From Waterloo To Balaclava

This book explores the reasons behind the UK army's successes and hardships from 1815-1854.

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, this lavishly illustrated volume looks at all the different aspects of the 100-day campaign which has become synonymous with the Napoleonic Wars and saw the eventual defeat of Napoleon's French forces. Ten articles by internationally renowned historians examine the battle from different angles, from the microcosm of the bitter fighting for the fortified farmhouse of Hougoumont through to a wider perspective of the 100-day campaign in its entirety. The official publication of the Waterloo 200 organization, slipcased and highly collectible, Waterloo – The Decisive Victory offers a unique and authoritative history of one of the most important battles in world history.

 From the Crimean War through the Second Boer War, the British Empire sought to solve the "Great Gun Question"--to harness improvements to ordnance, small arms, explosives and mechanization made possible by the Industrial Revolution. The British public played a surprising but overlooked role, offering myriad suggestions for improvements to the civilian-led War Office. Meanwhile, politicians and army leaders argued over control of the country's ground forces in a decades-long struggle that did not end until reforms of 1904 put the military under the Secretary of State for War. Following the debate in the press, voters put pressure on both Parliament and the War Office to modernize ordnance and military administration. The "Great Gun Question" was as much about weaponry as about who ultimately controlled military power. Drawing on ordnance committee records and contemporary news reports, this book fills a gap in the history of British military technology and army modernization prior to World War I.

In the theater of war, how important is costume? And in peacetime, what purpose does military spectacle serve? This book takes us behind the scenes of the British military at the height of its brilliance to show us how dress and discipline helped to mold the military man and attempted to seduce the hearts and minds of a nation while serving to intimidate civil rioters in peacetime. Often ridiculed for their constrictive splendor, British army uniforms of the early nineteenth century nonetheless played a powerful role in the troops' performance on campaign, in battle, and as dramatic entertainment in peacetime. Plumbing a wide variety of military sources, most tellingly the memoirs and letters of soldiers and civilians, Scott Hughes Myerly reveals how these ornate sartorial creations, combining symbols of solidarity and inspiration, vivid color, and physical restraint, enhanced the managerial effects of rigid discipline, drill, and torturous punishments, but also helped foster regimental esprit de corps. Encouraging recruitment, enforcing discipline within the military, and boosting morale were essential but not the only functions of martial dress. Myerly also explores the role of the resplendent uniform and its associated gaudy trappings and customs during civil peace and disorder--whether employed as public relations through spectacular free entertainment, or imitated by rioters and rebels opposing the status quo. Dress, drills, parades, inspections, pomp, and order: as this richly illustrated book conducts us through the details of the creation, design, functions, and meaning of these aspects of the martial image, it exposes the underpinnings of a mentality--and vision--that extends far beyond the military subculture into the civic and social order that we call modernity.

Britain’s Soldiers explores the complex figure of the Georgian soldier and rethinks current approaches to military history.

Many histories have been written about the conflicts the British army was involved in between the Battle of Waterloo and the First World War. There are detailed studies of campaigns and battles and general accounts of the experiences of the soldiers. But this book by Anthony Dawson is the first to concentrate in depth, in graphic detail, on the experiences of the British cavalry during a century of warfare. That is why it is of such value. It is also compelling reading because it describes, using the words of the cavalrymen of the time, the organization, routines, training and social life of the cavalry as well as the fear and exhilaration of cavalry actions. Perhaps the most memorable passages record the drama and excitement of cavalry charges and the brutal, confused, often lethal experience of close-quarter combat in a mêlée of men and horses. Few books give such a direct inside view of what it was like to serve in the British cavalry during the nineteenth century.

The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and their antecedents have been involved in every major British campaign since the 17th century. On 18 June 1815, the Royal Scots Greys charged Napoleon's infantry columns, capturing the eagle of the French 45th Infantry. Napoleon is said to have commented of the regiment, 'Ah, ces terribles chevaux gris (those terrible grey horses)'. Today that eagle is the regimental badge of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland's senior regiment and her only regular cavalry. Here Stephen Wood tells the story of glorious cavalry charges and terrifying tank battles, from the Western Front to the liberation of Basra. Stunning paintings bring the narrative to life while contemporary photography depicts both the horror and the compassion of modern warfare as witnessed by the officers and troopers of this unique regiment.

A compelling history of the British Army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—showing how the military gathered knowledge from campaigns across the globe “Superb analysis.”—William Anthony Hay, Wall Street Journal 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 J. 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 war zones 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.