"British Victory in Egypt, 1801: The End of Napoleon's... " Topic

…Conquest.

"In 1800 the British Army was the laughing-stock of Europe. A year later, after forty years of failure, its honour and reputation had been redeemed.
British Victory in Egypt, 1801 recounts and analyses the story of the expeditionary force that ejected Bonaparte's crack troops from Egypt. Piers Mackesy shows how the future of the British Empire depended on the dislodging of the Napoleonic force in the Middle East. Outlining the daring assault and the masterly planning and discipline that brought victory against the odds, this book also reveals how vital Sir Ralph Abercromby, an elderly Scot and leader of the army, was to the final success of the venture. The part played in the victory by the Highland regiments is still celebrated in Scotland."
See here
link

Anyone have read this book?
If the answer is yes, comments please?.

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Amicalement
Armand

Yes. Good book with details and maps.
Used for my FRW egyptian scenarios.

M aka WR

Excellent book. Well written, good detail.

Read it earlier this year. Gives a good idea of the state of the army beforehand and of course the specifics of the campaign and how it transpired. Abercromby certainly comes across as a very good commander in it, though his successor had a lot of obstacles from his fellow commanders too.

Definitely worth a read!

"Forty years of failure." In 1801? Really?

I recall that Arthur Wellesley had some certain success against Tipu Sultan in 1799.

Rick

Many thanks for your guidance boys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Britain has always had good soldiers. The problem has always been that 'at times' the leadership and politics letting them down.

Paul :)

I think the army had a bad run, especially in the 1790s,though there was a wide range of reasons for this. Of course its right to point out that the army was mainly comprised of good troops, but the campaign history for the 1790s in the French Revolutionary War had some rather poor and embarrassing moments.

The West Indies (in parts), Flanders, Quiberon Bay, the Helder, and the abortive landings at Ferrol and Cadiz were not the army's finest moments, but that's more down to bad planning, support and leadership overall. If you take some parts of those, like the Battle of Beaumont in 1794, the army did particularly well – failure was more from the top than the bottom.

But the main point of Mackesy's book, which was great to read, was that Abercromby had taken all this aboard, especially the lack of coordination and planning for the landings at Ferrol in 1800, and made sure the men were trained up and knew what they were doing and made sure the navy did too.

Yes- it is a great book.

Oh and victories in India , though welcome, weer not considered to count – Wellesley was dismissively refrred to as a 'sepoy general'…

The British Army had two relatively long periods of peace in those 40 years (1763-1775 and 1783-1794), during which time it was used primarily for crowd control and anti-smuggling. This in turn limited both regimental training and that of senior officers – in fact, it was rare for any general to command more than a division in combat, let alone armies of tens of thousands. Also, a lot of what we "know" about certain men is political propaganda – the "grand old" Duke of York being a case in point, ditto the dismissal of Beaky as a "Sepoy general".

From the accession of George III onwards, the role of the British Army changed from being a "major" European player (primarily to protect Hannover) to being a "support" player for European allies, carrying out nuisance raids on the enemy (both in Europe and elsewhere if the enemy had colonies), and providing garrisons for the Empire. As in 1914, such an army had to undergo enormous cultural changes to meet the demands of large-scale European warfare.