Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 by Arthur Bryant

Author:Arthur Bryant
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non Fiction, History
Publisher: Harper & Brothers
Published: 1975-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Much of this improvement had been due to the administration of the Duke of York,2 who since 1795 had reorganised Army training, supervised the appointment of officers and established a Royal Military Academy and a Staff College to promote uniformity of method throughout the Service. Still more was due to bitter experience. The British Army had been driven from the Continent by a revolutionary technique of war. The mechanical models of drill and discipline on which it had formed itself had largely failed in action. It had to adapt itself to new methods or accept permanent exclusion from Europe.

But the mainspring of all reform had been the corps d’elite, of light infantry which had been formed at Shorncliffe Camp under the first soldier in the Army, Sir John Moore. Born in November, 1761, the son of a Glasgow doctor, Moore had seen hard fighting in America, Corsica, the West Indies, Ireland, Holland and Egypt, becoming a brigadier at thirty-four, Major-General at thirty-six and Lieutenant-General at forty-three. Handsome and athletic, with broad shoulders and generous, penetrating eyes, there was something in his glance and bearing that warmed the coldest nature. He seemed made to inspire confidence and courage. "Every one," wrote the Duke of York's Military Secretary, "admires and loves him."

This great soldier was at once realist and idealist. So clear was his perception of what was wrong and so passionate his resolve to set it right that he sometimes expressed himself with a vehemence that alarmed the timorous. "My feelings were so strong and my indignation such," he wrote on one occasion, "as at times to bring tears to my eyes and for moments to stop my speech." When his normal good humour and love of friendly banter were in abeyance,

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