{"product_id":"sickness-suffering-and-the-sword-andrew-bamford-9780806168944","title":"Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808-1815 Volume 37","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 \u003ci\u003eSickness, Suffering, and the Sword\u003c\/i\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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Andrew Bamford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0806168943\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780806168944\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Oklahoma Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/06\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 388\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.86d","brand":"Andrew Bamford","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46767246508287,"sku":"9780806168944","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_422bffb8-e6bf-47b3-a679-03e074461e7a.jpg?v=1744169255","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/sickness-suffering-and-the-sword-andrew-bamford-9780806168944","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}