British Army During The Napoleonic Wars - Structure

Structure

See also: British soldiers in the eighteenth century

In 1793, shortly before Britain became involved in the French Revolutionary Wars, the army consisted of three regiments of Household Cavalry, 27 line regiments of cavalry, seven battalions in three regiments of Foot Guards and 81 battalions in 77 numbered regiments of line infantry, with two colonial corps (one in New South Wales and one in Canada). There were 36 Independent Companies of Invalids, known by their Captain's name, scattered in garrisons and forts across Great Britain.

Administered separately by the Board of Ordnance, the artillery had 40 companies in four battalions of Foot Artillery, 10 companies in the Invalid Battalion, two independent companies in India and a Company of Cadets. Two troops of the Royal Horse Artillery were being organised. The Corps of Royal Engineers and Invalid Corps of Royal Engineers were specialised bodies of officers. The Corps of Royal Military Artificers consisted of six companies. There were also two Independent Companies of Artificers.

There was no formal command structure and a variety of government departments controlled army units depending on where they were stationed; troops in Ireland were controlled by the Irish Establishment, rather than the War Office in London, for example. In 1793, the first steps towards formal organisation were taken when fifteen general officers were appointed to command military districts in England and Wales.

Read more about this topic:  British Army During The Napoleonic Wars

Famous quotes containing the word structure:

    “Who says that fictions only and false hair
    Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
    Is all good structure in a winding stair?
    May no lines pass, except they do their duty
    Not to a true, but painted chair?”
    —George Herbert (1593–1633)

    “The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
    —Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

    “There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
    —Donald Davidson (b. 1917)