Wellington's quote about The Scum of the Earth always misses the last part, "...it really is wonderful what fine fellows we have made of them."

I recall a line from one of the Flashman books, that the individual soldier wasn't a hero, but he knew that the man to the left and right of him were heros.

On the eve of the battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington was driving through Brussels on his way to the ball given in his honour, one of his officers in the coach with him asked the duke how he thought tomorrow's battle might go, Wellington happened to look out of the carriage window and his eye fell on a drunken British soldier staggering along the sidewalk with a prostitute on each arm, The duke said: " It all depends on that article there".

Too late was not at home.  Great show.

On those large battlefields, a soldier only knew what was happening within twenty meters around him. He was hot, hungry, tired, sweaty, thirsty, half blind from the smoke, half deaf from the noise and full of adrenaline. He had no idea who was losing or winning. All he knew was that staying together as a fighting unit and do his job gave him the best chance of surviving the fight. And of course it is always the other guy who gets shot.

On a battleship there is also no place to run .

The Portuguese in the Peninsular war, were apparently admired by the British. They admired their tenacity.

One of my Great Great Great Grandfathers served in the 52nd Regiment of Foot in the Penisular War.  He was discharged shortly before the Battle of Badajoz because of gunshot wounds to his arm.  He grew up in a small village in Somerset and he would have been an agricultural labourer.  He was in the military for nearly 8 years from 1805 to 1813,

I recently discovered an ancestor who was in the Peninsular Wars, then the war of 1812-14 in Canada/USA and Waterloo with the 4th Kings Own Regt of Foot.  He was awarded the Army Gold Medal for his action at St Sebastian, he was a Brigade Major, wounded 3 times, a very brave man

A lot of the Irish name's were from northern town's dating back to the early 1740s and settled after building the canals.

Shout out to 42nd Foot, 79th Foot, & 92nd Foot! May they live forever in our hearts. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

Now Maitland, now`s your time.

Why Did British Soldiers Fight So Damn Hard? What else could the poor chaps do. Its the old "do or die" and that was it. Great video Chris, great guests, nice to see young lads interested.

A Londoner ex Army , told me he was posted to the Durham Light Infantry . A southerner in a Northern Regiment . He soon forgot the demographics . That Regiment was his family , nothing else in the Army mattered. To myself its a mixture of pride and a sense of belonging  , that set Regiments apart.

Primary evidence confirms that the main reason British soldiers fight so hard is that they don't want to let down their mates and they don't want their mates to consider them cowards.  In effect they fight for each other and their regiment which for most of them is synonymous with their family.  Also, Leo Tolstoi when assessing the quality of the soldiers of the various nations involved in the Napoleonic Wars stated of the British Soldier (or English as he called them) that 'The English soldier is convinced of his own superiority over those of every other nation he faces, and so cannot conceive of the possibility that he can be beaten."  Likewise to quote Marshal Soult 'The English are very bad soldiers.  You can turn their flanks, you can pierce their center, you can overwhelm them everywhere and still, they do not realize that they are beaten."

As an interesting secondary observation though is how this attitude appeared to be infectious as many Allied units were made up of foreign troops who seemed just as stoic once trained by British Officers and NCo's e.g. the Portuguese and the German units.

A distant ancestor, from Scotland enlisted, fought in Portugal in engineers, was wounded, picked up a Portuguese wife and Colour Sergeant William Wilson came with the army to Port Macquarie, NSW in 1821.

I believe some Highland regiments were almost feudal in their recruitment. the clan chief (Gordon for example) decided to raise a regiment and the call went out to his clan members/ tenants who would flock to the colours out of loyalty to their chieftain as they had done for generations.

The British army was then mainly volunteer, besides this they got fed.

1:06:00 "Bobber" LOL




"Who bobbs now!" :)

Excellent broadcast.  It's great to hear facts and explanations from knowledgeable people on this subject.   Keep up the great work.   Thank you!  Regards from Canada 🇨🇦

Your best episode ever. You are getting better and better at this. Keep it up!

Shame about the microphone problems throughout this video. Really fascinating subject though. Keep up the good work!