The wandering army the campaigns that transformed the British way of war, 1750-1850

At the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession in 1742, the British Army's military tactics were tired and outdated, stultified after three decades of peace. The army's leadership was conservative, resistant to change, and unable to match new military techniques developing on the continent. Losses were cataclysmic and the force was in dire need of modernization, both in terms of strategy and in leadership and technology. The book traces the British Army's accumulation of military knowledge across the following century. An essentially global force, British armies and soldiers continually gleaned and synthesized strategy from warzones the world over: from Europe to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The book records how the army and its officers put this globally acquired knowledge to use, exchanging information and developing into a remarkable vehicle of innovation-leading to the pinnacle of its military prowess in the nineteenth century. Contents 7 List of Illustrations and Maps 9 List of Abbreviations 12 Acknowledgements 15 Introduction: ‘A Science Covered with Darkness’: British Military Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century 21 1 ‘Grasping in the Dark’: Defeat and Humiliation, Adaptation and Innovation, 1745–1758 35 2 ‘I Was Come to Take Canada’: Louisbourg, Quebec and Montreal, 1758–1760 70 3 The ‘Great Book of War’: Forms of British Military Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century 102 4 ‘No Idea of Any Other Than a Direct Attack’: William Howe in America, 1774–1777 138 5 ‘Indirect Manoeuvres’: The Failure of Henry Clinton’s American Strategy, 1775–1781 174 6 ‘Advance and Be Forward’: Military Knowledge and Adaptation in India, 1750–1790 206 7 ‘Decisive Victory Will Relieve Us from All Our Distresses’: The Lessons of War with Mysore, 1790–1803 226 8 ‘Totally Unfit for Service’: Defeat and Humiliation, 1793–1799 253 9 The ‘Wandering Army’: The Rebirth of the British Army, 1799–1801 277 10 The ‘Universal Soldier’: Shorncliffe and the Light Division, 1803–1812 307 11 ‘The Scientifics’: High Wycombe and the British Way of Warfare, 1803–1815 336 12 ‘The Dread of Innovation’: From Enlightenment to Ignorance, 1815–1856 362 Conclusion: ‘Every Fertile Genius’: Britain’s Accidental Military Enlightenment Explained 389 Notes 409 Bibliography 465 Index 493 A compelling history of the British Army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries--showing how the military gathered knowledge from campaigns across the globe At the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession in 1742, the British Army's military tactics were tired and outdated, stultified after three decades of peace. The army's leadership was conservative, resistant to change, and unable to match new military techniques developing on the continent. Losses were cataclysmic and the force was in dire need of modernization--both in terms of strategy and in leadership and technology. In this wide-ranging and highly original account, Huw Davies traces the British Army's accumulation of military knowledge across the following century. An essentially global force, British armies and soldiers continually gleaned and synthesized strategy from warzones the world over: from Europe to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Davies records how the army and its officers put this globally acquired knowledge to use, exchanging information and developing into a remarkable vehicle of innovation--leading to the pinnacle of its military prowess in the nineteenth century At the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession in 1742, the British Army's military tactics were tired and outdated, stultified after three decades of peace. The army's leadership was conservative, resistant to change, and unable to match new military techniques developing on the continent. Losses were cataclysmic and the force was in dire need of modernization-both in terms of strategy and in leadership and technology.0 In this wide-ranging and highly original account, Huw Davies traces the British Army's accumulation of military knowledge across the following century. An essentially global force, British armies and soldiers continually gleaned and synthesized strategy from warzones the world over: from Europe to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Davies records how the army and its officers put this globally acquired knowledge to use, exchanging information and developing into a remarkable vehicle of innovation-leading to the pinnacle of its military prowess in the nineteenth century