British Army Transformations from 1645-1913. this is part 2: Seven Years War to Crimean War. Each part is 20 pages!!

Essay by Axis_of_EvilUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, March 2004

download word file, 24 pages 4.4

Downloaded 83 times

As Britain began to spread its Empire around the globe, it was only a matter of time before the European power struggle would ignite another conflict. The War of Spanish Succession indirectly carried over to the War of Austrian Succession (1739-48), which was quickly followed by the Seven Years' War (1756-63) that extended as far as North America as the French and British battled for territory in the New World. As the standing army swelled to over 135,000 total soldiers worldwide by 1762, the army's status of second-rate (their importance blinded by the beloved navy) found a strange mix of competency and neglect. The British Army was the epitome of a highly disciplined force that would and could stand abreast and deliver impeccable volleys of controlled fires, advance across open battlefields and then hold their terrain. However, their 'enemy' now was not rebellious subjects back home, or even conventional armies of Europe they proved were unable to match the British platoon firing system during the early 1700s.

Britain was carving out colonies in foreign lands around the world, and the portion of the Seven Years' War that occurred away from the European Continent would prove a hindrance of unfamiliar battlefield conditions requiring non-doctrinal, new approaches to warfare. It was the American wilderness that would become the testing ground, allowing for almost instant feedback as to what and how these adaptations would take effect. Following General Braddock's crushing defeat of his typical open-field tactics of the British by the French and Indian 'guerrilla' armies on the Monongahela River in 1755, the British leadership in the American theater combined lessons learned from the 'guerrilla' tactics and combined them with the tactics of Austria's Light Companies of the 1740s, to form entire battalions of light troops. These new battalions spawned a new form...