Recruitment in the British Army from families with a military tradition. (This contrasted with the Navy, whose officers were more often from a middle-class background.) The second son of King George III, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, did much to improve the standard of officer recruitment from his position as Commander in Chief of the Army (from 1795 to 1809, then from 1811 to 1827). The sale of commissions, finally abolished in the Cardwell reforms in 1868–1874, and the further Childers Reforms. In spite of its abolition, the status of an officer being from a privileged background and that of another rank being
Tanks in the British Army Armoured Brigade. During the war, it came under the US VII Corps and was part of the great armoured left-hook that destroyed many Iraqi Republican Guard formations. The two brigades in the division alternated heading the advance. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards saw active service during the Gulf War in 1991 deploying 57 Challenger tanks. The Army contributed 50,000 troops to the coalition force that fought Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. This included Challenger tank units within the 1st Armoured Division The British Army was deployed to Yugoslavia in 1992; initially this force formed part of the United Nations