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 such as the British A9 Cruiser Mk I slowly became less common. British tanks armament and use in the battles also had to change as German Blitzkrieg tactics and doctrine shifted towards faster medium and heavy tanks fighting large multi-tank battles, with the role of the infantry tank in assaults taken by simpler self-propelled artillery. In British practice, the main armament of the infantry tank went in three phases. The pre-Dunkirk British Army Matilda I had only a single machine gun, a compromise forced by the low cost to which they had been built. The Matilda II gained a capable