A French army is composed very differently from ours. The conscription calls out a share of every class — no matter whether your son or my son — all must march; but our friends — I may say it in this room — are the very scum of the earth. People talk of their enlisting from their fine military feeling — all stuff — no such thing. Some of our men enlist from having got bastard children — some for minor offences — many more for drink; but you can hardly conceive such a set brought together, and it really is wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are.
Duke of Wellington, November 11, 1831
The battalion earned the regiment its nickname of “the Die Hards” after their participation in the Battle of Albuera, (order of battle) one of the bloodiest battles of the war, in May 1811.[12] The commanding officer of the battalion, Colonel William Inglis, was struck down by a charge of canister shot which hit him in the neck and left breast. He refused to be carried to the rear for treatment, but lay in front of his men calling on them to hold their position and when the fight reached its fiercest cried, “Die hard the 57th, die hard!”.[13] The casualties of the battalion were 422 out of the 570 men in the ranks and 20 out of the 30 officers.[5] The Allied commander of the Anglo-Portuguese force General William Beresford wrote in his dispatch, “our dead, particularly the 57th Regiment, were lying as they fought in the ranks, every wound in front”.[14]
Wickipedia. 57th Regiment of Foot
The British Army that conquered a quarter of the globe was a volunteer force. The men were almost always the lowest of the low, usually commanded by aristocratic fops, who might as well have been a different species. The long term NCOs, risen from the ranks, were the glue that held this ramshackle organization together. Discipline was brutal and offenses were punished savagely. Officers and men tended to be united in one all important characteristic however: a ferocious physical courage which made them completely indifferent to death or wounds. Breaking a British line of infantry, or a British square, was very difficult to do as a consequence, and the stubborn valor in battle of the average Tommy Atkins often made up for mistakes of the higher command. Wellington knew this. Just before the Battle of Waterloo a journalist asked Wellington if he would beat Napoleon. Wellington pointed at a British private gaping at a statue. It all depends on that article there. Give me enough of it and I am sure.
