Timeline of the British Army
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
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[edit]
1600-1699
- 1633 - The Royal Regiment of Foot (later the Royal Scots) is placed on the Scottish Establshment, 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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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 Balakava 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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
1918-1939
- January 1919 - Anglo-Irish War begins; British forces combat guerilla operations by the Irish Republican Army.
- 1919 - British part of Allied intervention in Russia during its 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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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.
- 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 operation.
