Timeline of the British Army

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British Army

Image:Army Flag.gif Components British Army Territorial Army List of current regiments British Forces Germany Structure of the British Army Equipment Modern Equipment History History of the British Army Timeline of the British Army Personnel List of senior officers Officer rank insignia Enlisted rank insignia

Contents 1 1600-1699 2 1700-1799 3 1800-1899 4 1900-1918 5 1918-1939 6 1939-1945 7 1945-1990 8 1990-present

1600-1699

• 1633 - The Royal Regiment of Foot (later the Royal Scots) is placed on the Scottish Establishment, later becoming the oldest infantry regiment in continious service in the British Army.
• 1650 - George Monck's Regiment is formed (later the Coldstream Guards).
• 1656 - Lord Wentworth's Regiment is formed (later the Grenadier Guards).
• 26 January 1661 - King Charles II issues warrant, becoming the acknowledged beginning of the British Army.
• 1661 - The Scots Regiment of Foot Guards is formed (later the Scots Guards).
• 1 October 1661 - The Tangier Regiment is formed (later The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey), and became the most senior English infantry regiment in the British Army.
• 1684 - The English withdraw from the Tangier Garrison.
• 1688 - The War of the Grand Alliance begins.

1700-1799

• 1702 -- The War of the Spanish Succession begins.
• 1707 - The Kingdom of Great Britain is formed.
• 1722 - The Royal Regiment of Artillery is formed.
• 1742 - War of the Austrian Succession begins.
  • 16 June 1743 - The Battle of Dettingen takes place, which saw King George II become the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle.
• 1751 - A numerical system is introduced into the Army, such as 1st Regiment of Foot, 2nd Regiment of Foot, etc.
• 1755 - Seven Years War begins; it lasts until 1763.
  • 1759 - British forces, led by General James Wolfe, takes French Quebec.
• 1775 - The American War of Independence begins.
  • 17 June 1775 - The Battle of Bunker Hill takes place.
  • October 1777 - British defeated at the Battle of Saratoga.
  • 10 December 1778 - British victory at the Battle of Long Island.
• 1793 - French Revolutionary Wars
  • 1795 - Ceylon captured.
  • 1798 - Irish rebellion takes place.

1800-1899

• 1801 - The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is formed.
• French Revolutionary Wars
  • 1801 - A campaign to expel a French invasion force in Egypt takes place.
• 1803 - The Napoleonic Wars begin.
• 1806 - Seizure of the Cape of Good Hope.
  • 1806 - An abortive (initially unauthorised) invasion of Spanish South America begins.
  • 1808 - The Peninsular War begins.
  • 1812 - The War of 1812 against the United States begins.
  • 1814 - The Gurkha War begins.
  • 18 June 1815 - The Battle of Waterloo takes place, ending in defeat for the French.
• 16 August 1819 - The Peterloo Massacre takes place.
• 1854 - The Crimean War begins; ends in 1856.
  • 19 September 1854 - The Siege of Sevastopol begins.
  • 20 September 1854 - The Battle of Alma takes place.
  • 25 October 1854 - The Battle of Balaklava takes place; Charge of the Light Brigade.
• 5 November 1854 - The Battle of Inkerman takes place.
• 8 September 1855 - The siege of Sevastopol ends.
• 1857 - The Indian Mutiny begins.
  • 30 May 1857 - rebels begin the Siege of Delhi.
  • 30 June 1857 - Siege of Lucknow begins.
• 1859 - Due to fear of invasion by France, a volunteer movement begins, known as the Volunteer Rifle Corps.
• 1870 - The Army withdraws from Australia and New Zealand.
• 1871 - The Army adopts the Martini-Henry rifle, replacing the Snider.
• 1871 - Abolition of the purchase of commission.
• 1879 - The Anglo-Zulu War takes place.
  • 22 January 1879 - British force defeated at Battle of Isandlwana.
  • 22 January 1879 - The defence of Rorke's Drift begins; eleven Victoria Crosses would be gained in the process.
• 1 July 1881 - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the Army's organisation, came into effect.
• 28 January 1885 - General Charles George Gordon is killed by Mahommed Ahmed (the self-proclaimed Mahdi) after his siege of Khartoum; British relief force arrives two-days later.
• 1889 - The Maxim machine gun is introduced.
• 2 September 1898 - 21st Lancers perform one of the last full cavalry charges at the Battle of Omdurman.
• 11 October 1899 - The Boer War in Southern Africa begins.
  • 20 October 1889 - The first major battle of the war takes place at Talana Hill.
  • December 1899 - "Black Week", in which the Army suffered a series of defeats, takes place.

1900-1918

• Boer War
  • 28 February - The Siege of Ladysmith is lifted.
  • 1 April 1900 - The Irish Guards is formed in honour of the Irish regiments in the Boer War.
  • 17 May 1900 - The Siege of Mafeking comes to an end.
• 1905 The 5th Battalion, The Royal Garrison Regiment became the last British battalion to leave Canada.
• 1908 - The Territorial Force (later Army) is formed.
• 1912 - The Vickers machine gun is introduced into the Army; it remained in service until 1968.
• 13 May 1912 - Royal Flying Corps formed from Air Battalion, Royal Engineers. Remains part of the Army.
• August 1914 - The First World War begins.
  • August 1914 - British Expeditionary Force begins to deploy to France.
  • 19 October - The First Battle of Ypres begins; last major action of 1914.
  • 26 February 1915 - The Welsh Guards becomes the last Foot Guards regiment to be formed.
  • 25 April 1915 - Landings at Helles, Gallipoli.
  • 10 August 1915 - Landings at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli.
  • 22 October 1915 - The Machine Gun Corps is formed.
  • April 1916 - The Easter Rising in Dublin takes place .
  • 1 July 1916 - The First Day of the Somme begins; about 60,000 casualties are incurred, 20,000 of whom had been killed.
  • 28 July 1917 - The Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps is split off to form the Tank Corps (later the Royal Tank Regiment).
  • 8 November 1917 - About 200 men of the Warwickshire Yeomanry and Worcestershire Yeomanry charge with sabres drawn and defeat an Ottoman battery and a large group of Ottoman infantry at Huj. It was one of the last cavalry charges by the British Army.
  • 20 November 1917 -- The Battle of Cambrai begins; sees the first large-scale use of tanks.
  • December 1917 - The Capture of Jerusalem takes place.
  • 11 November 1918 - The First World War ends with the signing of the Armistice.

1918-1939

• January 1919 - Anglo-Irish War begins; British forces combat guerilla operations by the Irish Republican Army.
• 1919 - British Army takes part in Allied intervention during Russian Civil War.
• 31 July 1922 - Six Irish regiments (5 infantry and one cavalry) are disbanded due to the establishment of the Irish Free State.
• 5 August 1922 - The Royal Corps of Signals is formed.
• 1929 - The British Army of the Rhine in Germany is withdrawn.
• 1935 - Abyssinian Crisis takes place; Army deploys substantial reinforcements to Africa and the Middle East.
• 1936 - uprising in Palestine begins.
• 4 April 1939 - The Royal Armoured Corps is formed.

1939-1945

• 3 September 1939 - Britain enters the Second World War when it declares war, along with its Allies, against Nazi Germany.
  • September 1939 - Units of the British Expeditionary Force begin to land in France.
  • 17 May 1940 - The Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) is formed.
  • 20 May 1940- In France, British armoured counter-attack takes place at Arras.
  • 26 May 1940 - The Dunkirk evacuation begins; over 330,000 British and French soldiers are evacuated by 4 June.
  • 22 June 1940 - The Parachute Corps (later The Parachute Regiment) is formed.
  • April 1941 - Germans invade Crete; Army and Commonwealth forces eventually evacuated by Royal Navy.
  • 9 June 1941 - The Cheshire Yeomanry perform the last cavalry charge by the British Army against Vichy French forces in Syria.
  • 25 December 1941 - The garrison at Hong Kong surrenders to the Japanese.
  • 15 February 1942 - Singapore garrison surrenders to Japanese forces.
  • 23 October 1942 - Second Battle of El Alamein takes place; Montgomery's British Eighth Army defeats the Afrika Korps in offensive.
  • 1943 - The Allied invasion of Sicily begins.
  • 1943 - Invasion of Italian mainland begins.
  • March 1944 - The Japanese launch their offensive against India; battles of Imphal and Kohima takes place.
  • 1 April 1944 - The Special Air Service Regiment is formed to administer existing SAS units.
  • 6 June 1944 - in airborne operations prior to D-Day landings, Pegasus and Horsa Bridges are taken by D Company, 2nd Ox & Bucks, and the Merville gun battery is destroyed by 9th Parachute Battalion.
  • 6 June 1944 - The D-Day landings take place; British Army lands at Gold and Sword; some British units allocated to Canadian beach at Juno.
  • 18 July 1944 - Allied armoured offensive, known as Operation Goodwood, begins.
  • September 1944 - Operation Market Garden takes place.
  • 24 March 1945 - Airborne crossing of the Rhine, known as Operation Varsity, takes place.
  • 8 May 1945 - VE Day takes place.
  • 2 September 1945 - Formal surrender of Japan takes place.

1945-1990

• 1 January 1948 - Four Gurkha regiments are transferred from the Indian Army to the British Army, forming the Brigade of Gurkhas.
• 28 February 1948 - The 1st Battalion, The Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert's) becomes the last British regiment to leave India.
• 1948 - The Malayan Emergency begins.
• 1948 - The Army withdraws from Palestine.
• 1 January 1949 - National Service, the new name for conscription, is introduced.
• 1 February 1949 - The Women's Royal Army Corps is formed.
• 1950 - The Korean War begins.
  • 22 April 1951 - The Battle of the Imjin River takes place.
• 1952 - The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya begins.
• 1953 - The Army withdraws its garrison from Bermuda.
• 1954 - The last troops leave Trieste, having been there since 1945 as part of British Forces Element Trieste.
• 1955 - Occupying troops leave upon Austrian independence.
• June 1956 - Last British troops leave the Suez Canal Zone, Egypt.
• 31 October 1956 - Operation Musketeer, the invasion of Suez begins.
  • 5 November - 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment dropped at El Gamil airfield.
  • 6 November - Amphibious landings take place; Army Centurion tanks land in support.
• 1 September 1957 - The Army Air Corps is formed.
• 1957 - The Sandys Review of the armed forces takes place.
• 1961 - Army deploys troops to Kuwait after its request for British to deter invasion by Iraq.
• 1962 - The Brunei uprising takes place.
• 1963 - Last national serviceman is discharged from the Army.
• 1967 - Withdrawal from Aden after a period of time known as the Aden Emergency.
• August 1969 - British troops deployed to Northern Ireland to assist in stopping sectarian violence. It is the beginning of "The Troubles".
• 5 May 1980 - Special Air Service ends the Iranian Embassy siege.
• 2 April 1982 - Falklands War begins.
  • 28 May - 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (2 Para) defeat Argentinians at Goose Green.
  • 8 June - Bombing of RFA's Sir Galahad, Sir Tristram kils 48, including 32 Welsh Guards.
  • 12 June - 3 Para defeats the Argentinians at Mount Longdon.
  • 14 June - 2 Para takes Wireless Ridge.
  • 14 June - 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards defeat Argentinians at Mount Tumbledown.
  • 14 June - Falkland Islands are liberated upon the surrender of Argentinian forces.

1990-present

• 1991 The Gulf War begins; Army contributes 28,000 troops.
• 1991 - The last British Army regiment leaves Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Regiment is subsequently placed on the Army's regular establishment.
• 1 October 1992 - I Corps is disbanded and replaced by Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps.
• 1993 - British forces deployed to Bosnia as part of UNPROFOR.
• 31 March 1994 - The British Army of the Rhine is disbanded and replaced by British Forces Germany.
• 1994 - The main force of the Army garrison in Belize is withdrawn; small detachment remains as part of British Army Training and Support Unit Belize.
• 30 June 1997 - 1st Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) becomes the last British unit to leave Hong Kong.
• 1998 - The Strategic Defence Review white paper is published.
• 1999 - Kosovo War begins.
• 2000 - 2 PARA arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone to evacuate British, Commonwealth and EU citizens.
• 2001 - The Army deploys to the Republic of Macedonia.
• 7 October 2001 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins. The SAS was, initially, the main Army contribution.
  • December 2001 - Major-General John Chalmers McColl takes command of ISAF in Afghanistan.
• 20 March 2003 - The US-led invasion of Iraq begins.
  • 27 March 2003 - The largest tank engagement by the British Army since WWII takes place; 14 Challenger 2 tanks of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroy 14 Iraqi T-55s.
  • 6 April 2003 - British forces, led by 7 Armoured Brigade (known as 'The Desert Rats') enter Iraq's second city of Basra.
• 2004 - The defence white paper "Delivering Security in a Changing World" is published.
• March 2005 - Private Johnson Beharry of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment is awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in Iraq in 2004.
• 6 April 2005 - The Special Reconnaissance Regiment became operational.