George of Cambridge was educated in
Hanover and from 1830 in England by the Rev. J. R. Wood, a canon of
Worcester Cathedral. He was attached to the staff at
Gibraltar from October 1838 to April 1839. and colonel of the
17th Lancers on 25 April 1842. He succeeded to his father's titles of
Duke of Cambridge,
Earl of Tipperary, and
Baron Culloden on 8 July 1850. On 19 June 1854, he was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant-general. of Prince George, 1855, by
Roger Fenton He was present at the battles of the
Alma (September 1854), Meanwhile,
Lord Raglan died at 9.30 pm on 28 June 1855 from dysentery;
General Simpson succeeded Raglan in commanding in the Crimea, followed by
General Codrington. Field Marshal
Viscount Hardinge, the serving
general commanding-in-chief since 1852, was forced to resign in July 1856 on grounds of ill-health. (The Crimean War had ended in March 1856.) On 5 July 1856, the Duke was appointed
general commanding-in-chief of the British Army, In that capacity he served as the chief military advisor to the
Secretary of State for War, with responsibility for the administration of the army and the command of forces in the field. He was promoted to the rank of
general on 15 July 1856 and to the rank of
field marshal on 9 November 1862.
Policies ,
Whitehall The Duke of Cambridge served as commander-in-chief for 39 years. The Duke was also involved in the formation of the
Staff College and of the
Royal Military School of Music, and became governor of the
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich:
Opposition to reforms Under the Duke's command, the British Army became a moribund and stagnant institution. He allegedly rebuked one of his more intelligent subordinates with the words: "Brains? I don't believe in brains! You haven't any, I know, Sir!" He was equally forthright on his reluctance to adopt change: "There is a time for everything, and the time for change is when you can no longer help it." In the wake of the Prussian victories in the 1870–71
Franco-Prussian War, the
Liberal Party government of Prime Minister
William Ewart Gladstone and
Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell called for the Army to undergo major reforms. Cardwell succeeded in pushing through
a number of reforms, including one that made the
commander-in-chief nominally report to the
secretary of state for war. The Duke opposed most of the reforms because they struck at the heart of his view of the Army. According to
Theo Aronson, he "stoutly resisted almost every attempt at reform or modernization." He feared that the newly created force of
reservists would be of little use in a colonial conflict, and that
expeditionary forces would have to strip the most experienced men from the home-based battalions in order to fill the gaps in their ranks. On his resignation he was given the title of honorary colonel-in-chief to the Forces. == Friend of Haig ==