The British regular army of the mid-nineteenth century essentially remained the small and elite force it had been a hundred years earlier whereas its European counterparts were being transformed by mass conscription. At the same time British military prestige had been declining since Waterloo as the effectiveness of such an army in a significant European war was questioned at home and abroad, inside and outside military circles. The difficulties exposed by the Crimean War were a clear sign that reform was overdue, not only of the British regular force but also of the auxiliaries: the traditional county-based militia, the mounted yeomanry and the rapidly growing and predominantly city-based volunteer movement. In 1859 a royal commission on the fortifications of British harbours found that the Royal Navy, the regular army and the auxiliaries combined could not ensure Britain's safety from invasion. Meanwhile, Liberal government policies favoured financial and fiscal conservatism, caution in international affairs and reduced defence expenditure. The Gladstone government of 1868, in an environment of general retrenchment, subsequently gave the Secretary of State for War, Edward Cardwell, an impossible mandate to modernise the British Army and to cut costs while increasing efficiency.

Cardwell's subsequent reforms, although significant, were more evolutionary than revolutionary. He was prepared to push for reform against prevailing military conservatism, and did so with a greater level of parliamentary support than his predecessors. Like Earl Grey, Cardwell saw the recall of imperial garrisons abroad as a key step. If the need to maintain these military outposts was removed, then reorganisation of the home army became a real possibility. In any case the scattered garrisons had never added anything to the defence of the British Isles. Moreover, colonial service had always been costly in money and men, given the higher rates of disease, death and desertion on such postings, factors that aggravated the consistent problem of military recruitment. Expenditure on the army in India came out of the Indian budget, yet the other colonial garrisons accounted for a full third of the military vote, and the burden was growing, an acute concern to free-trade liberals.