The Royal Army Medical Corps provides the personnel and organization for the medical and sanitary services of the army. In peace-time this service is organized on a garrison basis, hospitals being established where required for the use of all troops in that particular garrison. For war purposes medical officers are still attached to regiments, and in addition the corps provides the personnel and organization necessary for field ambulances, casualty clearing-stations, hospital trains and ships, and various classes of fixed hospitals. The corps is organized in numbered companies, and the rank and file are trained in first aid and ambulance duties generally. It is administered by a director-general of Army Medical Services with the rank of lieutenant-general, who is an officer of the adjutant-general's department.
The other departments and administrative services of the army consist of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, dealing generally with munitions of war; the Army Pay Department; the Royal Army Chaplains' Department; and the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, of which the functions are sufficiently designated by their title. In addition, there are manufacturing establishments at Woolwich Arsenal and elsewhere.
The Army Reserve consists of men who have completed their term of colour service, or service with a unit, and have thus passed into civil life, though still remaining liable for a period of years to be recalled to the colours if mobilization is ordered.
The Special Reserve was formed under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907 out of the old militia. It consists generally of one battalion to each regiment of infantry, and is numbered consecutively with regular battalions of the regiment. It will, in the future, probably be again known as the Militia.
The Royal Marines--artillery and infantry, or the 'blue' and the 'red' marines, Kipling's "soldier and sailor too"--are not part of the army proper, as they are administered entirely by the Admiralty. They are, however, amenable to the Army Act when serving ashore. The term of service is for twelve years, which may be extended to make up twenty-one. Men may be transferred to or from the army at their own request.