A History of the British Army, Vol. 1 First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War

Although the narrative of the War of the Spanish Succession has not infrequently been interrupted in order to give the reader an occasional glimpse of the progress and difficult...

[112] Henry in 1519 tried to procure horses from Italy, but was informed by Alfonso of Ferrara that there, too, the breed was decayed (_Cal. S. P._ vol. iii. part i. 171). Henry...

Five years after the battle of Agincourt the religious wars in Bohemia had given birth to one of the great soldiers of the world's history, John Zizka, the blind general of the...

Before entering on the reign of William we must pause for a time to study the interior administration of the Army. The reign of the two last Stuarts is rightly considered as mar...

Almanza was a bad opening for the new year, but worse was to follow. Throughout the winter Marlborough had, as usual, been employed in diplomatic negotiations, which nothing but...

It is now time to pass to the foreign wars of the Protectorate; for though they be little remembered they fairly launched the Army on its long career of tropical conquest, and o...

On the subjugation of the west the English Parliament thought for the present only of securing its position within England itself. It has been seen how at the first outbreak of...

Once more we return to England and take up the thread of the army's history within the kingdom. Of the reign of James the First there is little to be recorded except that at its...

The accession of the Tudors to the throne of England marks an important period in our military history. The nation, after thirty years of furious internal war, during which it h...

The restoration of the Stuarts had been to all outward semblance effected, Charles had been escorted through the streets of London by the horse of the New Model, and yet the pow...

Having now sketched the composition of the English forces, let us move forthwith to the scene of action. We must omit the early incidents of the war, and the assumption by Edwar...

I pass now to Flanders, which is about to become for the second time the training ground of the British Army. The judicious help sent by Lewis the Fourteenth to Ireland had prac...

It is now needful to turn to the second and perhaps more important school of the British Army. As in the Low Countries we found English and Scots fighting side by side, but gave...

The history of the British Army is commonly supposed to begin with the year 1661, and from the day, the 14th of February, whereon King Charles the Second took over Monk's Regime...

We left Villeroy with his army in the Low Countries endeavouring not very successfully to obey the orders which he had received, to watch Marlborough. On the 29th of May, when t...

The arrival of the first English volunteers, under Thomas Morgan, in the Low Countries was, as fate willed it, most happily timed to synchronise with the movement that laid the...

The force voted by Parliament for the campaign of 1703 consisted, as in the previous year, of eighteen thousand British and twenty-two thousand Germans. There had been much talk...

Seldom has a man been confronted with such difficulties as those that beset William of Orange when the Revolution was fairly accomplished. So long as his success was still uncer...

Even before the Ordinance for the establishment of the New Model Army had been passed, Parliament had voted, on the motion of Oliver Cromwell, that the chief command should be g...

Our attention is now claimed for a time by the Peninsula, where the War of the Spanish Succession was to be carried forward on Spanish soil. In January 1704 the Imperial claiman...

The successes of the past campaign were sufficient to set the British Parliament in good humour, and to prompt it to vote a further increase of ten thousand German mercenaries f...

It is now our sad duty to watch the military glory of the Plantagenets wane fainter and fainter, until it disappears, to be followed by a period of darkness until the light is s...

The works of the Black Prince lived after him. Not that we must look for them immediately in England, where we now enter on forty years of intestine division and civil strife. W...

The French, fully aware of the political changes in England, had during the winter made extraordinary exertions to prolong the war for yet one more campaign, and to that end had...

So far I have abstained from any attempt to describe the military operations of the States, or even the brilliant little enterprises of Vere himself, since his assumption of the...

We enter now on the fateful reign of Queen Elizabeth. The condition of England at its opening after the previous years of misgovernment was most unpromising. Wrenched from its m...

From Flanders it is necessary to return to the Peninsula, where we left Peterborough bewailing his enforced inaction. Nothing is more remarkable in the story of these Peninsular...

In November the English Parliament met, heartened indeed by the naval victory of La Hogue, but not a little grieved over the failure of Steenkirk. Again, the financial aspect wa...

A European quarrel over the succession to the Spanish throne,[287] on the death of the imbecile King Charles the Second, had long been foreseen by William, and had been provided...

Once more I return to Spain, where the armies of the Bourbons had recommenced operations in the winter of 1708. At the end of October General d'Asfeld having first captured Deni...

Peace having been signed, there arose the momentous question, what should be done with the Army. To understand aright the attitude of Parliament towards it, a brief sketch must...

It is now time to revert to England and to the preparations for the campaign of 1706. Marlborough, as usual, directly that the military operations were concluded, had been deput...

Attention has already been called to the defects of the feudal system for military purposes, and to the shifts whereby successive sovereigns sought to make them good. With Edwar...

The victory had not long been reported to Parliament when the House began to consider the question of reducing the forces. Silently and almost imperceptibly the strength of the...

It is strange that our historians have for the most part taken leave of the New Model without a tinge of regret, without estimation of its merits or enumeration of its services....