Service without Politics? Army,Militia and Volunteers in Britain during the American and French Revolutionary Wars

Abstract

A military that accepts the principle of state service ahead of political partisanship has long been an important feature of Britain’s political culture. Yet in the early eighteenth century the army’s loyalty to the state was confused by the personal authority and political proscriptions that George I and George II enforced. The raising of auxiliaries, commencing with the militia in 1757, also ran the risk of the politicization of military force. This article explores the detachment from politics that occurred in all cases in spite of the strong contentions that the American and French revolutions excited. The argument, in brief, is that the army defined itself as a service, the crown exercised restraint, the militia followed the example of the army, and the volunteers found an identity as defenders of the nation against the foreign enemy.