The British Armed Forces are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid.
The First Sino-Japanese War or the First China–Japan War was a conflict between the Qing dynasty and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895 and signed the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki two months later.
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call, The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever!. She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."
She married British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.
General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, was a senior British Army officer who had an extensive British Imperial military career in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Hamilton was twice recommended for the Victoria Cross, but on the first occasion was considered too young, and on the second too senior. He was wounded in action at the Battle of Majuba during the First Boer War, which rendered his left hand permanently injured. Near the end of his career, he commanded the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.
The Imperial Chinese Navy was the modern navy of the Qing dynasty of China established in 1875. An Imperial naval force in China first came into existence from 1132 during the Song dynasty and existed in some form until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. However, the name "Imperial Chinese Navy" usually only refers to the Qing navy that existed between 1875 and 1912, with "Imperial Chinese Navy" as its official English name.
Richard Simkin was a British artist and illustrator of military uniforms.
Ernest Brooks was a British photographer, best known for his war photography from the First World War. He was the first official photographer to be appointed by the British military, and produced several thousand images between 1915 and 1918, more than a tenth of all British official photographs taken during the war. His work was often posed and formal, but several of his less conventional images are marked by a distinctive use of silhouette. Before and immediately after the war he worked as an official photographer to the Royal Family, but was dismissed from this appointment and stripped of his official honours in 1925, for reasons that were not officially made public.
William Barnes Wollen was an English painter mostly known for his paintings of battle and historical scenes and sporting events.
The Royal Naval Hospital Gibraltar (RNH Gibraltar), formerly the British Military Hospital Gibraltar (BMH Gibraltar), was a military hospital founded c. 1903 to provide healthcare for British military personnel and local sailors. The facility, located on Europa Road in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar's South District, comprised three buildings. The hospital was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1963. It closed in 2008, and underwent residential conversion that began prior to the hospital's closure.
The Common Army as it was officially designated by the Imperial and Royal Military Administration, was the largest part of the Austro-Hungarian land forces from 1867 to 1914, the other two elements being the Imperial-Royal Landwehr and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd. However, it was simply known as the Army (Heer) by the Emperor and in peacetime laws, and, after 1918, colloquially called the k.u.k. Armee.
Charles Frederick Williams, was a Scottish-Irish writer, journalist, and war correspondent.
Charles Napier Robinson was an English journalist and story writer. After a career in the Royal Navy, during which he achieved the rank of Commander, he became a journalist, specialising in naval matters. In his lifetime Robinson witnessed the Naval Review of 1854 and the Silver Jubilee Review of 1936 and as a participant, spectator or correspondent he witnessed all the Naval Reviews of the 80 years between. During his military service he witnessed fighting during the American Civil War.
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Leycester Haymes was a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, Commander of the 6th Siege Battery during World War I and one of the first officers to establish an OP at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. A collection of Haymes's World War I photographs held at the Imperial War Museum, taken while he was in the O.P. and Commander of the 6th Siege Battery, provide a unique insight into the early days of World War I including one of the first 9.2-inch howitzers to arrive in Flanders and the Headquarters of the 14th Division at Pont de Nieppe during the visit of King George V and the Prince of Wales on 2 December 1914.
Henry Beckles Willson, known as Beckles Willson, was a Canadian journalist, First World War soldier, historian and prolific author.
Sir Frank Ignatius Fox was an Australian-born journalist, soldier, author and campaigner, who lived in Britain from 1909.
Valise equipment, pattern 1888, also known as Slade–Wallace equipment, was a leather harness used by the British Armed Forces.
Lord Salisbury described Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax as Imperial fortresses at the 1887 Colonial Conference, though by that point they had been so designated for decades. Later historians have also given the title "imperial fortress" to St. Helena and Mauritius.
General Sir Frederick Campbell (1860-1943) was a British officer who is probably his most famous for the Younghusband Expedition to Tibet in 1903-1904.
Vice-Admiral Gerald Charles Adolphe Marescaux was a Royal Navy and British Army officer. Having joined the navy in 1873, Marescaux spent the majority of his time as a junior officer serving on surveying duties. Promoted to commander in 1896, he served as captain of ships undergoing trials at Sheerness until 1900. He was promoted to captain in 1903 and held commands at home and on the China Station before, in 1910, he took command of the North of Ireland Coastguard. In 1913 he was made King's Harbour Master, Portland, and promoted to rear-admiral.
