THE INFANTRY REGIMENT
Two, three, or four Battalions form a Regiment, designated by a number or by a permanent name, territorial or personal. In the Regiment are embodied the honourable traditions which have accrued in history, and the esprit de corps engendered by them. The officers are on one Regimental List for promotion, and so serve continuously in the Regiment. They thereby acquire a camaraderie, professional feeling, and personal intimacy with each other and with their men, of the greatest value in war. In foreign armies, with short service of two years, it is hardly too much to say that the Regimental Officers really constitute the permanent army, through which there flows continuously a stream of recruits, receiving a professional impress from their officers.
The Regiment is in foreign armies commanded by a Colonel (with sometimes a Lieutenant-Colonel), assisted by an Adjutant and a small Administrative Staff. The British Regiment is merely a peace organization never found as a whole in war, and the Battalion, with its Colonel and his Staff, its Colours and band, its traditions, history, and esprit de corps, represents what in foreign armies we find in the Regiment. The battalions of the foreign Regiment are merely its tactical units, just as the companies are to the Battalion.
THE INFANTRY BRIGADE
The Brigade is the largest body formed of Infantry only. In the British Service, where there is no Regimental organization in war, the Brigade comprises four battalions. In foreign armies it is composed of two Regiments (comprising six to eight battalions), a faulty organization for Command purposes, as shown in [Chapter I.]
Brigades are commanded by a Brigadier-General, with a Staff Officer, who is styled in England the Brigade Major.
2. CAVALRY
Cavalry, like Infantry, was once of many different natures—“Light,” “Heavy,” Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, etc. These names still survive in the armies of Europe, but the regiments so designated now form practically only one sort of Cavalry, and are all trained for identical action in war, although they still bear their historic names and uniforms, and keep up the old rivalry of their corps traditions.
The formations of Cavalry are the Troop, the Squadron, the Regiment, and the Brigade.