Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
The Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, later Commander-in-Chief, British Army, or just the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), was (intermittently) the professional head of the English Army from 1660 to 1707 (the English Army, founded in 1645, was succeeded in 1707 by the new British Army, incorporating existing Scottish regiments) and of the British Army from 1707 until 1904. In 1904 the office was replaced with the creation of the Army Council and the appointment of Chief of the General Staff.
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
Senior-most officer
C-in-C
The Monarch
No fixed term
1645
January 1793
Captain General Sir Thomas Fairfax
as General-in-Chief
FM Jeffery Amherst, 1st Lord Amherst
as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
12 February 1904
Republican origins[edit]
In earlier times, supreme command of the Army had been exercised by the monarch in person. In 1645, after the outbreak of the English Civil War, Parliament appointed Thomas Fairfax "Captain General and Commander-in-Chief of all the armies and forces raised and to be raised within the Commonwealth of England".[1] Thomas Fairfax was the senior-most military officer, having no superior, and held great personal control over the army and its officers. Lord Fairfax was styled "Lord General". None of his successors would use this title. In 1650, Fairfax resigned his post, shortly before the Scottish campaign of the War.[2]
Oliver Cromwell, Fairfax's Lieutenant-General, succeeded him as Commander-in-chief of the Forces.[2] Under Cromwell, the Commander-in-Chief was de facto head of state, especially after the dismissal of the Long Parliament. Cromwell held the office until 1653, when he was elected Lord Protector.[3]
On 21 February 1660, the reconstituted Long Parliament resolved "that General George Monck be constituted and appointed Captain-General and Commander in Chief, under Parliament, of all the Land-Forces of England, Scotland and Ireland".[4]
The Forces[edit]
The British military (ie., that part of the armed forces committed to land warfare, and not to be confused with the naval forces) was originally made up of several forces, including the British Army, the others being: the Ordnance Military Corps of the Board of Ordnance (including the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and Royal Sappers and Miners), being a professional, or regular force like the army);[12][13][14][15] the Militia Force (or Constitutional Force),[16][17][18][19] being a conscripted reserve infantry force able to be called out in times of emergency for home defence; the Yeomanry,[20] being a similar mounted force; and the Volunteer Corps, made up of voluntary reserve units that normally only existed during wartime.[21][22] The Board of Ordnance was abolished in 1855 and its military corps, commissariat stores, transport, barracks and other departments were absorbed into the British Army, which was also called Regular Force or Regular Army). The Reserve Forces were also known as the Auxiliary Forces and the Local Forces (as their personnel could not originally be compelled to serve outside their local areas), and were re-organised in the 1850s with the Militia becoming voluntary (but with recruits engaging for a period of service that they were obliged to complete),[23] and the Volunteer Force permanently established. These forces were increasingly integrated with the British Army during the final decades of the Nineteenth Century and the first decades of the Twentieth Century (the Yeomanry and Volunteer Force became the Territorial Force in 1908, and the Militia became the Special Reserve (and ceased to exist after the First World War).[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]