{"product_id":"sickness-suffering-and-the-sword-the-british-regiment-on-campaign-1808-1815-9780806143439","title":"Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808-1815","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlthough an army's success is often measured in battle outcomes, its victories depend on strengths that may be less obvious on the field. In \u003cem\u003eSickness, Suffering, and the Sword\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBamford 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBamford, Andrew:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cb\u003eAndrew Bamford\u003c\/b\u003e is a freelance historian and writer.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGraves, Donald E.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Military historian \u003cb\u003eDonald E. Graves\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of several books, including most recently \u003ci\u003eDragon Rampant: The Royal Welch Fusiliers at War, 1793-1815\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"University of Oklahoma Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50845381787922,"sku":"9780806143439","price":43.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f53861cb-3d25-40b3-85be-ac788775a460.jpg?v=1737349418","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/sickness-suffering-and-the-sword-the-british-regiment-on-campaign-1808-1815-9780806143439","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}