Abstract: The regimental system that existed in 1945 was still recognizably the same one that Cardwell and Childers had fashioned. Thirty years later, the British army was still organized on the principle of a regimental system, albeit one that was different in some significant respects from the organization that existed in 1945. This chapter argues that the system had remarkable powers of survival because it surmounted the six challenges that anthropologists have argued that institutions must overcome to survive: they must be able to reproduce themselves; they must devise means to absorb and train newcomers so that they become functioning members of society; they must maintain order between their own members and between them and members of other societies and sub-cultures; they must motivate their members to engage in activities necessary for the survival of the institution; they must provide for the production and distribution of the goods and services deemed necessary to meet its basic needs; and they must be able to adapt successfully to changes in the external environment.

Keywords: Cardwell-Childers reforms, British army, regimental system, anthropology,