The British Soldier As A Drunken Brute - 1648 Words

The beginning of the nineteenth century found the British army already engaged for the last seven years in a war with the French. This war to oppose Napoleon would last until 1815, by which time the British would be victorious. This triumphant British army, although successful throughout their campaign with the French, was not openly considered a humble and advantageous force for society. In fact, the common stereotype and popular image of the British soldier was negative, as the Duke of Wellington stated the soldiers were â€Å"the scum of the earth† who have â€Å"all enlisted to drink†.1 For the majority of the soldiers, this label was given inappropriately and carelessly. The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence, a British soldier who fought in the Peninsula and Waterloo Campaigns during his fourteen-year military career, offers an insight into the lives of the labelled soldiers and interpretation of whether this label can be deemed accurate. The idea of the British soldier as a drunken brute is inaccurate. The men who enlisted to fight against Napoleon were more often than not forced to do so out of economic necessity. â€Å"Soldiers’ delinquencies seemed to many contemporaries to be the unavoidable result of the type of men who enlisted.†2 The British army was made from voluntary enlistment, and this was thought to have produced a body of army that was inferior in both character and discipline to the past British armies. For the volunteers, the promise of regular food andShow MoreRelatedWho Goes with Fergus11452 Words   |  46 PagesFor example, in this poem Yeats says I am content to follow to its source every event in action or in though; measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! Byzantium At night in the city of Byzantium, â€Å"The unpurged images of day recede.† The drunken soldiers of the Emperor are asleep, and the song of night-walkers fades after the great cathedral gong. The â€Å"starlit† or â€Å"moonlit dome,† the speaker says, disdains all that is human—†All mere complexities, / The fury and the mire of human veins.† TheRead MoreShort Summary of the Great Gatsby11203 Words   |  45 Pagesbecame an incurable alcoholic. In 1937, however, he managed to acquire work as a scriptwriter in Hollywood. There, he met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a famous Hollywood gossip columnist. For the rest of his life, though he frequently had drunken spells in which he became bitter and violent, Fitzgerald lived quietly with her. Occasionally he went east to visit Zelda or his daughter Frances, who entered Vassar College in 1938. In October 1939 Fitzgerald began a novel about Hollywood entitled