Bermuda Volunteer/Territorial Army Units 1895-1965 - Development of British Army 1860-1908

Development of British Army 1860-1908

The British Army's response to the situation it found itself, in following The Crimea, was a series of reforms, redeployments, and re-structuring that stretched over the next fifty years. It was realised that a standing body of soldiers was required in Britain, composed of all of the combat and support elements required for either countering an invasion of Britain or for dispatch to another campaign like The Crimea. As the Government was unwilling to fund an actual increase of its manpower, the Army could only accomplish this by withdrawing units from Imperial garrisons, and by placing much of the obligation for home defence onto the Volunteer Army. Withdrawing units from much of the Empire would have resulted in native insurrections and border insurgencies, or invited attacks by powerful neighbours (this was especially true in India, with its internal intrigues, Russian and Turkish neighbours, and Afghanistan as a buffer state). The Army's solution was to withdraw or reduce garrisons in sleepy locations such as Bermuda. Bermuda, however, was far too prominent a naval base for the Army to abandon entirely. As the range and effectiveness of artillery increased, however, the number of Garrison Artillery batteries was steadily reduced. This process was accelerated at the end of the 19th century as the Dockyard's own ships assumed the responsibility for its defence. The infantry posted to the Island was steadily reduced, also. By the 1870s, the military garrison, at 2,200, amounted to nearly twenty percent of Bermuda's population, but in the 1880s it was reduced by 1,600. Although its size was briefly restored above 2,000 regular soldiers, the trend would remain the steady reduction from then on.

The Army also went through a major restructuring, the Cardwell reforms, that saw individual battalions grouped to form county regiments, and, in 1908, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)was formed.