So while we can all agree that the British Navy ruled supreme from ~1812 when they smashed the Napoleonic Fleet to 1941...

Piggybacking the winning team is not the same thing as winning yourself. By that logic you could say Poland won WW2, which is comical in its own right.

>Forgets to mention the Commonwealth of Nations because it doesn't fit the narrative.

The Queen is still the head of 16 nations who legally answer to her.

They were always considered one of the better armies in Europe in quality if not in size

> They were relatively shit until WW2

The regular British army prior to the start of the First World War was considered the best in Europe (again, if not in size) and was highly respected as the war when on. If anything the Second World War was when they seemed mediocre compared to the Germans

> This is mostly in the optic of making the American Revolution seem more glorious, rather than really because of an intent to overrate Brits

Post-World War Two American pop culture has been obsessed with...(wait for it)...World War Two. If any military were ever propped up as an unstoppable juggernaut (to make the subsequent victory over them more glorious) it would be the Wehrmacht.

> The overrating of Britain in that case, is merely a side effect of the jingoistic revisionism at work by the current cultural hegemon

The "current cultural hegemon" is if anything incredibly disinterested in the British Empire in general and the American War of Independence specifically.

> Same reason why the 18th century British Empire is often seen by normies as huge and powerful like the 1922 one

They were the most powerful European colonial power by the end of the Seven Years War and certainly by the end of the Napoleonic Wars

> The revisionist overrating of the 18th century British Empire and redcoats is a very recent (post-WW2) thing instigated by American media

American media post World War Two isn't interested in Britain at all.

>Commonwealth of Nations
Literal meme.

>The regular British army prior to the start of the First World War was considered the best in Europe
By whom? Brits themselves?

Who says you have to win by yourself to be great? A General doesn't win by himself either.
Piggybacking? That would be what the USA attempted in 1812, British contribution has generally always been a modest size. Poland was on the winning side, the USSR however ended up stealing their victory from them.

Top response, made me ponder.

They were all professional soldiers with extensive overseas experience compared to the overwhelmingly conscripted European armies.

The original BEF was pretty much wiped out but they performed extremely during the opening phase of the war.

>American media post World War Two isn't interested in Britain at all.

Not true

t. American

You're knocking me the fuck out with all those sources.

>American media post World War Two isn't interested in Britain at all.
Ever heard of Hollywood?

It was generally respected, based on Waterloo and Crimea, but it varied at different times. In 1899 they were quite bad, Conan-Doyle noted that the army's pre-war maneuvers had shown severe tactical deficiencies which proced disastrous in the Boer War. The BEF in 1914 was arguably the best-trained army on the continent precisely because of the reforms post-1904, but in the 19th century their quality was often mediocre at best. There were successes like Rorke's Drift, but also disasters like Gandamack and Isandlwana.

>Rorke's Drift
I don't understand why mowing down hundreds of literal spear chucking niggers is paraded around as some great success. It's like a MMA fighter beating up little kids.

It wasn't bad, just very small.
It was actually a very well trained and disciplined fighting force.

>The regular British army prior to the start of the First World War was considered the best in Europe (again, if not in size) and was highly respected
Yeah, until they had to fight a real war, there was an illusion they comensated their size with quality
Then WW1 happened and everyone found out the British army was as shit as always and that smaller definitly didn't equate with "of better quality"

>Post-World War Two American pop culture has been obsessed with...(wait for it)...World War Two.
WW2 and their revolution
Basically all 18th century movies revolve around the revolution and the oh so powerful redcoats rebels defeated "against all odds"

>They were the most powerful European colonial power by the end of the Seven Years War and certainly by the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Debatable
One could argue they had the strongest navy, but then again 1778-1783 happened.
In any case, the British Empire was small asfuck and the Spanish Empire was much larger
Not to mention that until after WW2, Europe was the center of the world and colonial lands were side theaters

>American media post World War Two isn't interested in Britain at all.
You're deluded
Americans are obsessed with their precious England
To the point they make things that had nothing to do with England (like Templars) be about them, or have tons of movies/games about Roman Britannia despite it being irrelevant

>One could argue they had the strongest navy, but then again 1778-1783 happened.

The Spanish, French, Dutch, Indians and Americans all had to gang up on the UK to achieve that, and even then it was close.

The Dutch didn't take part in military action
The Indians had no navy and mostly sided with Brits
The Americans had like two ships
So you have France and Spain vs Britain

Of course you don't, you're a back-biting nu-male that probably falls for the "unarmed black man" BLM meme.

>then WW1 happened and everyone found out the British army was as shit as always
Everyone's army was proven to be "shit" in WW1. That's why it dragged out for as long as it did.

And you're probably American so you're a nigger by default.

>The Dutch didn't take part in military action
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Anglo-Dutch_War
Outright lie.

>The Indians had no navy and mostly sided with Brits
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Mysore_War
They attacked the ports from land.

>The Americans had like two ships
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_navies_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War
Try 1700.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
I'd suggest a read.

lol
Imagine being this buttmad about Anglos!

The dude who made that post about Americans is a Brit tho

>on noes, some1 insulted muh Rorke's Drift, better insult murica!!!!

>spear chucking 3rd worlders
The knowledge of the world outside Europe is astounding as ever Veeky Forums

>Then WW1 happened and everyone found out the British army was as shit as always and that smaller definitly didn't equate with "of better quality"
The BEF performed excellently in 1914. No, they were not sufficient to beat a larger army, but they were certainly of better quality. Again, this was because they had gotten their shit kicked in during the Black Week in South Africa 15 years earlier, and learned lessons about industrial infantry warfare which Germany and France hadn't had the chance to.
Would it have been more effective if they raised a conscript peacetime army like everyone else? Yes, but in absolute terms the British Army of 1914 was a high quality force.
In the 1890s, on the other hand, the British Army was probably lower quality than their continental counterparts - however they still had huge prestige from old triumphs which obscured this fact. The Boer War dynamited that myth and forced them to make hard reforms.

The Zulu were literal spearchuckers.

Professional meme

German army was considered the best with 850 000 pro soldiers against a shitty BEF of 80 000 "pro soldier"

The BEF GBTFO in the first month of war and useless where as a big army of 750 000 french professional soldier and officers coming from elite of the elite was the here to protect his ass

Nope, BEF was a piece of shit like all the British propaganda

German army was the best and the french one his rival.

They were both way better equipped and British relied on France to give her at the beginning, the artillery necessary to make the war.

They had guns too. Most states the British fought had modern weapons and artillery. Wellington was out-cannoned 5 to 1 at Assaye.
The film Zulu is not necessarily the best source on British colonial wars.

>saying this when it was actually a reference to its small size and how they would lose most of their men due to charging fortifications

Zulu shows them shooting at the British.

>shittiest in Europe
But they're not polish infantry?

>The film Zulu is not necessarily the best source on British colonial wars.
It really isn't, because it doesn't portray battles where they actually lost to the spear chuckers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
>The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields
>he British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art[17] Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7-pounder (3-inch, 76 mm) mountain guns deployed as field guns,[18][19] as well as a Hale rocket battery.

Most of the armies of 1914 were pretty good, that's why they were able to survive the first six months and keep fighting despite catastrophic losses on all sides.

The British in 1914 were the best overall, on an individual level, purely for being a professional force with recent combat experience in South Africa, where they learned a lot of lessons about fire tactics. They the wrong *kind* of army for a continental war, but they did their job well on the Frontiers and allowed time for Kitchener's Army to be generated.

The French had the worst doctrine, which was comical tragedy because Offensive a Outrance was codified only in 1911, replacing a relatively sound set of field regulations from 1903. Their first line troops were good quality, just badly used. Nonetheless, Joffre realized his mistake very quickly in August 1914, and the French Army was able to reorient and redeploy fast enough to throw up covering forces in front of Paris, which attests to their competence in an extremely difficult situation.

The Germans were better than the French doctrinally, because they didn't go full retard about shock tactics, and also because they made use of their reservist formations as maneuver units, whereas the French were biased against reservists and only used them as fortress troops. This was a huge blindspot which nearly lost France the war, because French planners assumed Germany would not throw Landwehr units into their offensive. However, because of this, it is fair to say the average German soldier was lower quality than the average BEF.

Russia's standing army was actually decent quality in terms of training and equipment, their c2 was just dogshit at Tannenberg, which was a truly spectacular upset that dramatically altered the course of the war.

Austria was pretty much awful, Italy was irredeemably awful, the Turks were competent enough embarrass British Imperial forces but certainly weren't good. Romania was a joke. Serbia was ok. Bulgaria was ok.

Zulu actually does show a little of Islandlwana in the beginning though. Just doesn't go in depth.
Also that seems like a very small amount of artillery for a 8000 man strong column. Am I wrong?

They made an entire film about Isandlwana...

In WW2 I would argue the British were worse, relative to their contemporaries, than in WW1.

>BEF was a piece of shit
Being small and underequipped was obviously an issue and something that can't be ignored, but to simply dismiss the BEF as "shit" is ridiculuous when it's universally considered to have been an extremely professional force.

The German Army was the best in overall combat power, but not quality of individual formations.

>Anglos lost to literal bare assed iron age Africans
And these are the same people saying Russia losing to Japanese empire is a shameful defeat? Fucking kek.

It's a "foreigners crying about spear chuckers, while ignoring that their own empires were built by conquering spear chuckers too" episode.

Delicious.

The difference is the continental armies also were structured to fight each other and not as a colonial police force.

A loss significantly more to do with not having screwdrivers than anything the actual Zulus did.

I'll grant you that the British army had the best Napoleonic infantry squares of WW1
Too bad they got mowed down by machine guns

>they were structured better to slaughter each other instead of running empires

Not really a good thing is it?

The British army was, too. It was the colonial forces who fought fuzzy-wuzzys.

BEF wasn't an army and wasn't better equipped or trained that an other army...

Yes, like running in front of machine gun and loosing 60 000 men in one day ?

What an impressive tactics and such advanced !

Fuck sakes, why is this a nationalist dick waving contest? The British Army's core mission before the 1900s was Imperial defense and colonial policing, of course they had a different force structure and different capabilities to continental armies with a core mission of full scale war against other armies.

To answer OP's question, the *reputation* of the British Army for most of the 19th century was very good, with huge prestige from Waterloo that they carried for the next hundred years. The reality of the British Army was different depending on what point in time you look at. Because Britain was never under existential threat from land invasion in that period, the army was under less pressure to adapt to changing circumstances, which is why army reform was halting and half-assed in the Victorian era.

>Yes, like running in front of machine gun and loosing 60 000 men in one day ?
He was talking about 1914, not 1916.

And by the way
>day ?
>advanced !
Good job revealing yourself as a Frognigger

The BEF was comprised of the British Army's core first-line formations and was drilled to higher standards than the mostly non-professional armies of Germany or France. Again, this was because they had gone blind into Transvaal in 1899 and discovered they didn't know how to shoot, use cover or command units under magazine rifle fire. So between 1900 and 1914 they emphasized drill to correct those deficiencies and achieved a high standard of individual competence. Parliament refused to pay for a larger force, so this was their only way to mitigate that.

>le somme lions for lambs meme
That wasn't what happened, and that wasn't the prewar army.

The Dutch and Afrikaners basically taught the British how to fight in the school of hard knocks three times over.

>Yes, like running in front of machine gun

Disregarding the massive oversimplification, what makes you think that's a purely British thing?

>Yes, like running in front of machine gun and loosing 60 000 men in one day ?
>He was talking about 1914, not 1916.

You're also retarded ? You think that british army was more experienced in 1914 that in 1916 and wouldn't have walked like retards in front of machine gun ?

Also, bitch, yes I'am a French and I don't feel any shame because only British people believe that British were relevant in war in 1914 ...

The British Army in 1916 was largely composed of shitty inexperienced conscripts. In 1914 it was a small, professional army.

>only British people believe that British were relevant in war in 1914 ...
If Britain didn't get involved in WW1, France would have lost to Germany.

>calls out Britain for """""running into machineguns""""
>is from a nation that ran into machineguns whole wearing bright red trousers and breastplates because they were LARPing as Napoleon

The absolute state...

Because French were present at the Somme this day too and performed perfectly well with low causalities where as British loose an insane amount of soldier because of such retarded tactics

No, BEF was only a police force to maintain order in Colonies, not to fight a modern army.

They were poor soldiers and never prepared in any kind for harsh conflict where as French army and German Army was in an escalate of force and was putting more and more budget to army using their elite to be officers and putting the highest level of meat for their soldiers.

So, you are retarded like I said before. Walking in front of machine gun wasn't while being pro or conscript do not matters.

The commanders of 1916 were so inexperienced and therefor, THE BRITISH ARMY was so inexperienced and bad that even, 2 years after the beginning of the conflict, the British army was still using a completely outdated tactic with the worst results.

So, I don't even try to imagine how bad BEF was in 1914 and how ineffective ...

>he thinks an army made up of professional regular soldiers is less experienced than an army that was factory workers and postmen a few months before.

>Walking in front of machine gun wasn't while being pro or conscript do not matters.
>The only aspect of an army worth considering when making a judgement is its leadership, the quality of individual soldiers is irrelevant
It would seem that it is you who is retarded.

>the British army was still using a completely outdated tactic with the worst results.
The French were also using outdated tactics at this time. Why do you think the mutinies of 1917 happened?

>So, I don't even try to imagine how bad BEF was in 1914 and how ineffective ...
The BEF's performance in 1914 was quite good.

>Because French were present at the Somme this day too and performed perfectly well with low causalities where as British loose an insane amount of soldier because of such retarded tactics
For an example of the opposite occurring, look up the Nivelle Offensive. The British were far more successful than the French, in fact the French strategy and performance was so dismal that it led to the aformentioned French mutinies.

>that broken english
Jean-Pierre, no one is saying the French didn;t have their finest hour during WW1 because they did. However the British Army was a large part of why you didn't fall as happened during the Franco-Prussian war.

Not the guy you're replying to (nor French) but

>no one is saying the French didn;t have their finest hour during WW1 because they did
They really didn't
France did okay in WW1 (compared to Britain) but they were a mere shadow of their former selves

>However the British Army was a large part of why you didn't fall as happened during the Franco-Prussian war.
Lmao
Britain was irrelevant on the Western Front until mid 1916
Until then, France was basically alone
And eventually, it's America that made Germany realize they couldn't win
Without us, France and Britain would have lost in 1918

In a thread of people deluded enough to think the British and their empire were of no use during the Great War how do you think your interjection of the Americans involvement will be received?

Yes. It was a hilariously tiny army.

They were poor soldiers in 1899. Not in 1914.

The Ludendorff Offensive failed before the Americans got there. The German Army was broken and the German economy was starting to disintegrate. Germany would probably have lost in 1919, albeit less decisively and with fewer concessions.

France made significant improvements and was very capable by 17-18, as was Britain. All armies were struggling to adapt their tactics in 1915-16.

>continental fags attempting banter about the British only defeating poo-in-loos
>when said continental fags actually fought poo-in-loos they got BTFO
Really noggles the nuzzles.

>french generals actually believed that élan could beat machine guns if you just believed enough

Continentals are far more interested in their in-continent shitshow slugging matches that inevitably end up either status quo ante bellum or tiny political/territorial changes, until the next perceived slight fucks things up and they go back to slaughtering each other.

This guy posts this in every thread. Hell, it might even be a copypasta. Disregard him.

The absolute state of British anal devastation

>get called out
>y-you're mad!

Not how it works, kiddo
Britannia rules the waves and the side with Britain on it hasn't lost a continental war in more than 200 years. Come back when your country can say the same :^)

>get called mad
>acts even madder

Britain is island, my dense-as-porcine-faeces chum. Given that the primary purpose of an army has always been defense, why the fuck would they prioritise a standing army over a navy? And when it comes to attacking an opponent, does it not make sense to wait until they are susceptible (or until it is necessary to pre-empt an attack) and strike with an ally?

Britain colonised an entire continent (Australia) which has grown from a dustbowl to a major world economy and sovereign state in its own right. New Zealand, although less well-off by virtue of its smaller size and population, is equally advanced. The same applies to Canada.

Although you seem to rely on memes for your history, surely you aren't so thick as to think the people of the Indian subcontinent and China were 'spear-chuckers' before British subjugation?

Fact is, Britain - in the form of its language and culture - has dominated the world in a way the French, Italians, Greeks, even the Spanish haven't managed. France might have been retarded enough to waste its resources on a futile attempt at 'glory', temporarily ruling a few areas of Europe and calling it might. But Britain went for something much longer lasting. A legacy unmatched by any before them.

Suck it, faggot.

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You can always tell when the butthurt froggies arrive by the poor grammar and factless hate boners.

>trying this hard

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this