Andrew Bamford – författare

Although an army's success is often measured in battle outcomes, its victories depend on strengths that may be less obvious on the field. In Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword, military historian Andrew Bamford assesses the effectiveness of the British Army in sustained campaigning during the Napoleonic Wars. In the process, he offers a fresh and controversial look at Britain's military system, showing that success or failure on campaign rested on the day-to-day experiences of regimental units rather than the army as a whole.Bamford draws his title from the words of Captain Moyle Sherer, who during the winter of 1816-1817 wrote an account of his service during the Peninsular War: ""My regiment has never been very roughly handled in the field. . . But, alas! What between sickness, suffering, and the sword, few, very few of those men are now in existence."" Bamford argues that those daily scourges of such often-ignored factors as noncombat deaths and equine strength and losses determined outcomes on the battlefield.In the nineteenth century, the British Army was a collection of regiments rather than a single unified body, and the regimental system bore the responsibility of supplying manpower on that field. Between 1808 and 1815, when Britain was fighting a global conflict far greater than its military capabilities, the system nearly collapsed. Only a few advantages narrowly outweighed the army's increasing inability to meet manpower requirements. This book examines those critical dynamics in Britain's major early-nineteenth-century campaigns: the Peninsular War (1808-1814), the Walcheren Expedition (1809), the American War (1812-1815), and the growing commitments in northern Europe from 1813 on.Drawn from primary documents, Bamford's statistical analysis compares the vast disparities between regiments and different theatres of war and complements recent studies of health and sickness in the British Army.

Although an army’s success is often measured in battle outcomes, its victories depend on strengths that may be less obvious on the field. In Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword, military historian Andrew Bamford assesses the effectiveness of the British Army in sustained campaigning during the Napoleonic Wars. In the process, he offers a fresh and controversial look at Britain’s military system, showing that success or failure on campaign rested on the day-to-day experiences of regimental units rather than the army as a whole.Bamford draws his title from the words of Captain Moyle Sherer, who during the winter of 1816-1817 wrote an account of his service during the Peninsular War: “My regiment has never been very roughly handled in the field. . . But, alas! What between sickness, suffering, and the sword, few, very few of those men are now in existence.” Bamford argues that those daily scourges of such often-ignored factors as noncombat deaths and equine strength and losses determined outcomes on the battlefield.In the nineteenth century, the British Army was a collection of regiments rather than a single unified body, and the regimental system bore the responsibility of supplying manpower on that field. Between 1808 and 1815, when Britain was fighting a global conflict far greater than its military capabilities, the system nearly collapsed. Only a few advantages narrowly outweighed the army’s increasing inability to meet manpower requirements. This book examines those critical dynamics in Britain’s major early-nineteenth-century campaigns: the Peninsular War (1808-1814), the Walcheren Expedition (1809), the American War (1812-1815), and the growing commitments in northern Europe from 1813 on.Drawn from primary documents, Bamford’s statistical analysis compares the vast disparities between regiments and different theatres of war and complements recent studies of health and sickness in the British Army.

The 12th Light Dragoons served throughout Wellington's campaigns in the Peninsula, most notably at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812, and later at Waterloo where they suffered heavy casualties supporting the Union Brigade's famous charge. The principal source for this book are the papers of Sir James Steaurt – Colonel of the regiment for almost all of the period in question – supplemented by other regimental records, Horse Guards paperwork, and letters and memoirs, allowing both an official understanding of events, and several threads of human interest which develop through the narrative.

The book is divided into two halves, first providing an overview of the regiment and the role of Steuart as Colonel, before moving onto an account of the regiment on home service during the early years of the Napoleonic Wars and then on active service in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo. This concludes with a discussion of the lessons learnt during the war, as particularly exemplified by the 12th being one of the regiments selected for conversion to lancers in the aftermath of Waterloo.

Sir Thomas Graham’s Netherlands Campaign of 1813–1814 has produced a surprisingly rich crop of memoirs and letters. This compelling new book brings together six of the shorter accounts, several of them never before seen in print, to help shed new light on the triumphs and disasters of these forgotten operations. Mixing formal reports with lively personal narratives, and contemporary letters and diaries with later reflections, this selection covers all the major actions of the campaign and the authors range from one of Graham’s senior staff to an NCO in one of his infantry battalions. In addition to explanatory notes throughout, detailed appendices resolve some of the controversies arising from these and other eyewitness accounts, helping to increase our understanding of these little-known but important operations. Carefully researched and expertly compiled by historian Andrew Bamford, this is a valuable and absorbing new source, which will be of great interest to any student of the period.

The British campaign in the Low Countries in 1813-14 in support of the Dutch revolt against the French is one of the lesser-known campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, but one, which the great historian of the British Army Sir John Fortescue wrote that it was impossible to understand the Waterloo campaign without a knowledge of. The book deals with all aspects of the campaign, from grand strategy, with the proposed marriage alliance between the House of Orange and the House of Hanover, to tactical analysis of the battles and sieges that took place, including the disastrous attack on Bergen-op-Zoom, where heroic British soldiers paid with their lives for their commanders’ failures. The problems of co-operation between the British and Prussians described here foreshadowed those, which would affect Wellington in 1815. Illustrated with contemporary portraits, plans of the fortifications of Bergen and eight maps.

Britain carried out many amphibious operations during the long-eighteenth century, ranging from raids to the landing of whole armies. British Amphibious Warfare 1739-1815 provides case-studies of some of these operations, and explores why their outcomes ranged from great successes to major disasters, with no obvious long-term learning curve. Many of the mistakes at Cartagena in 1741 were replicated at Walcheren in 1809, condemning soldiers in both campaigns to lingering deaths from fever. Between the two we find successes including Louisbourg (twice), Quebec, Belleisle, and Charleston, and the textbook landings at Aboukir Bay in 1801 that delivered Abercromby’s army to Egypt, but also failures at Lorient, St Cast, Ostend, New Orleans and elsewhere. What factors ensured that some expeditions succeeded where others failed? What lessons were learned along the way, and why were they not consistently applied thereafter?British Amphibious Warfare 1739-1815, built on papers presented at the 2023 From Reason to Revolution conference but also bringing in additional contributors and material, provides an overview of Britain’s amphibious operations from the early part of the eighteenth century to the close of the Napoleonic era, an examination of the earliest attempts to develop amphibious doctrine by Thomas More Molyneux, and a series of case-studies that examine both successes and failures. Case studies include: Cartegena 1741, Louisbourg 1745, Lorient 1746, Belleisle 1761, the Delaware River 1777, Charleston 1780, Ceylon 1795-1796, Aboukir Bay 1801, Walcheren 1809, and amphibious raiding in the Adriatic during the Napoleonic Wars.