“The eye must entrap the mind”: Army spectacle and paradigm in nineteenth-century britain

Journal of Social History

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 105-131

  Myerly, Scott Hughes ^a  

^a MINOT STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0010796171     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: 15271897     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh/26.1.105     Document Type: Article

References (226)

1. Christian Feest, The Art of War (London, 1980).
2. I would like to thank Walter Amstein, Geoffrey Symcox, Sheperd Paine and Tamara Hunt for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
3. The discipline of well-trained armies… [has had] lasting effects upon the political and social order." Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and trans. (New York, 1946), p. 257.
4. Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution (Oxford, 1983), p. 152.
5. There … is certainly not one [British family] who had not, at some point or other during the contest, a kinsman serving in the British ranks.".
6. Clive Emsley, British Society and the French Wars, 1793-1815 (Totowa, N. J., 1979), p. 169.
7. During the 1846 invasion scare the Master-General of Ordnance reported that after soldiers were found for fortresses and posts, only 5, 000-10, 000 men were available for a field army.
8. Correlli Barnett, Britain and Her Army 1509-1970, A Military, Political and Social Survey (Bungay, Suffolk, 1974), p. 279.
9. Edward Spiers, The Army and Society, 1815-1914 (London, 1980), p. 74-6.
10. Elie Halevy, The Liberal Awakening: 1815-1830 (New York, 1961), pp. 6-7.
11. Jonathan Leach, Rambles along the Banks of the Styx (London, 1847), p. 23.
12. Spiers, Army and Society, pp. 72-3.
13. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, 13 vols. (London, 1923), 11:46-7.
14. Alan Palmer, The Banner of Battle: The Story of the Crimean War (London, 1987), pp. 43, 47 and 71.
15. Elie Halevy, A History of the English People in 1815 (London, 1987), pp. 60-3.
16. Hew Strachan, Wellington's Legacy: The Reform of the British Army, 1830-54 (Manchester, 1984).
17. Spectacle and Power: Military Imagery and the British Army, 1803-56" (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990), pp. 57-88.
18. Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700-1850 (Cambridge, 1973).
19. James Walvin, Leisure and Society, I830-1950(New York, 1978).
20. Peter Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational recreation and the contest for control, 1830-1885 (London, 1978).
21. Hugh Cunningham, Leisure in the Industrial Revolution c. 1780-1880 (New York, 1980).
22. Halevy, History of the English People, pp. 73-7.
23. Common soldiers, "a wildish lot," wore side-arms before 1838 with the uniform, either a sword or bayonet (despite many attempts since the late seventeenth century to ban them) and "stabbing was not uncommon." Col.
24. Anstruther Thomson, Eighty Years.
25. Reminiscences (London, 1904), pp. 40-1.
26. Officers often wore mufti (civilian dress) on the street but the Other Ranks were not allowed to possess it due to desertions. All the negative stereotypes can be found in the caricatures of the period. Prior to 1832.
27. M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vols. VII-XI (London, 1943-56).
28. The Duke of Wellington wrote "the British army … [is] disliked by [British] inhabitants, particularly by the higher orders, some of whom never allow one of their family to serve in it." Memorandum on the … Discipline of the Army, April 22, 1829 in the Duke of Wellington, Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, K. C., 8 vols. (Millwood, N. Y., 1973), 8:344.
29. There were very high casualty rates none but the desperate or romantic fools would take the shilling and thus be condemned to the extremely harsh and dangerous conditions of military life. One Scottish recruit's enlistment caused his mother to exclaim: "Poor infatuated boy! Now you are lost to us and to yourself.".
30. Joseph Donaldson, Recollections of an Eventful Life, Chiefly Passed in the Army (Glasgow, 1824). pp. 66-7.
31. Philip J. Haythornthwaite, British Infantry of the Napoleonic Wars (London, 1987).
32. Michael Barthorp, British Cavalry Uniforms Since 1660 (Poole, Dorset, 1984).
33. British Infantry Uniforms Since 1660 (Poole, Dorset, 1982).
34. D. S. V. and B. K. Fosten, The Thin Red Line: Uniforms of the British Army between 1751 and 1914 (London, 1989).
35. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations, chapters 6 and 7.
36. Myerly, "Spectacle and Power," chapters 4, 5 & 7.
37. Robert Jackson, A View of the Formation, Discipline and Economy of Armies, 3d rev. ed. (London, 1845), p. 2.
38. Myerly "Spectacle and Power," Chapter 2.
39. In 1841 at Dorchester the march of cavalry to church resulted in a fire when a man frying bacon heard a shout that soldiers were going by he upset the pan and started a grease fire that destroyed a dozen houses. Thomson, Reminiscences, p. 77.
40. Robert Blatchford, My Life in the Army (London, n. d.), p. 140.
41. In 1854 a fashionable young lady remained at a hotel longer than she had intended because a captain with smallpox was staying there-and she hoped he would die so that she could see his funeral. She was "much disappointed" when he recovered.
42. James Howard Harris, Earl of Malmsbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Minister: an Autobiography, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London, 1884), 1:444-5.
43. Times, 26 July, 1817.
44. Jackson, A View, p. 185.
45. Thomas W. Laqueur, "The Ideology and Symbolism of Legitimation in England, 1792-1799," in The Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, Proceedings, ed. Owen Connelly (Athens, GA, 1979), p. 276.
46. Often the only regular infantry units (except the guards) involved in London's wartime reviews were of nonprofessional corps, for example, the grand review held on 10 June, 1811. The Royal Horse Artillery, regular cavalry and volunteer infantry participated, but no unit of the regular infantry attended. Times, 11 June, 1811.
47. Henry Cockburn, Memorials of His Time, ed. Karl F. C. Miller (London, 1974), pp. 180-1.
48. Philip Ziegler, Addington: A Life of Henry, First Viscount Sidmouth (London, 1965), p. 201.
49. The displays of the volunteers and other non-professional corps were modeled on the army, but these were less popular than the regulars.
50. Louis Simond, An American in Regency England, ed. Christopher Hibbert (London, 1968), p. 146.
51. Times, 11 June, 1811.
52. For the 1811 review, "General Orders" were published for the public. Simond, An American, p. 146. The "Official Programme for the Triumphal Entry of the Guards into London, Wednesday, July 9th, 1856" is preserved at the Scottish United Services Museum at Edinburgh Castle, file F. G. 856. 1.
53. John Patterson, Camp and Quarters: Scenes and Impressions of Military Life, 2 vols. (London, 1840), 1:101.
54. Times, 26 July, 1817.
55. David Cannadine's essay, "The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the Invention of Tradition c. 1820-1977," in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 101-64, has overlooked the role of the grand military review as part of the public ceremonial of the British crown. The reign of William IV is described in terms which leave the impression that he avoided all such public events (p. 118). The king attended a series of grand reviews after his accession in the summer of 1830 and was the centerpiece of the show, displaying a great interest in the proceedings: "His Majesty walked up and down the ranks, paying the most minute attention to the military and clean appearance of the men." Times 23 July, 1830. A private in the Royal Horse Guards (Blue) wrote: "our late lamented Sovereign … during the latter years of his life was particularly partial to military shows." Charles Cozens, Adventures of a Guardsman (London, 1848), p. 32. This contradicts Cannadine's statement that William "loathed ceremonial and ostentation" (p. 118). Clearly, a significant part of the story has been omitted in this essay.
56. Times, 23 July, 1830.
57. Times, 27 July, 1830. If the entire regiment was at hand, this made a total of nearly 1, 000 men used for crowd control.
58. John Bull, 1 August, 1830.
59. The Editor's Portfolio," United Service Journal no. 2 (1830): 239.
60. Boat Lancers," Naval and Military Magazine 4 (September, 1828): li.
61. United Service Journal no. 2 (1831): 266.
62. Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York, 1967), p. 151.
63. Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (London, 1849 reprint ed., New York, n. d.), p. 48.
64. Richard Rolt, On Moral Command (London, 1842), p. 96.
65. Donald Van Ess, "Band Music," in The Athlone History of Music in Britain, vol. 5: The Romantic Age: 1800-1914, ed. Nicholas Temperley (London, 1981), pp. 135-37.
66. Patterson, "Camp and Quarters," 1:101-102.
67. Walvin, Leisure and Society, p. 103.
68. Many other elements of nineteenth century European military imagery originated in-or were transmitted through-the Islamic states and the borderlands between Christian Europe and the Middle East, including hussar and lancer dress, the grenadier cap, the shako and the mamluk sword. The military band constitutes a significant cultural manifestation of "orientalism," as is analyzed in Edward Said's Orientalism (New York, 1979), but is not mentioned in that book.
69. George Calladine, The Diary of Colour-Sargeant George Calladine, 19th Foot, 1793-1837, ed. M. L. Ferrar (London, 1922), p. 186.
70. Donald Thomas, Cardigan (New York, 1974), p. 95.
71. Regimental Music at the Tower," United Service Journal no. 2 (1829): 240.
72. This incident is enshrined in a contemporary caricature. "The Wimbledon Hoax! or Waterloo Review!!! !!! June 18th, 1816." Published by J. Johnston, George Cruikshank, artist. Huntington Library print, Pr. Box 216/60.
73. The Troops and the Weather," Punch 9 (1845): 84.
74. Excerpt from the York Herald, April, 1846, as quoted in Col.
75. John Vandeleur, Letters of Colonel John Vandeleur, 1810-1946 (London, 1846), p. 185.
76. Harry Hopkins, The Strange Death of Private White, A Victorian Scandal that made History (London, 1977), p. 100.
77. Blanchard Jerrold, Life of Cruikshank, 2 vols. (New York, 1882), 1:50-51.
78. Twelve Years Military Adventure," United Service Journal no. 1 (1892), p. 96.
79. Robert Butler, Narrative of the Life and Times of Serjeant Butler (1854), p. 24.
80. Henry Mayhew, The Unknown Mayhew, ed. Eileen Yeo and E. P. Thompson (New York, 1971), p. 293.
81. J. H. Plumb, "The New World of Children," in Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society (Bloomington, Indiana, 1982), p. 310.
82. Dolly Dearest," exhibition of Victorian dolls, City of London Museum, 1986.
83. Plumb, "The New World of Children," p. 310.
84. The theaters were made of wood, costing from a few shillings to a pound pamphlets of dialogues together with punch-out paper "actors" were purchased separately. Texts were always "strictly subservient to the spectacle," with instructions on making fires, explosions and other special effects. See: Pollock's Characters & Scenes in the Battle of Waterloo, with an introduction by Eric Underwood (London, 1842 reprint ed., London, 1970), p. iv (this text cost 4d).
85. The Toy-Makers," in Unknown Mayhew, pp. 286-7.
86. George Rowell, The Victorian Theater, 1792-1914: A Survey, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1977), p. 15.
87. The famous actor David Garrick played Othello wearing "English Regimentals.".
88. Soldiers performed on stage at Dublin. Roscius Feb. 1, 1825.
89. A. H. Saxon, The Life and Art of Andrew Ducrow & the Romantic Age of the English Circus (Hamden, Conn., 1978), p. 127.
90. No soldier is to appear on the stage of the theater in any part of his regimentals except when on duty.".
91. Memorandum of Instructions to the Officers of the Scots Fusilier Guards," (1830), p. 52.
92. Punch 29 (1855), p. 76.
93. Composer Georg Frederick Handel wrote a march in 1745 for a London regiment of volunteers.
94. Henry George Farmer, "The Martial Music of the Georges," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 42 (1963): 203, 204.
95. Nicol Smith, "The British Grenadiers," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 6 (1927): 23.
96. Harry Austin, Guards Hussars and Infantry, 3 vols., (London, 1838), 3:290.
97. One veteran considered this influence important enough to complain that the panoramic exhibitions of Waterloo shown in Edinburgh a few months after the battle presented a distorted view of the conflict. Only Scots soldiers were portrayed as having been significant in the victory, the Scots Greys (the 2d Royal North British Dragoons) and the Highlanders having been depicted as giants in the foreground, and "John Bull and Pat [the Irish] were little better than idle spectators on the left of the British position," depicted as "pigmies" in the background. Lt. Col. Jonathan Leach, Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier (London, 1831), p. 399.
98. Anthony D. Hippisley Coxe, "Equestrian Drama and the Circus," in: David Bradby, Louis James and Bernard Sharratt, eds., Performance and Politics in Popular Drama (Cambridge, 1980), p. 109.
99. Rowell, Victorian Theater, p. 9.
100. A. H. Saxon, Enter Foot and Horse (New Haven, 1968), p. 141.
101. Benson Earle Hill, Playing About or, Theatrical Anecdotes and Adventures, with Scenes of a General Nature from the Life, 2 vols. (London, 1849), 1:234.
102. Coxe, "Equestrian Drama," p. 112.
103. Chelsea's Cremorne gardens did The Storming of Mooitan, the Surrey Zoological Gardens put on The Siege of Badajos, and Astley's staged the "New Grand Equestrian Military Spectacle" entitled Mooitan and Goojerat, or the Conquest of the Sikhs, "The Fortunes of War," Punch 17 (1850), p. 11.
104. John Malcolm Bullock, "Soldiering and Circuses," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 8 (1929): 184-9.
105. Saxon, Ducrow, p. 131-2.
106. This was seen by General Thomas Picton who could not bear to watch: "A battle is nothing to that." Heaton Bowstead Robinson, Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, G. C. B. & c. including His Correspondence, 2d rev. ed., 2 vols. (London, 1836), 1:406.
107. The panorama was shown at: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Liverpool, Chester, Sheffield, Bury St. Edmunds, Tavistock and Plymouth, but was probably displayed at other places too.
108. Ralph Hyde, Panoramania!: The Art and Entertainment of the 'All Embracing View (London, 1988), p. 65.
109. Plumb, "The New World of Children," p. 308.
110. The Siege of Brussels" was reviewed in the "Fine Arts" section of The Anthenaeum, March 16, 1833, p. 171.
111. After 1815, patrons considered martial themes in painting to be militaristic, but the topic gradually became more popular. As a less exalted medium, the print was more acceptable for martial themes.
112. Joan Winifred Martin Hirshberger, Images of the Army: the Military in British Art, 1815-1914 (Manchester, 1988), pp. 12-13 &. 53.
113. Ogilby Trust comp. Index to British Military Costume Prints: 1500-1914 (London, 1972), pp. 200-219.
114. George Cruikshank, A Pop-gun Fired off by George Cruikshank in Defence of the British Volunteers of 1803 (London, 1866), p. 11.
115. Gavin Gleig, Folk Songs of the North-East, 3 vols. (Peterhead, 1907), vol. 1, pt. 25, p. 2.
116. George Hogarth, The Songs of Charles Dibdin, 2 vols., (London, 1848), 2:383.
117. A satire noted "there are few [regimental] messes which cannot boast of a considerable number of authors-historians, novelists, and memoir writers….".
118. James White, Adventures of Sir Pumpkin Frizzle: Nights at Mess and Other Tales (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 1.
119. S. G. P. Ward, "Major Monsoon," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 59 (1980): 65.
120. Hirshberger, Images, p. 6.
121. This court livery was originally created for servants and men who came to court, but by the late 1790's wealthy men wore it in society, possibly to avoid an unfavorable comparison with soldiers, but also as a mark of loyalty.
122. Charles Mansel, "Monarchy, Uniform and the Rise of the Frac, 1760-1830," Past and Present 96 (August 1982): 115-116.
123. However, the sumptuary laws forbade too close an imitation of either the Windsor uniform or army dress. Such restrictions were not limited to Britain: while at Ravenna in 1820, Lord Byron's liverymen appeared so similar to the Papal Guard Carabiniers that the unit petitioned the local Cardinal against the liveries.
124. Lord Byron, Byrons Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand, 9 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 7:118.
125. Ellen Moers, The Dandy (London, 1960), p. 33.
126. Brummel was influenced by military dress in some details, adopting tasseled "Hessian" (hussar) boots and the chapeau bras. Ibid., see graphic opposite p. 32, &. 45.
127. One fashion historian described it as "a certain swaggering flashiness and exaggeration of effect … reflected from the theatricality of uniforms on to the latest clothing for civilian men.".
128. Geoffrey Squire, Dress and Society: 1560-1970 (New York, 1974), p. 138.
129. Thomas Moore, Journal of Sir Valentine Sleek, (n. p., 1818).
130. Letter from "An Half-Pay Officer," The New Military Register (London), 14 April 1819.
131. Medal or Other Distinction for Service," United Service Journal no. 2 (1830), p. 881.
132. Large numbers of second-hand uniforms were available after the post-war reductions, and penniless, half-pay officers often supplemented their incomes by selling their uniforms to old clothes dealers.
133. Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, (New York, 1975), p. 474.
134. Quentin Bell, Of Human Finery, 2nd rev. ed. (New York, 1976), p. 43.
135. The development of uniforms-along with sports clothes and the sewing machine-are considered to be the most significant factors in the development of male dress in the last 300 years.
136. Penelope Byrde, The Male Image: Men's Fashion in Britain, 1300-1970 (Tiptree, Essex, 1979), p. 73.
137. Philip Haythornthwaite, Uniforms of the French Revolutionary Wars: 1789-1802 (Poole, Dorset, 1981), p. 110.
138. At Bath in 1812 a Canadian saw "crowds of ladies" bearing "pelisses with gold cords and hussar's hats ".
139. Matilda Edgar, Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War, 1805-1815 (Toronto, 1890), pp. 90-1.
140. William Donaldson, The Jacobite Song: Political Myth and National Identity (Aberdeen, 1988), p. 92.
141. C. Willettt Cunningham, English Women's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1937), p. 439.
142. Elizabeth Ewing, Women in Uniform (Totowa, New Jersey, 1975), p. 64.
143. Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Reason Why (New York, 1960), p. 263.
144. Elizabeth Ewing, History of Children's Costume (New York, 1977), p. 82.
145. Plumb, "The New World of Children," p. 311.
146. Ewing, Children's Costume, p. 82.
147. Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village (London, 1824 reprint ed., Philadelphia, n. d.), p. 58.
148. The Lovett Papers, Vol. I, ff. 26-7.
149. Joel H. Wiener, The War of the Unstamped (Ithaca, N. Y., 1969), p. 135.
150. Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine 1 (1845): 40.
151. York Herald April, 1846.
152. Vandeleur, Letters, p. 186.
153. Fragments from the Portfolio of a Field Officer," United Service Journal, no. 1 (1831): 304.
154. Strachan, Wellington's Legacy, p. 167.
155. Punch 25 (1853), p. 92.
156. Much depended upon the whims of the colonel. Bandsmen were colorfully dressed and sometimes wore much bullion lace-even exceeding that worn by officers, but they had an inferior status, being a regimental entertainment and mere ornaments. Although they carried swords, they did not fight.
157. This was noted for Louis XIV's first military review in 1666 by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), p. 188-9 and describes the review, as depicted on the event's commemorative medal, as "architecture," and "a uniformly repeated attitude of ranks and lines: a tactical unity.".
158. Since the visual elements were a matter of regulation the soldiers own feelings were irrelevant to the message, much as a modem advertising model's opinions about the product being promoted have no bearing upon the images which are created, although the model's appearance and spoken lines are designed to convey the illusion of an objective message.
159. Underlying much of the growing hostility towards [traditional] popular recreation was the concern for effective labour discipline." Malcomson, Popular Recreations, p. 89.
160. While spending time at a review might also have been deemed wasteful, the show depicted this same discipline, and thus might have been considered preferable to other recreations.
161. Lewis Mumford argues that the military paradigm was previously borrowed from the idea of the machine, which itself dated from antiquity. Technics and Civilization (New York, 1934), and The Myth of the Machine, 2 vols., (New York, 1966), passim.
162. It is absolutely necessary to maintain a proper authority, and keep uniform good order, as the end of all government is order.".
163. James Montgomery, The Cardingand Spinning Master's Assistant: Or the Theory and Practice of Cotton Spinning (Glasgow, 1832) reprinted in: Alfred D. Chandler, ed., Precursors of Modem Management (New York, 1979), p. 221.
164. N. McKendrick, "Josiah Wedgewood and Factory Discipline," Historical Journal 41 (1961): 35.
165. New Moral World, XI (4 March, 1843).
166. J. F. C. Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (London, 1969), p. 187.
167. Margaret Cole, Robert Owen (New York, 1953), pp. 84-5.
168. Robert Owen, A New View of Society, (New York, 1927), p. 291.
169. Frank Podmore, Robert Owen: A Biography (New York, 1924), p. 144.
170. Hobsbawm, Age of Capital, p. 238.
171. The Communist Manifesto (Baltimore, 1967).
172. Carlyle, Past and Present (New York, 1977), pp. 208 and 268-9.
173. Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870 (New Haven, 1985), p. 203.
174. W. L. Burn, The Age of Equipoise: A Study of the Mid-Victorian Generation (New York, 1964), p. 65.
175. Burn, Age of Equipoise, p. 65.
176. Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851-1867, rev. ed. (Chicago, 1972), p. 116.
177. Character (New York, n. d.) and Self-Help (New York, n. d.). He even found one for Thrift (New York, 1876), p. 152, although soldiers were scarcely famous for frugality.
178. Victorian People (New York, 1972), p. 127.
179. Samuel Smiles, Duty, with illustrations of Courage, Patience, and Endurance (New York, 1881) pp. 12, 19.
180. One wonders if the idea for the American World War II slogan "Work To Keep Free," or the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" painted on the entrance signs of the death camps, originated from Smiles.
181. In the nineteenth century military discipline was directly applied to regulate employees in some institutions. The modeling of the British police on military institutions is well known the best book on the early police.
182. Stanley H. Palmer, Police and Protest in England and Ireland: 1780-1850 (Cambridge, 1988).
183. Which points out that the Irish police (essentially military in character) was the major prototype for the English police. From the end of the Napoleonic wars, British prisons also acquired a distinctive martial tone.
184. Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: the Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution (New York, 1978), pp. 191-2.
185. Likewise, other institutions derived inspiration from the military paradigm for example, the proprietor of a private madhouse thought that the sense of duty for mad-house attendants should be like that of soldiers.
186. Thomas Bakewell, A Letter addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire into the State of Madhouses: to which is subjoined Remarks on the Nature, Causes and Cure of Mental Derangement (Stafford, 1815), p. 53.
187. William LI. Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy: A Study of Private Madhouses in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London, 1972), p. 175.
188. Hugh Cunningham, The Volunteer Force: A Social and Political History, 1859-1908 (Hamden, Conn., 1975), p. 64.
189. Ian F. W. Beckett, Riflemen Form: A Study of the Rifle Volunteer Movement, 1859-1908 (Inverness, 1982), pp. 108-9.
190. Volunteer Service Gazette (1859), p. 351.
191. Beckett, Riflemen Form, p. 109.
192. Cunningham, Volunteer Force, p. 82.
193. H. J. Hanham, "Religion and Nationality in the Mid-Victorian Army," in M. R. D. Foot, ed., War and Society: Historical Essays in Honour and Memory of J. R. Western 1928-1971 (London, 1973), p. 172.
194. Bailey, Leisure and Class: p. 139.
195. The Archbishop of Canterbury observed that Booth's "Peculiar mode of proceeding was such as might have considerable influence over uncultivated minds." But the parades created much resentment when residents were awakened every Sunday morning by the army's "unbearable" din. An opposition group arose calling itself the "Skeleton Army." Armed with a black skull and crossbones flag, mud, stones, dead cats, paint and live coals, they fought the paraders. 3 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 269 (1882): 822.
196. Donald C. Richter, Riotous Victorians (Athens, Ohio, 1981), pp. 74-5.
197. Ewing, Women in Uniform, p. 59.
198. Ewing, Women in Uniform, p. 58.
199. Michael Rosenthal, The Character Factory: Baden-Powell and the Origins of die Boy Scout Movement (New York, 1984), pp. 164-5.
200. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, pp. 48, 50.
201. Kipling shared Smiles's sharp ambivalence towards the martial model, and "would have abhorred the form right-wing corporativism took under Hitler in Germany," and the story includes Jewish schoolboys winning at a military exercise contest. But the vision's allure influenced his judgment the biographer writes that it marks a "significant decline in artistic balance," and is "both absurd and remote from the facts of English life.".
202. Angus Wilson, The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling (New York, 1977), pp. 241-3.
203. There were of course mistakes made at reviews, and some were deliberate-such as officers appearing in mufti instead of uniform. But the spectacle was based upon an idealized image and like any other show, it rarely came off in perfect order. Jeffrey L. Lant has discussed the problems at royal spectacles in In substantial Pageant: Ceremony & Confusion at Queen Victoria's Court (New York, 1980).
204. Blatchford, Life, p. 139.
205. Charles Tilly's The Contentious French (London, 1986), p. 4.
206. Myerly, "Spectacle and Power," pp. 166-207.
207. Clifford Morsley, ed., News from the English Countryside, 1750-1850 (London, 1979), p. 204.
208. Robert Elliot, The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, and Art (Princeton, N. J., 1960), p. 65.
209. Terence Ranger, "The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa," in Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., Invention of Tradition, pp. 245-6.
210. The impact of military rule upon seventeenth-century colonies has received treatment.
211. Stephen Saunders Webb, The GovemorS'General: The English Army and the Definition of Empire, 1569-1681 (Chapel Hill, 1979).
212. But the significant effects of military culture and the army as an institution upon indigenous cultures and peoples around the world, as well as its role in the development of colonial societies, has not been much studied. An exception for Canada.
213. Elinor Kyte Senior, British Regulars in Montreal: An Imperial Garrison, 1832-1854 (Montreal, 1981).
214. Briggs, Victorian People, p. 127.
215. This scene was soon rendered comic when the spectators were saluted with a volley of blank cartridges, and at the discharge "something" whistled close past Mr. Winkle's ear. The troops then charged with fixed bayonets directly at the spot where the Pickwickians were standing, and they fled for their lives.
216. Dickens, Pickwick Papers pp. 48-51.
217. The negative side of the ambivalent army/civilian relationship sometimes emerged with such threatening actions at reviews, adding some thrills to the show.
218. Briggs, Victorian People p. 127.
219. Henry Havelock was the object of much anger at the Horse Guards (the office of the Commander-in-chief) when he wrote a history of the First Burmese war. British officers were among the worst educated in Europe, and many played field sports rather than learn their duty. Only the absolute necessity of changing techniques in war eventually forced the army to demand some modest degree of education from its officers. Enlisted men presented a dilemma: literate non-commissioned officers were essential while ignorant common soldiers were preferred. Many colonels before the Crimean war believed that creating enlisted men's libraries was tantamount to encouraging mutiny.
220. Blatchford, Life, p. 139.
221. In this context the military image constitutes a major theme in the pre-history of advertising, in addition to its frequent utilization by that industry.
222. The advent of World War I decreased some of the elements of the show, and except for the highly visible guards units, the old scarlet and blue uniforms went into store and were abolished after the war ended. But despite the growing importance of camouflage in twentieth-century warfare, symbolizing the great importance of much more lethal weapons as the means to attain victory, British army spectacle retains more of its nineteenth-century character than most other contemporary armies. Much less emphasis is placed upon the display of high-tech weapons, and (unlike the American army) each regiment maintains a band wearing traditional uniforms which appear in a variety of public contexts-just as in the nineteenth century. When entire regiments appear in public they usually wear their #1 dress, consisting of blue patrol jackets-the successor of the nineteenth-century frock coat. The show of the last century thus continues to be most popular in Britain, and not primarily as a draw for tourists either, although the obligatory photos of guardsman in British tourist pamphlets might give the opposite impression. At the "Trooping to the Colours" ceremony only those holding tickets are admitted, which are not available to tourists but distributed free to Britons from high social circles. I am indebted to Sheperd Paine for this information.
223. This hierarchical-and thus fundamentally authoritarian-structure is essential for all large institutions, and has often been manipulated to promote-and disguise-the aims and values of those in power. While such groups may claim to uphold egalitarian principles, hierarchy and discipline renders this ideal most difficult to achieve and maintain, since these regulating features are intrinsic to the nature of large institutions, regardless of whether they are characterized by elections or whatever idealistic, well-intentioned egalitarian principles are championed by those in authority.
224. The westernization of independent, non-European lands has also been characterized first and foremost by the necessity to upgrade military capabilities, such as in Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Japan, etc., and the adoption of the outward image of the European art of war has always been a significant factor. For example.
225. L. Carl Brown, The Tunisia of Ahmad Bey, 1837-1855 (Princeton, 1974), pp. 265-6 and 355.
226. This process has sometimes been accompanied by attempts to force the adoption of western dress upon civilian populations, often with tragi-comic results.