The Making Of The British Army (91 page)

²⁸⁴
See e.g. Richard Beeston, foreign editor of
The Times
, 26 Feb 2009: ‘The war went wrong not the build up’; and the former defence secretary Michael Portillo in
The Spectator
, 25 Mar 2009: ‘Our departure from Iraq ends a dismal period in our military history’.

²⁸⁵
From
The Devil’s Disciple
(1897) – a story set, ominously, during the only war that the army has ever lost.

²⁸⁶
Interview with the author, April 2009.

²⁸⁷
The army remains, too, a ‘smart’ enough profession to attract quality officers: it is, for example, the largest single employer of Old Etonians. And the royal family’s continuing close association must play a part in the army’s prestige, with the two princes’ training at Sandhurst a powerful endorsement. But active operations have always exercised a powerful draw too: 1968, the army’s only year of peace, actually saw a fall in recruiting.

²⁸⁸
With three independent companies at Sandhurst, the School of Infantry in Brecon, and at the infantry training centre in Catterick.

²⁸⁹
The author was told by an impeccable source that on becoming prime minister, Tony Blair had believed the (regular) SAS to number around 40,000 – an exaggeration by two noughts.

²⁹⁰
The Sierra Leone hostage rescue operation in 2000 – Operation Barras – was almost entirely an SAS/Parachute Regiment affair, brilliantly and boldly conceived and executed.

²⁹¹
The question, on which the title of this Epilogue draws, echoes that of Haldane on becoming secretary of state for war in 1905 in the aftermath of the humiliations of South Africa. Haldane was an Hegelian philosopher, not content to accept the plans for army reform until the cabinet and the senior officers could answer the existential question: ‘What is the army
for
?’ (see ch. 20).

²⁹²
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 50th Anniversary Conference, Geneva, September 2008.

²⁹³
He served in the Royal Naval Division at Gallipoli and on the Somme.

²⁹⁴
‘Salute the Soldier’.

²⁹⁵
In the armoured corps a private soldier is ‘Trooper’; in the artillery ‘Gunner’; in the RE ‘Sapper’; in the REME ‘Craftsman’; in the Guards ‘Guardsman’ – and so on. In fact, there are few places in the army where a private soldier is called ‘Private’ any longer.

²⁹⁶
A ‘department’, not a corps, service or regiment, because, uniquely, the RAChD has no ‘other ranks’ (all chaplains have officer status) nor do they carry arms.

Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, Khalifa of Sudan
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Abercromby, Lt-Gen. Sir Ralph
(i)

Aberdeen, George Gordon,
(i)
th earl
(ii)

Aboukir (Abu Qir), landing and battles (1801)
(i)
,
(ii)

Abu Klea, battle (1885)
(i)
,
(ii)

Abyssinia, Italy defeated (1895)
(i)

Abyssinia campaign (1868)
(i)
n

Accrington Pals (service battn East Lancs Regt)
(i)

Adam, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ronald
(i)

Adams, John (US President)
(i)

Addiscombe, training for East India Company officers
(i)

Addison, Revd R. W. F., VC (chaplain)
(i)

Aden, counter-insurgency
(i)
,
(ii)

Adendorff, Lt (Lonsdale’s Regt, Natal Native Contingent)
(i)

Admiralty Regt 31 &
n

Afghan National Army (ANA)
(i)

Afghanistan
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Afghan War (1839–42)
(i)
,
(ii)

British Army in Helmand
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)

collateral damage
(i)

police
(i)

United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance)
(i)

US campaign against Taleban (first phase, 2001–2)
(i)

Afrika Korps

Tobruk (1942)
(i)
,
(ii)

see also
Alamein; German army

Aga Khan, support for British
(i)

agents, army administration and
(i)

Agincourt, battle (1415)
(i)

Agnew, Lt-Col. Sir Andrew of Lochnaw (Royal Scots Fslrs)
(i)

aides-de-camp
(i)

airborne forces (British)
see
Parachute Regt; gliders

aircraft

allied counter-offensive (1918)
(i)

not used at Gallipoli (1915)
(i)

see also
Royal Air Force; Royal Flying Corps

Aisne, battle (1914)
(i)

Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of (1748)
(i)
,
(ii)

Al-Qaeda

in Afghanistan
(i)

in Iraq
(i)

Alam el Halfa, battle (1942)
(i)
,
(ii)

Alamein,
(i)
st battle (1942)
(ii)
,
(iii)

Alamein,
(i)
nd battle (1942)
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)

defensive line
(i)

mine clearance
(i)
,
(ii)

value of for British army
(i)

Alanbrooke, Lord
see
Brooke

Albemarle, duke of
see
Monck, George

Albert, Prince Consort
(i)

Albuera, battle (1811)
(i)
n

Aldershot, mounted infantry school
(i)
n

Alexander, Maj.-Gen. Harold
(i)

Alexandria, battle (1801)
(i)

Alfred, king of Wessex
(i)

Allenby, Gen. Sir Edmund
(i)

Allied Airborne Army (1st), Arnhem
(i)
,
(ii)

allied army groups (Overlord)
(i)
n

12th (Bradley)
(i)
,
(ii)

21st (Montgomery)
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

logistics
(i)
&
n

allied counter-offensive (1918)
(i)

Alma, battle (1854)
(i)
&
n

Alten, Gen. Karl (KGL)
(i)

American Civil War (1861–5)
(i)
,
(ii)

American Revolutionary War (1775–83)
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

impact of and lessons from
(i)

pretext for
(i)

reasons for British defeat
(i)
,
(ii)

Amherst, Lt-Gen. Jeffrey
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Amiens, battle (1918)
(i)
n

Amiens, Peace of (1802)
(i)
&
n

amphibious operations

Gallipoli (1915)
(i)
,
(ii)

landing craft
(i)

Angier, Maj. Pat (Glosters)
(i)
,
(ii)

Anglo-Dutch Brigade
(i)
,
(ii)

Anglo-Dutch wars (17th century)
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Anne, Princess
(later
queen)
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

rewards and titles for Marlborough
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
n

Anson, Maj.-Gen. George
(i)

Anstruther-Gray, William
(i)
n

Antwerp
(i)
,
(ii)

Anzio (1944)
(i)

Arabia, South, counter-insurgency
(i)

Ardennes, German route into France (1940)
(i)

Argentina, Falklands War (1982)
(i)

Argentine army

at Goose Green
(i)

on Mount Tumbledown
(i)

Argyll, Archibald Campbell,
(i)
th earl of
(ii)
,
(iii)

Argyll, John Campbell,
(i)
n
d duke of
(ii)

armies

BEF
see
British Expeditionary Force

before the 1640s
(i)

formation for battle (Civil War period)
(i)

military effectiveness
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)

professional
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)

armoured cars
(i)
&
n
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

armoured forces
(i)
,
(ii)
n
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)
,
(viii)
,
(ix)
,
(x)

BAOR
(i)

see also
tanks (AFVs)

‘arms’ and ‘services’, training
276–7
,
(i)
n
,
(ii)

army
see
British army

Army Council
(i)

Army Dress Committee
(i)

Army Museums Ogilby Trust website
(i)

Army Records Society
(i)
,
(ii)