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INTRODUCTION A French Connection B ooks were essential to the eighteenth-century British army and its officercorps. Successive governments relied on books to set standards for the army: to define the obligations of officers in serving their king and country; to prepare officers to lead the combat arms, particularly the artillery and engineers ; and to provide uniform tactics for an army that was widely scattered in peacetime—to teach companies and troops how to march, maneuver, and fire so as to blend together effectively in war. Beyond that, officers turned to privately printed books to expand their knowledge of wars and warfare: to understand military history, to keep abreast of developments in the art of war, to share specialized knowledge and encourage fellow officers to become students of warfare, and to prepare for assignments around the world. Indeed , eighteenth-century British officers bought, read, and recommended hundreds of books on war, books ancient and modern in a variety of European languages. They were particularly attracted to histories, biographies, and memoirs; texts on artillery and engineering; the classics of Greece and Rome; and Continental treatises on the art of war.1 Officers who aspired to high command were most likely to appreciate books on war and become students of warfare. James Wolfe, who commanded the British forces that captured Quebec in 1759, found inspiration in the writings of fellow officers like Richard Viscount Molesworth and Richard Kane, kept up with the latest works from France and Prussia, and shared his knowledge of books with men entering the service. John Lord Ligonier, commander in chief during the Seven Years’ War, and Sir Henry Clinton, commander in chief in America during the War for Independence, shared Wolfe’s enthusiasm for books and study. Ligonier read broadly throughout his career and assembled an impressive collection of books on war. Clinton, who had served as aide to Ligonier, did much the same, reflecting on his reading in more than a dozen notebooks and developing a 4 INTRODUCTION remarkably consistent understanding of war based on a synthesis of theory and practice.2 Historians have recognized the importance of books on war for the eighteenth-century British army and its officer corps, and they have drawn on those books while studying nearly every aspect of warfare. Yet, for all of their reliance on books on war, historians have rarely tried to establish which books mattered most in the eighteenth century. It is by no means easy to know what officers preferred in an era when there were few standard reading lists and when few officers recorded their preferences. And it is understandable that historians, recognizing that books were important but finding it difficult to connect officers to particular titles, have tended to rely on books that were frequently reprinted or translated into English, that attracted officers as subscribers, and that were coherently and persuasively written. Such an approach to choosing among the hundreds of books on war available in the eighteenth century is understandable if not entirely satisfying . It does not establish, comprehensively, which books on war eighteenthcentury British officers preferred, how their preferences changed over time, or what books were considered authoritative from one era to another. By far the most thorough and thoughtful analysis of books in the eighteenth-century British army is in J. A. Houlding’s Fit for Service. In explaining the changes that the British government made in its drill regulations between the War of the Spanish Succession and the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, Houlding went well beyond official publications. He examined another 120 books written by individual soldiers and scholars , books that complemented the official regulations and dealt with such varied topics as drill, tactics and strategy, engineering, artillery, amphibious operations, history, and the classics. But Houlding did little to judge, explicitly, the importance of particular books. He did emphasize works that influenced the development of drill regulations as well as works that were reprinted frequently or translated into English and works that he found unusually thoughtful and persuasive. This approach did not necessarily reveal the preferences of eighteenth-century British officers. By emphasizing books that complemented drill regulations and that were written in English, Houlding omitted many books that were popular with eighteenth-century British officers and included many more that were not.3 I did try to allow for the preferences of those officers in analyzing the origins of British strategy in the War for American Independence and the education of Sir Henry Clinton . But my...

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