Hist. 0154 

SOLDIERS, WARS, AND SOCIETY: THE BRITISH ARMY

Captain and Lieutenant Colonel John Thomas de Burgh, 1st Regiment
of Foot Guards, a veteran of the American War of Independence.
He later founded the Connaught Rangers, one of the British Army's
most celebrated Irish regiment.

Textbook Terms for the Midterm Exam
Longbow
Edward I

Fyrd

Familia

Henry VIII

James IV

Flodden

Oliver Cromwell

New Model Army

Tangier

Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell

Treaty of Limerick

Mutiny Act of 1689

Ramillies

Marshal Francois de Neufville, Duke of Villeroi

Field Marshal George Hamilton Orkney

General William, Earl Cadogan

Lille

Major General John Webb

Marshal Louis Francois, Duke of Boufflers

"Old Corporal"

Cartagena

Lieutenant General Lord Cathcart

Colonel Henry Bouquet

60th Royal American Regiment

Lord George Augustus Howe

Plains of Abraham

Major General Jeffrey Amherst

Brigadier General Hugh, Lord Percy

Lexington and Concord

Lieutenant General Charles, Earl Cornwallis

Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton

Camden, South Carolina

General Horatio Gates

David Dundas

Principles of Military Movements

Lord Jeffrey Amherst

Tirailleurs

Marshal Blucher

Marshal Grouchy

Waterloo

Henry, Earl Grey (Lord Howick)

Sir Henry, Viscount Hardinge

The Times (of London)

William Howard Russell

Sir Colin Campbell

Sir James Scarlett

Balaclava

Heavy Brigade

Captain Lewis Nolan

Lord Lucan

Lord Cardigan

Light Brigade

Alfred Tennyson


The 42nd Regiment of Foot (better known as the Royal Highlanders or Black Watch) overrun
a Russian artillery battery at the Battle of the Alma, September 20, 1854, in the Crimean War.

Essay Questions for the Midterm Exam

1) What were some of the more important devices that English medieval kings used to assemble the armies they needed for their expeditions into Wales,Scotland, and France?
 

2) Why did so many Englishmen fear the existence of a standing army in Great Britain during the reigns of Charles II and James II?
 

3) What characteristics made John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the greatest British general a century before the emergence of the Duke of Wellington?
 

4) What tactical and strategic innovations did the British Army adopt during the American Revolution?
 

5) Explain the British system of platoon fire and how it made British infantry the best in Europe.
 

6) Compare George II, the Duke of Cumberland, and James Abercromby as generals.What flaws did they have in common, and in what campaigns or battles were those flaws most readily apparent?
 

7) What was the "blue water" strategy favored by William Pitt the Younger and other British politicians during the wars of the French Revolution and the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars, and what impact did it have on the record and reputation of the British Army?
 

8) What reforms introduced by the Duke of York and other officers in the 1790s and early 1800s helped shape the British Army into a more efficient fighting machine capable of defeating some of Napoleon's finest troops on various battlefields in Egypt and western Europe?
 

9) Describe the tactics employed by the Duke of Wellington numerous times in his many victories in Portugal andSpain during the Peninsular War (1809-14) and at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium (1815).
 

10) What errors committed by Lord Raglan and other British officers culminated in the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade, which climaxed the Battle of Balaclava,October 25, 1854?
 

11) What were the causes of the Indian Mutiny, which saw the East India Company's Bengal Army turn on its British overlords in 1857?

A period print of the Duke of Wellington ordering his Anglo-Dutch army to begin a
general advance in the final stage of the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815.