unit is the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, horsed and carries out mounted ceremonial duties on State and Royal occasions; these include the provision of a Sovereign's Escort, most seen on The Queen's Birthday Parade in June each year. Other occasions include state visits by visiting heads of state, or whenever required by the British monarch; the regiment mounts the guard at Horse Guards. HCMR consists of one squadron from The Life Guards, one from The Blues and Royals and a squadron called Headquarters Squadron, responsible for all administrative matters and includes the regimental headquarters, the Riding Staff, Farriers and Saddlers; the Regiment has been based at Hyde Park Barracks, since 1795.
This is three-quarters of a mile from Buckingham Palace. New troopers and officers are first assigned to London upon completion of horsemanship training and remain there for up to three years. Like the five Foot Guards regiments they rotate between ceremonial duties. Second Lieutenants in The Blues and Royals are known as Cornets; the rank names and insignia of non-commissioned officers in the Household Cavalry are unique in the British Army: Formerly, sergeant was an infantry rank: no cavalry regiment had sergeants. Only the Household Cavalry now maintains this tradition because sergeant derives from the Latin serviens and members of the Household Cavalry, once drawn from the gentry and aristocracy, could not abide such a title. However, this origin may be apocryphal, since serjeant was a title used by some offices of comparative seniority, such as Serjeants at Arms, Serjeants at Law. Recruits were required to have a high moral character. Before the Second World War, recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 10 inches tall, but could not exceed 6 feet 1 inch.
They enlisted for eight years with the colours and a further four years with the reserve. There is a farrier on call "round the clock, twenty-four hours a day, at Hyde Park Barracks". Farriers traditionally combined veterinary knowledge with blacksmiths' skills, they were responsible for fitting horseshoes to horses. They dealt with the "humane dispatch of wounded and sick horses", accomplished with the large spike on the end of their axes, they used the sharp blade of the axe to chop off the deceased animal's hoof, marked with its regimental number. This assisted in keeping track of animals killed in action. Although the axes are not used any more, army farriers still carry these axes, with their characteristic blade and spike, at ceremonial events such as Trooping the Colour. In the Blues and Royals, the farriers dress like their comrades in regimental uniform; the distinctive uniform and equipment of the farriers of the Life Guards—blue tunic, black plume and axe—is a historic reminder of the old British Army of the days of James Wolfe.
Every cavalry regiment in the Army, other than the
.jpg)
.jpg)
