At the height of the empire, was the British army comparatively better than other armies?

>The height of the British Empire was in WW2

In term of size, yes
Pic related is the size of the British "empire" during the Napoleonic Wars
Does it look like its height?

>And in the Napoleonic Wars (your pic), the British army was arguarbly the worst European land army
Citation pls

Even if it was at its biggest, it was also on its way out by WW2.

The years before WW1 would be more accurate.

In terms of size the peak was 1914 actually. By WW2 they had lost Ireland and a few other places.

summer is nearly over
hang in there user

>summer is nearly over
That's funny, I was under the impression we weren't even halfway through, both astronomically and academically.
Unless countries other than mine start their school years in august rather than late september that is.

No citation needed, it's just common sense
It took the full strength of the British army 6 FUCKING YEARS to take back small ass Spain from a second-rate French army not even lead bny Napoleon
Meanwhile, Russians fought all the way from Moscow to Paris against the main French army and Napoleon in only two years

Here's an anecdote that proves how bad the reputation of the British army was

>The French forces were commanded by Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who had just been stripped of his command after disobeying orders at Wagram.
>Dismissed from Napoleon's Grande Armée, Bernadotte returned to Paris and was sent to defend the Netherlands by the council of ministers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walcheren_Campaign

This dude was dismissed from the main French army as a punishment for desobeying orders, and sent to fend off some British invasion as an humiliation
Fighting Brits was so easy it was considered a kid's job and no glory could came from it

This, but also by the time of WW2 they were still ahead of the pack by maintaining a small professional army. France and Germany had to mobilise their entire forces
Would I be correct in saying the majority of the time they preferred to have colonial troops headed by white/british officers?

The real peak was 1922

fuck you're right, they've got another month and a half off
regardless, once september rolls around they'll hopefully fuck off

Reply from my thread a few mths back:

British Infantry during the Long 18th Century was of a very high quality. Unlike many armies at the time they actually trained with live ammunition and numerous writers, generals etc from the entire time period praised their stubbornness and steadfastness, especially when coming under intense fire. In terms of battle effectiveness they were good at what they did. The live training had something to do with this, but other writers have postulated that it was born from a sense of proto-religious-nationalism that essentially gave them a sense of superiority and reluctance to give ground. However considering so many of the soldiers were Irish Catholics I personally doubt this.

However they had their issues too. A big one, especially in the Napoleonic Wars, was discipline when on the march and their actual speed. The main thing in Napoleonic/Revolutionary Warfare was speed and maneuver on a larger strategic scale, getting an army to a specific point before the enemy and forcing a battle on your terms etc. The British Army was horrendously slow in comparison. In fact the Infantry kind of stood out in the British Army as a whole; so many of it's generals and officers throughout the period were substandard (with moments of exceptionalism like Marlborough and Wellington), it's cavalry had some of the best horses in the world and excellent equipment but had no discipline whatsoever etc. Excellent logistical support though.

t. mainly Military Experience in the Age of Reason by Christopher Duffy, but also a few other books that I remember reading but can't think of the names right now.

>The height of the British Empire was in WW2

>Wellington
>Not sub-standard

>Caldiero
>Acre
>Aspern-Essling
>Leipzig
>La Rothiere
I'm not even touching Waterloo. Was Napoleon sub-standard?

Napoleon was outnumbered in all these though
While on the pic, Wellington is heavily outnumbering the opponent each time

Caldiero was 13k french vs 12k austrians actually.
But the point was more about looking at the whole resume rather than just a few battles.

The Fuck, Veeky Forums was never good,it has been /int/ lit without banners since the first day with some naive fuckers posting some quality content.

>Veeky Forums is a pile of shit with a few hidden gems
It's not a Veeky Forums peculiarity.
Welcome to the world at large buddy.

Demonstrably false, when was the last time you saw a rel thread that actually discussed theology as was common in the early stages of Veeky Forums?

I think it depends when you would put the height of the Empire. Britain had a huge navy from ~1500-1945, and never needed a large Army.

If you're going for Napoleonic Wars, than no, they did not have the best army or tactics, that would be la grand armée. The French army used modern tactics and were more experienced, it needed winter and the combined strength of Russia, Prussia and Austria to crush it (Waterloo was just a last fizzle).

In the first half of the 19th century, there were no major wars between superpowers, I think the Crimean War was to short (and fought by French and Turks) to determine, if it was the best.

2nd half 19th century-1918, the best Army was the German/Prussian Army, highly innovative in doctrine (chief of staff, Auftragstaktik) and technology (breech loaders, widespread adoption of MG's prior to WWI)

In WWII it wasn't exactly the most innovative or most succesful (and relied heavily on the Commonwealth)

Crimean war said, nah

it was not a bad army but it wasn't the best either

The British army was throughout most of its history small and a secondary concern to the navy, this usually wasn't an issue because they formed coalitions with other countries who could make up for the lack of boots on the ground

It's /pol/ leaking into Veeky Forums because of the /pol/ community within historical games.

>inb4 "EVERYTHING I DON'T LIKE IS /POL/"

It is incredibly easy to spot threads where are just /pol/ with dates, and all over the website /pol/ posters are easy to spot; they're the people trying to establish a mandatory set of opinions, thoughts, jokes and personalities on an anonymous weebish image posting board.

Hide /pol/-tier threads, report /pol/-tier posts.

Anyway I think the British army were pretty good equipment+training wise but got fucked over by retards in charge of those people.

Love redcoats though, what a cool design

t. asshurt irish

>And in the Napoleonic Wars (your pic), the British army was arguably the worst European land army

that's not how you spell Prussia

I'm interested to know more about the British army.

Were they undisciplined?

At its height the British Army was small but also the only professional one in Europe.

It's a bit dumb to compare it to other European armies of the time, however, as the British didn't need to field a large, conscript-based land force thanks to the Royal Navy and a whole lot of water.

Veeky Forums has always been anti-brit.

Top lel Pierre.

The British forces were massively outnumbered in Spain and struggled with Portugese and Spanish politics stopping supplies reaching the men.
True, the Netherlands campaign was a disaster. but that was more due to disease and illness from marshes and bogs.

Also, the war of 1812 was going on, so Britian was fighting on two separate fronts with logistics stretched by seas

>also the only professional one in Europe.

In what sense?

One of the few countries that didn't practice mass conscription or relying heavily on militias (Like the Prussian Landwehr or Freikorps)

Would that mean a higher level of discipline and professionalism then? If they're doing it as a job one would assume that the quality would be high to justify pay.

Certainly for discipline, but a greater sense of morale allows men to stand shoulder to shoulder firing volley after volley for hours on end better than a barely motivated force who're unpaid

I think the French army was still considered the model to aspire to in the mid 19th century until the Germans came along and raped them in 1870.

I wonder if there's such a thing as British attitudes with that sort of thing too though. I always hear about the gallows humor and how they make jokes even when they're doomed.

Ireland was under home rule. Like Australia and Canada was until the 80's

This pretty much.

Was even the opinion in Asia.
>China & Japan: Wow french army so stronk, let's have some of them advise our people.
>1870-71
>China & Japan: Oh, the Prussians fucked up the French? Lol throw out our French advisors lmao.

I meant this, jesus fuck.

As any patrician place in History

I can tell you from personal experience fighting beside British squaddies in the Middle East and they're some of the most grimly motivated, darkly cheerful, hard-as-coffin-nails soldiers I've ever had the pleasure to meet. It's hard to describe, because they're really hardcore but cheery and not super bitter like American grunts are.
Incidents include
>at a joint base during a 2 day long attack, during lulls in the attacks they would stop to "have a brew," and sit and have polite conversations
>would constantly give us a hard time for the "rudeness of our speech," (talking about sex, genital hygiene, the consistency and quality of our BMs) but would curse the AQI fighters hard enough to make us blush
>Hated the Aussies, and called them cunts constantly
>once we arrived to relieve a British patrol that had been in contact for nearly 2 solid hours, and when we arrived they all smiled, recharged their weapons, and their LT said, "Right, bout time you lads showed, let's get to it then," and insisted we set up base of fire so they could take the position.
Dude's were cool as fuck man, I always liked working with the Brits.

...

>lately

I bet you could find IDENTICAL posts on the archives within months of Veeky Forums being created.

>Hated the Aussies, and called them cunts constantly
That's a sign of affection m8.

>you will never be this paranoid
Take a break from Veeky Forums before you snap kid.

>you will never rock a battle afro

No it was shit compared to France and later Germany, but they had a really good navy

No they didn't, they paid others to do it for them

That's a good acurate answer though, cause

>battles won by the british army (on its own) in Europe in the XVIII-XIX
>404 not found

So yes, literally just bantus and amerirebels.

>The British forces were massively outnumbered in Spain
Only when Napoleon was involved which was brief and Wellington's army retreated so they didn't fight. Throughout most of the war the British held numerical superiority

>Portugese and Spanish politics stopping supplies reaching the men.
And? thanks to Spanish guerrillas almost no supplies could reach the French, due to their effectiveness they arguably did the most to beat the French in the Peninsular.

>True, the Netherlands campaign was a disaster.
It wasn't just the Walcheren Campaign in 1809 that was a failure, there were many failures campaigns in Europe such as in 1792, 1799, 1806 and 1807 all of whom were a result of tactical defeats

>Also, the war of 1812 was going on, so Britian was fighting on two separate fronts with logistics stretched by seas
And at the time the French were distracted by one of the largest wars they had ever fought and would end up with the loss of most of their army, if British logistics were stretched thin, then the French certainly would have been even more. Not to mention that the war of 1812 was more a skirmish if anything.

More of that infamous continental butthurt

Not an argument.

I know. It's not up for debate, it's fact

They were successful through political means. The British were good at finance and diplomacy and therefore could get others to do the fighting for them. They had decent soldiers only in the late 19th century-1914, but some would say up until WW2. But throughout most of their relevant history relied on a large navy.

Ted Cruz was an Australian soldier?

Weren't the first Western advisors in Qing China British?

Nope. Actually he was an American. Frederick Townsend Ward. An alcoholic Massachusetts sailor who was a Military Academy dropout who at least did understand the importance of drill.

He was a failed mercenary that was thrown out by almost everyone who hired him: the French fired him for insubordination in Korea, so did Benito Juarez's Mexican government. Basically he was down on his luck when he first entered China, offering his services as a bodyguard to VIPs in the lawless declining Qing Dynasty, but built a successful networking career with Qing elite and other foreign mercenaries.

His big break came when the Taiping rebellion happened and the beleaguered Qing Dynasty hired him. The Qing initially wanted Ward to gather his western mercenary friends but Ward offered to train local Chinese in exchange of a commission. He did, and the Ever Victorious Army came to being as China's first modern armed force, gaining attention after a string of successful victories versus the rebels. Added to his fortune was being overseen by Qing commander, Li Hongzhang, who was one of the few competent Late Qing commander and a progressivist who was comfortable working with Ward, and recommended Ward's promotion as Imperial General.

>Wellington retreated

That was Sir John Moore, who fought a brilliant action at Corruna against a superior force, dying to get his boys out. Quite similar to Dunkirk.

From one error, others follow...

You're wrong about almost everything. British armies were small, almost never going beyond 50,000 men. This is because they had a much smaller population than France and also had to maintain their massive navy.

You might be including Portuguese and Spanish troops into the equation, which I'm not sure about on numbers. The Spanish in particular had numbers but were a major liability every time the Brits tried to do something.

The French army did a lot of things better but the British infantry was pound for pound better and usual came on top in direct, frontal engagements (not so much the cavalry).

Britain's problems always extended from the difficulties in fighting abroad across a body of water, and having a lower pool of manpower in general, which was a major factor in the Holland campaign you mentioned and also in Spain

>That was Sir John Moore, who fought a brilliant action at Corruna against a superior force, dying to get his boys out. Quite similar to Dunkirk.
It is remembered as a humiliating rout, it was only an achievement by the fact that they weren't all killed and they achieved nothing

>British armies were small, almost never going beyond 50,000 men
And they relied heavily on allies, during the Peninsular War with Spain and Portugal. In 1815 with the Dutch and Germans. On almost all occasions with numerical superiority and in some cases leadership.

>British infantry was pound for pound better and usual came on top in direct engagements
That depends, but is mostly false. The British never cared at all about their army, even Wellington himself openly despised his own soldiers, Britain only cared about their navy, which was the best in the world at the time. Britain never fought against the real, well trained and experienced French Army, they only went up against second-rate soldiers and foreigners like Poles. Because the Peninsular War was something of a backwater theater that was annoying if anything for Napoleon. The French soldiers stationed there constantly suffered from poor leadership, ill-discipline and being under-supplied as well as constant guerrilla attacks, despite all there problems they performed remarkably well, considering it took almost 6 years for them to eventually be defeated and only after the debacle of 1812 and the formation of another coalition. During the war Britain's logistical problem wasn't anywhere near as bad as the French, they had mastery of the seas, an ally to turn to (Portugal) and never had to fear constant guerrilla attacks or poor roads. The quality of British army only improved and ceased to be mediocre after several reforms by Wellington much later in the war.

>>British armies were small, almost never going beyond 50,000 men
>And they relied heavily on allies, during the Peninsular War with Spain and Portugal. In 1815 with the Dutch and Germans. On almost all occasions with numerical superiority and in some cases leadership.
That's literally what he said in the following paragraph, but with the acknowledgement (though very understated) that the Spanish army was very poor.

I expanded upon what I was saying initially about numerical superiority about rest of Napoleonic Wars rather than just the Peninsular War

To answer OP's question no the British army is mid card at best, the Royal navy however was top teir and whilst the British are second to the Germans and French tactically on land, strategically the British have been historical masters which (though is far less sexy than battles of annihilation and having tactical prowess which can be romantically quantified with single battles) in the real world where K/D isn't actually important, is far more useful and historically important.
Strategy>operation>tactics

>against a superior force

Superior qualitatively sure (as any French force was compared to Brits back then), but numbers in that battle were even

>At the height of the empire, was the British army comparatively better than other armies?
The British army was well trained and professional in comparison with the conscript armies on the continent, however it was comparatively tiny given that Britain was a sea power. Bismarck joked about it, saying that if the British army landed in continental Europe he'd get the Belgian police to arrest them.

>Can't refute the argument
>"You stupid reee"

It's pure circumstance, British were just on an island and it was harder for them to be invaded. They arent better than anyone,french or German.

>They arent better than anyone,french or German.

Brits are actually much worse when you compare their military feats to those of French and Germans

Exactly this, people forget that colonialism was regarded as dishonorable on the European continent for much of the modern period, it's why the British empire (consisting only of pillaged territory from tribals) can be dismissed as a feat as colonymaking was beneath those on the continent.

Yes, see Sepoy regiments for reference.

This sounds about right from what I've heard.

They also can be absolute madmen sometimes, apparently bayonet charges are still done

>“I wanted to put the fear of God into the enemy. I could see some dead bodies and eight blokes, some scrambling for their weapons. I’ve never seen such a look of fear in anyone’s eyes before. I’m over six feet; I was covered in sweat, angry, red in the face, charging in with a bayonet and screaming my head off. You would be scared, too.”

Not the best source, but it's legit: badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=905475926435

There's a reason that the British invented the modern concept of special forces. Their army wasn't the best for numbers, but if you can fuck up the enemy in other ways, you can do pretty well.

in the sense that the army was entirely composed of paid volunteers not conscripts.

this allowed meant the british army while small was exceptionally well trained and discplined in battle.

however it did remain hampered by the purchase system for officer comissions and the subsequent tendency for its generals and senior commanders to be a mixed bunch, with some officers being very good, some being pretty average, some terrible and some frankly barking mad.

the result was that even at battles such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Albuera or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fontenoy while the generals failed the british infantry were noted by their opponents to have been excellent troops with Soult commenting after Albuera "There is no beating these troops, in spite of their generals. I always thought they were bad soldiers, now I am sure of it. I had turned their right, pierced their centre and everywhere victory was mine – but they did not know how to run!"

But the French, Portuguese, Germans and even fucking Belgium got in on the action...

>colonialism was regarded as dishonorable on the European continent

>european empires

pick one you retard

this is actually kind of the reputation for the british in general, they had a very similar stereotype in the world wars, in the falklands, in the middle east, look at their soldiers in afghanistan on youtube; calm professionalism in combat even compared to other modern professional armies

you are aware india was second only to china in wealth when britain conquered it, britain then easily beat china, twice.

not exactly tribal

Friendly reminder that The British Got BTFO by Boers During the First Boer War.

youtube.com/watch?v=4O93LsTt0mg

It's the humour I think. Combined with politeness. Other countries take everything far too seriously.

It also is why when shit goes down people know it. If you get Brits shouting chances are something is going wrong.

See the end of this:

theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/14/johnezard

>"Things are a bit sticky, sir," Brig Tom Brodie of the Gloucestershire Regiment told General Robert H Soule, intending to convey that they were in extreme difficulty.

>But Gen Soule understood this to mean "We're having a bit of rough and tumble but we're holding the line". Oh good, the general decided, no need to reinforce or withdraw them, not yet anyway.

>The upshot was one of the most famous, heroic and unnecessary last stands in military history: the ordeal of 600 men of the "Glorious Gloucesters" at the Imjin river almost exactly 50 years ago.

>With no extra support promised, the colonel in charge of the Gloucesters fell back to a hill overlooking the river, where they made their stand. For four days, mostly without sleep, they held off 30,000 Chinese troops trying to surge across the river, killing 10,000 of them with Bren gun fire.

>When they tried to withdraw, they were too late. More than 500 of them were captured and spent years in Chinese camps. Fifty-nine were killed or missing. Only 39 escaped. Two soldiers were awarded Victoria crosses for bravery.

It's a meme that Wellington hated the soldiers.
The infamous quote is "ours (army) is composed of the scum of the earth the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much of them afterwards."

Wellington was arrogant no doubt but he didn't hold specially disregard for the men.
Equally the average British infantryman may have disliked Nosey but they certainly respected him as he brought them victory after victory and always endeavoured to get the men paid and fed on time.

>tfw lose a bunch of fucking colonials

How will England ever recover?

The acquisition of territory in the former Ottoman Empire outweighs the landmass of Ireland

Damn, didn't even know Ney had faced off against Wellington. He should have stayed in Spain, would have been more efficient than Soult.

>The quality of British army only improved and ceased to be mediocre after several reforms by Wellington much later in the war.

What are you talking about? As Commander-in-Chief, Wellington was incredibly conservative and the lack of reform under his leadership was one of the reasons for the British Army's poor performance in the Crimea

By building the biggest empire there ever was?

It was sarcasm you literal autistics. Obviously it is text but how full of bullshit and hyperbole does a post have to be for you to recognise the tone?

Britains power was in its navy, her army was small and sub-par compared to continental powers like France, Russia, Austria-Hungary or Prussia

Weren't the British army known for being very good quality but too small to be a meaningful force?

This. That's basically 90% of the Napoleonic wars. Setting foot on Europe was a last resource. Instead they use their navy and their wealth to buy allies and blackmail rivals

>OP posts relatively boring topic
>user responds with excellent and funny meme to kick off discussion
>(You) lament the fact that you are unable to respond to posts with such succinct and accurate answers
tis but a bit of banter guv.
try not to think about how your """"""empire"""""" was literally stone age savages and poos, ladm8.
at least you will get colonised back by your dear former subjects, I think that's something to look forward to, isn't it?
r-rule britannia!

>Late September
I've literally never started school that late. In New Jersey school started the first week of September, in Tennessee it started late August.