The Duke of York got bad press at the time and, from historians, subsequently because he led an Allied force against the French and was driven back. The author has provided fresh insight into a disastrous campaign through fresh study. – Very Highly Recommended.
NAME: The Duke of York's Flanders Campaign, Fighting The French Revolution 1793-1795 FILE: R3148 AUTHOR: Steve Brown PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PRICE: £25.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: French Revolutionary War, French Revolution, Low Countries, Allied Army, French Army, Duke of York, Anglo-Hanoverian soldiers, Dutch troops, Hessian troops, Prussian troops, Imperial Austrian troops, George III ISBN: 1-52674-269-1 PAGES: 380 IMAGE: B3148.jpg BUYNOW: tinyurl.com/vt8cgyd DESCRIPTION: The Duke of York got bad press at the time and, from historians, subsequently because he led an Allied force against the French and was driven back. The author has provided fresh insight into a disastrous campaign through fresh study. – Very Highly Recommended. When the French Revolution broke out it was a serious shock to the monarchies of Europe. As the revolutionaries looked to expand their borders, and foment revolution in neighbouring countries, an alliance was formed against them and the Duke of York was sent to the Low Countries in command of the Anglo-Hanoverian force that was to be part of the ring of armies from the monarchies of Europe who were seeking to contain and overturn the French Revolution. The Duke of York was to be forced to march up and down, into a terrible and humiliating retreat. In the process, the commander got the blame, much of which was unfair to the Duke. The author has taken a fresh and much-needed look at what happened, providing fresh insights. The British have never been keen on standing armies and instead depended heavily on the Royal Navy to prevent the invasion of the British Isles, the defence of the long sea routes on which so much depended economically, and to take the fight to the enemy navies and their maritime trade. Generally, from the Tudors, Britain has paid German and Dutch troops to fight for them on land in Europe. British soldiers who participated in the succession of land wars were mercenaries augmenting the Swedish, Dutch and German forces. Some Scottish families maintained regiments in Germany on this basis. As, on this occasion, it was necessary to fight directly as a formal part of the Coalition, The Duke of York, son of George III, was sent with British troops drawn from the small army raised to serve British interests around the globe. The Duke of York found, as did many a British commander at the start of a new conflict forced by the ambitions of other States, that this force was not well-trained or equipped and the new war was a steep learning curve. He did not fair as badly as the BEF in 1940, but he was forced into retreat and the British reputation suffered. However, he did learn from the experiences, as did his troops, and efforts were made to avoid a future failure of arms. When the same soldiers went to Portugal under Wellington, they benefited from the experiences and the efforts to improve their capabilities to the point where they fought through Spain and Portugal against numerically superior French armies and drove them back and into France to end the Napoleonic Wars, until Napoleon escaped from exile in Elba and a final battle was fought at Waterloo. This makes the Flanders campaign very interesting, not for martial success, but for redirecting British military thought.