British Army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

British Army
British Army
	Uniforms of the 50th Regiment of Foot in 1812
Active	1793–1815
Country	Great Britain (1793–1800) ; United Kingdom (1801–1815)
Type	Army
Role	Land warfare
Size	793,110 (total recruited, 1793–1815)
Engagements	See list: French Revolutionary Wars West Indies Campaign Haitian Revolution; ; War of the First Coalition Low Countries theatre; Invasion of Corsica; Invasion of the Cape Colony; Invasion of Ceylon; ; Irish Rebellion of 1798; War of the Second Coalition Campaign in Egypt and Syria; Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland; ; ; Napoleonic Wars Caribbean campaign of 1803–1810; War of the Third Coalition Hanover Expedition; Invasion of Naples; Sicily, Mediterranean, South Africa; ; Anglo-Turkish War (1807–1809); Gunboat War Copenhagen expedition; ; Peninsular War; War of the Fifth Coalition Walcheren Campaign; ; Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811; Invasion of the Spice Islands; Invasion of Java (1811); War of the Sixth Coalition Campaign in south-west France; Holland; ; War of the Seventh Coalition Waterloo campaign; ; ; Anglo-Mysore wars; Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808) British invasions of the River Plate; ; Second Anglo-Maratha War; War of 1812;
Commanders
Commander-in-Chief	Lord Amherst (1793–1795); The Duke of York (1795–1809), (1811–1815); Sir David Dundas (1809–1811)
Secretary of State for War 1794–1801; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1801–1854	Henry Dundas; Robert Hobart; John Pratt; Robert Stewart; William Windham; Robert Jenkinson
Notable; commanders	See list: Charles O'Hara; Sir Ralph Abercromby; Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake; Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany; Sir John Stuart; Alexander Mackenzie Fraser; Lord Cathcart; Sir John Moore; Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey; Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington; John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham; Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill; Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch; William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford; Sir John Murray; Sir Frederick Adam;

The British Army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars experienced a time of rapid change. At the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, the army was a small, awkwardly administered force of barely 40,000 men. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the numbers had vastly increased. At its peak, in 1813, the regular army contained over 250,000 men.

The British infantry was "the only military force not to suffer a major reverse at the hands of Napoleonic France." Unlike most French cavalry troopers who after 1805 received a bare 2 to 3 weeks of training, being prosperous if they were taught basic horsemanship and drill, the British trooper received a minimum of 6 months' training. Because the French could not withdraw from continental conflict as easily as the British (due to the latter's geographic location) and were forced to wage one war after another, they often did not have time to properly train their recruits. The British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, along with the Grande Armée, was considered one of the most modernized of its time and was among the finest in military history, thanks to a large number of volunteers (who were more effective than recruits), good training, strong weaponry (such as the Baker rifle or the Congreve rocket), many skilled commanders, and appropriate tactics. The army did not fight a major clash directly with the Grande Armée formation, which was resolutely involved only in the wars of the Third, Fourth, Sixth coalitions and in the invasion of Russia.

Despite all the advantages, the quality of this army sacrificed its quantity: the army was not large enough to stand against France alone, even at the peak. It preferred to operate en masse only on secondary fronts such as the Netherlands (i.e., the 1799 invasion and Walcheren) and the Iberian Peninsula (the Peninsular War). During the Flanders campaign, the Netherlands front was the main one, however; both Prussia and Austria assisted Britain. At the Battle of Waterloo, there were 26 infantry brigades with only 9 were British. The Battle of Trafalgar demonstrated to the highest degree the Royal Navy's technological superiority over the Spanish and French navies, cementing its naval dominance a century ahead; hence, in the Peninsular War in which the British Army of that period had the strongest impact, the Royal Navy also played a major role in the victory, providing an advantage over the French Imperial Army in logistics and strategic planning for conducting operations by the army; under threat of landing on the coast, the French Army allocated the necessary forces to patrol it. On Iberia, the British Army was aided by guerrilla warfare as well, exacerbating French supply shipment and requiring French patrols to protect convoys. All these advantages also had an impact on military combat operations.