The Wandering Army

The Campaigns That Transformed the British Way of War

By: Huw J. Davies

Narrated by: Michael Page

A compelling history of the British Army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—showing how the military gathered knowledge from campaigns across the globe

At the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession in 1742, the British Army's military tactics were tired and outdated, stultified after three decades of peace. The army's leadership was conservative, resistant to change, and unable to match new military techniques developing on the continent. Losses were cataclysmic and the force was in dire need of modernization—both in terms of strategy and in leadership and technology.

In this wide-ranging and highly original account, Huw Davies traces the British Army's accumulation of military knowledge across the following century. An essentially global force, British armies and soldiers continually gleaned and synthesized strategy from warzones the world over: from Europe to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Davies records how the army and its officers put this globally acquired knowledge to use, exchanging information and developing into a remarkable vehicle of innovation—leading to the pinnacle of its military prowess in the nineteenth century.

©2022 Huw J. Davies (P)2023 Tantor

Solid offering of a potentially dry subject

Really enjoyed the insight by the author of the various historic periods. The section on the French and Indian War into the AWI was particularly good!

Direct and informative

The narrators speaks a little slowly for my brain but playing at 1.5 speed solves that. The book itself was through and interesting. The author doesn't avoid topics that make the western powers look not as favorable and doesn't try to justify them but using the writings of the time to work through the "justifications" of the commanders. I got the boom to get a better understanding of the British army after reading the Sharpe series and it was really nice to get more context.

A Standard for Historical Writing

One of the best histories I've read since Goldworthy's CEASAR. Explores questions about the evolution of the British Army from Marlborough to Wellington with a dual mandate of providing overseas expeditionary forces and formidable Continental field armies. Unlike Continental armies the British Army learned to adapt to the conditions found literally all over the world and then incorporate and decimate those lesson throughout the Army. Highly recommended. The narration was excellant and easy to follow.