Fusiliers by Mark Urban
How the British Army Lost America but Learned to Fight
As well as being the Diplomatic Editor of the BBC program Newsnight, Mark Urban is a former soldier and defence correspondent for The Independent whose recent books have firmly established him as a leading and popular military historian. In his earlier book, Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters, Urban had great success with the idea of following a single regiment through a war and he once again uses this winning formula in Fusiliers.
A Regiment at War
In Fusiliers, Urban has chosen to tell the story of the 23rd Regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a unit that saw action throughout the American War of Independence from Lexington Green in 1775 to Yorktown in 1781. Despite being regular line troops rather than a special operations regiment like that depicted in Rifles, the Royal Welch Fusiliers were central to most of the important battles of the war and, as such, the 23rd are an excellent choice of subject since their story can serve to illustrate the conflict as a whole.
Despite their heroic actions, the Royal Welch Fusiliers could not escape the fact that they were fighting a hugely unpopular war in unknown territory and, by the time of their surrender at Yorktown, the initial fighting force had been whittled down to only a few dozen men.
The lessons learned during the American War of Independence would, however, be hugely important to the future of the British army as survivors from the original 23rd Regiment would be instrumental in teaching new recruits the techniques which would eventually lead to the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
A Complex Conflict
The American War of Independence is a fiendishly complicated conflict to narrate due to the high number of factions involved (from the Whigs to the Tories, the French to the Native Americans, the Virginians to the Marylanders) and the complex causes and effects of the battles but in Fusiliers Mark Urban has managed to detail the minor aspects of army life during that period while never losing sight of the bigger picture of the conflict.
Urban has proved himself to be able to chronicle excellently the battle themselves so that the conflict is continually engaging while the account is, importantly, both accurate and emotive. In compiling Fusiliers, Urban has researched a staggering number of sources and accounts, many of them primary and never before published, and so he is able to shed light on the personal wars of many soldiers and officers whose experiences might otherwise fade into history.
Fusiliers is a very well-balanced account of war and, although the book concentrates on the actual battles and campaigns of the American War of Independence, Urban does not shy away from recounting the numerous atrocities that were committed by both sides during the conflict. Equally interesting is the way Urban demonstrates that, far from being bogged down in tradition and incompetence, the British army actually began adapting their military techniques from the minute their faults were revealed during the march from Concord to Bunker Hill so that the beginnings of a modern fighting force can be seen.
With Fusiliers Mark Urban has provided a fascinating and humane account of a conflict that marked both the most significant military failure of one world power and the most significant victory of another.
Fusiliers by Mark Urban
ISBN 978-0571224881, Faber and Faber, 2008, £9.99, pp400
