True, but the phenomenon of Britain more-or-less permanently siding with a group of European powers instead of deciding who to back on a crisis-by-crisis basis is very much an early 20th-centry phenomenon: 1875 isn't dramatically different from 1864 in that respect. The Dreikaiserbund and Reinsurance treaties also suggest that Russian support for France in 1875 was more of a conditional phenomenon than might be implied by your citation of the crisis.it's not like British policies discovered Germany only in the latter part of the XIXth century.
Regular army at home: 89,670 all ranks, 180,444 overseas....actually, how big was the British home army (as in, the standing force) in 1870?
[Class I reserve: 1,930; Class II reserve: 1,151; Reserve of 1859: 2,734]
Militia: 97,040 present at training, including 26,542 efficient militia reserve [Confusingly, the militia reserve is not a reserve for the militia but militiamen who have signed up to serve with the regulars in the event of war (e.g. the Boer) or crisis (e.g. 1878); effectively, an early version of the Special Reserve]
Volunteers: 170,761 efficient, 23,222 non-efficient.
Only good summary for artillery I've got is for 1st January 1872, but at home there were 30 field batteries with the 12pdr Armstrong, 1 field battery in South Africa with the 7pdr RML, and 16 horse and 10 field batteries with the 9pdr RML.
The Nafziger collection has details of the stations as at 1st April 1870, in case someone gets inspired to knock up a TL.
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