Recruitment in the British Army such as French Royalists, Germans, Greeks and Corsicans to supplement its forces. In 1813 one fifth of the army, 52,000 men, were such volunteers. The British Army in 1813 contained over 250,000 men, though this was much larger in comparison to the army at the beginning of the war, the all volunteer British army was still much smaller than that of France, which with conscription had an army over 2.6 million. From 1798 onwards, structural, training and logistical reforms implemented or authorised by the Duke of York (as commander-in-chief of the army) slowly improved the lot of the ordinary soldier.
Arthur Roberts (British Army officer) Arthur Roberts (British Army officer) Brigadier General Arthur Colin Roberts CMG DSO (1870-1917) was a senior British Army officer during the First World War. Born in 1870, Arthur Roberts was educated at Bedford School. He received his first commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers in 1890, and served during the Second Boer War, taking part in operations in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony. He served with the Royal West African Frontier Force, between 1902 and 1904, and was promoted to the rank of Major in 1907. He served during the First World