The British Tenth Army was created in Iraq and formed the major part of "Paiforce" (Persia and Iraq Force). It was composed of British and Indian troops and was actively engaged in quelling the Iraqi rebellion in 1941 and in the operations against Axis elements in Persia that were supposed to be in Persia, actually rather in preventing them getting there, and preventing the possibility of the Russians taking the oil fields. The main task of the Tenth Army was the maintenance of the lines of communication to Russia from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian and the protection of the South Persian and Iraqi oilfields. Its badge was a golden Assyrian Lion with human head and eagle's wings(a Cherub Guardian. A variation of colouring of this badge was a white Lion on a pale blue background. More information about this activity and its background, from the British standpoint, may be found on http://www.bibliothecapersica.com/articles/v11f3/v11f3001b.html for the period of 1921 up to 1941 and http://www.bibliothecapersica.com/articles/v11f3/v11f3001c.html for the period 1941 - 1979.
The exploits of her armies under the legendary Sesostris cannot be regarded as historical, but it appears certain that the country possessed an army, capable of waging war in a regular fashion, and divided thus early into separate arms, these being chariots, infantry and archers.
That army organization in the modern sense - organization for tactics and command - did not develop in any degree commensurate with the development of military administration, was due to the peculiar characteristics of the feudal system, and the virtues and weaknesses of medieval armies were its natural outcome.
The army was arrayed as a whole in two lines of battle, with the infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, and an advanced guard; the so-called reserve consisting merely of troops not assigned to the regular commands.
In the 1690s, European armies developed and fielded the socket bayonet, a long spike-shaped blade that could be fixed on the end of a musket without obstructing the bore of the weapon during loading and firing.
British and French commanders spent most of the war seeking the means of penetrating and disrupting the enemy defenses in order to restore the war of maneuver.
By 1929, British regulations had abandoned the old belief in the primacy of infantry, which instead became "the arm which confirms the victory and holds the ground won" by a close cooperation of all arms.
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