Army Council (1904) Army Council (1904) The Army Council was the supreme administering body of the British Army from its creation in 1904 until it was reconstituted as the Army Board in 1964. The disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War led to the consolidation of all administrative duties in 1855 under the Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet post. That office was not, however, solely responsible for the Army; the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) held a virtually equal level of responsibility. This was reduced in theory by the 1870 reforms introduced by Edward Cardwell, which subordinated the C-in-C to the Secretary for War. In
Recruitment in the British Army size and reverting to its peacetime role of maintaining the Empire. In 1947, British India was given Independence, which meant the loss of the British Indian Army and thousands of volunteer soldiers. The British Government had relied on the British Indian Army for Imperial matters. Now, without this army, the regular British Army was judged to be too small for the demands of an impending Cold War and maintaining the Empire. To meet this demand, which volunteers alone would not, peacetime conscription was enacted by the government and passed by the House of Commons in 1947. In the United Kingdom,