Stephen Conway
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199210855
- eISBN:
- 9780191725111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199210855.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
The eighteenth-century British army is often associated with empire and national identity; but it was a European institution, and British and Irish males did not see the British army as the only ...
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The eighteenth-century British army is often associated with empire and national identity; but it was a European institution, and British and Irish males did not see the British army as the only military in which they might serve. This chapter surveys British and Irish military involvement on the Continent and the service of the British army alongside allies and auxiliaries from other parts of Europe. It looks particularly at the place of British and Irish soldiers in an international occupational fraternity, based on the transfer of personnel, ideas, and institutional forms between armies, and a common set of martial values. This soldierly fraternity, here called ‘military Europe’, might unite not simply allies and auxiliaires, but even enemies — anyone, in fact, who shared the same code and fought by the same rules.Less
The eighteenth-century British army is often associated with empire and national identity; but it was a European institution, and British and Irish males did not see the British army as the only military in which they might serve. This chapter surveys British and Irish military involvement on the Continent and the service of the British army alongside allies and auxiliaries from other parts of Europe. It looks particularly at the place of British and Irish soldiers in an international occupational fraternity, based on the transfer of personnel, ideas, and institutional forms between armies, and a common set of martial values. This soldierly fraternity, here called ‘military Europe’, might unite not simply allies and auxiliaires, but even enemies — anyone, in fact, who shared the same code and fought by the same rules.
Stephen Conway
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319556
- eISBN:
- 9781781387160
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319556.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Military History
We tend to associate armies in the modern world with nation states. Armies are instruments of state power, funded from the public purse; in wartime, particularly, they often epitomize the nation. ...
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We tend to associate armies in the modern world with nation states. Armies are instruments of state power, funded from the public purse; in wartime, particularly, they often epitomize the nation. British people in the eighteenth century came to see their army in much the same way. Even in the first decades of that century, a time of regularly voiced suspicion of a permanent military force, we can find references to the army as a national institution; from the late 1750s, when British soldiers acquitted themselves creditably in the later stages of the Seven Years War, such descriptions became more common as the army emerged as a symbol of national effort and a focus of national pride. But if the army embodied and represented the nation, it was also, paradoxically, an international or European institution, having much in common with, and closely connected to, other European armies. Soldiers – particularly officers, but also members of the rank and file – were acutely aware of what united them with other European military men. This chapter analyses the European dimensions of the eighteenth-century British army, drawing mainly on evidence from the years 1740 to 1783.Less
We tend to associate armies in the modern world with nation states. Armies are instruments of state power, funded from the public purse; in wartime, particularly, they often epitomize the nation. British people in the eighteenth century came to see their army in much the same way. Even in the first decades of that century, a time of regularly voiced suspicion of a permanent military force, we can find references to the army as a national institution; from the late 1750s, when British soldiers acquitted themselves creditably in the later stages of the Seven Years War, such descriptions became more common as the army emerged as a symbol of national effort and a focus of national pride. But if the army embodied and represented the nation, it was also, paradoxically, an international or European institution, having much in common with, and closely connected to, other European armies. Soldiers – particularly officers, but also members of the rank and file – were acutely aware of what united them with other European military men. This chapter analyses the European dimensions of the eighteenth-century British army, drawing mainly on evidence from the years 1740 to 1783.
Graciela Iglesias Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319556
- eISBN:
- 9781781387160
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319556.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Military History
The vast majority of the conflicts in which British soldiers were involved in the period 1750-1815 took place abroad, bringing them into unprecedented contact with foreign cultures and manners. This ...
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The vast majority of the conflicts in which British soldiers were involved in the period 1750-1815 took place abroad, bringing them into unprecedented contact with foreign cultures and manners. This encounter with ‘the other’ presented a wide range of challenges and dilemmas. These are more noticeable among those who decided to serve in foreign armies, applying in many cases know-how acquired in the British regular army, militia or/and volunteers forces. This chapter will examine some of the experiences of British soldiers who joined as volunteers the Spanish and French forces during the Napoleonic wars. It provides an overview of their motivations to fight under a foreign flag and makes an appraisal of the effects of their engagement on their national loyalties and identities as well as exploring cultural cross-fertilization. Relations with their compatriots in the British army, particularly with military leaders such as Sir John Moore and Lord Wellington, are also considered in order to provide a meaningful sidelight on the way the British authorities conducted the business of war.Less
The vast majority of the conflicts in which British soldiers were involved in the period 1750-1815 took place abroad, bringing them into unprecedented contact with foreign cultures and manners. This encounter with ‘the other’ presented a wide range of challenges and dilemmas. These are more noticeable among those who decided to serve in foreign armies, applying in many cases know-how acquired in the British regular army, militia or/and volunteers forces. This chapter will examine some of the experiences of British soldiers who joined as volunteers the Spanish and French forces during the Napoleonic wars. It provides an overview of their motivations to fight under a foreign flag and makes an appraisal of the effects of their engagement on their national loyalties and identities as well as exploring cultural cross-fertilization. Relations with their compatriots in the British army, particularly with military leaders such as Sir John Moore and Lord Wellington, are also considered in order to provide a meaningful sidelight on the way the British authorities conducted the business of war.