Infantry: Napoleon to the Peninsular Wars

By 1790 the army was in a very bad state owing to political neglect, but the shock of the Napoleonic wars, beginning in 1793, pulled it together.  By 1815, when Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo, it was an efficient fighting force. After 1815 the army was again neglected, but not to the previous extent.  The interest of George IV and William IV was largely sartorial. By 1846 individual regiments were reasonably efficient, but administration was appalling, as the war in the Crimea would demonstrate. The late 18th century saw the army involved in North America, which showed the inadequacy of our infantry training. In 1770 a light company was added to each battalion. Infantry tactics became far more flexible.
Sir John Moore organised the Light Brigade, which became the Light Division, and they had a great influence on infantry training. Moore also insisted that his officers know his men well – as had General Wolfe in Canada. Close contact between officers and men became something of which the army is proud. Barracks were built to house the men – the improvement in morale was immediate and striking. At the end of the eighteenth century the army was fighting Napoleon, in Spain and Portugal, engaged in India, and, owing to Pitt’s policy of ‘filching sugar islands’, garrisons had to be found for the West Indies. Losses in India and the West Indies were appalling, dysentery, cholera and yellow fever almost, on occasions, destroying whole battalions. These men, given the proper lead which they got from such commanders as Moore and Wellington, formed a body which in its day was unsurpassed.