Soldiers and soldiering in Britain, c.1750 to 1815

英国在18世纪与其士兵的关系是复杂的。格鲁吉亚人称这些人是自由的危险、压迫的受害者和“血淋淋的背影”，同时也庆祝他们的胜利并拥护他们的将军，例如1759年在魁北克的沃尔夫将军。英国士兵既是英雄，也是“地球上的败类”，然而这种动态和多方面的联系尚未得到充分探索，这主要是因为英国军事动员的规模还没有被认识到，其重要性也没有得到充分认识。这种令人担忧的关系变得更加复杂，因为男性人口越来越多地被动员到新的兵役形式，而不仅仅是英国军队的全职士兵。在1757年七年战争期间改革的民兵，以及在美国独立战争，特别是法国革命战争和拿破仑战争中培养的大规模志愿者部队(兼职士兵)，在英国创造了新的士兵类型和新的武装方式。在拿破仑战争的鼎盛时期，约有68万人参加了某种形式的兵役，但这些人的经历在很大程度上被遗忘了。为了更好地理解兵役的概念，并探索英国不同兵役形式之间的异同，该项目将探索广义上的语言，即其他人描述士兵并由他们自己描述士兵，从而将人们对士兵和当兵态度的转变联系起来。“士兵”是社会中的一个特定类别，由当代人和士兵自己定义，因此，该项目将能够利用社会科学和性别历史中更常见的方法论技术来创造关于这一主题的新知识，而不是固定的。该项目将涉及广泛的档案研究，并将形成一个在这一时期工作的学者网络，以涵盖该专题的许多不同的地理、方法和时间角度。这些问题将包括地区差异、公民身份和男子气概问题，以及1754年至1815年间对法国几乎永久的战争状态所带来的变化。除了学术成果外，该项目的目标是让任何对这一时期的士兵主题感兴趣的人在网上储存库中获取关键文件。其目的是将该项目的发现传播到学术界以外的用户手中，如学校、当地历史学家、军事爱好者和系谱学家。该项目的一个基本部分将是一个互动网站，使这些利益集团不仅可以看到该网络正在做什么，而且还可以提出他们的问题、专业知识和知识。这将进一步帮助我们实现我们的目标，即促进更好地了解在英国形成“当兵”概念的这一关键时期。此外，这些产出将适时用于即将到来的滑铁卢战役200周年纪念。

Britain's relationship with its soldiers during the eighteenth century was a complex one. Georgians branded these men a danger to liberty, victims of oppression, and 'bloody backs', whilst also celebrating their victories and championing their generals, such as General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759. Britain's soldiers were both heroes and the 'scum of the earth', yet this dynamic and multifaceted connection has yet to be fully explored, largely because the scale of Britain's military mobilisation has not been recognised, nor its significance fully appreciated. This fraught relationship became more complicated with the increasing mobilisation of the male population into novel forms of military service beyond the full-time soldiering of the British Army. The militia, reformed during the Seven Years' War in 1757, and large-scale volunteer forces (part-time soldiers raised for home defence) in the American War of Independence and especially the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars created new types of soldier in Britain and new ways for men to be under arms. At its peak in the Napoleonic Wars, some 680,000 men were involved in some form of military service, yet the experiences of these men remains largely forgotten.To better understand the concept of soldiering and explore the similarities and differences between the different forms of military service in Britain, this project will explore the language, broadly defined, in which the soldier was described by others and written about by themselves, thus contextualising shifts in attitudes towards soldiers and soldiering. Working from the premise that a 'soldier' was a particular category within society that was defined by contemporaries and by soldiers themselves, and therefore relational and contextual rather than being fixed, the project will be able to utilise methodological techniques more commonly seen in the social sciences and gender history when studying identity to create new knowledge on the topic. The project will involve extensive archival research and will form a network of scholars working in this period to cover the many different geographical, methodological and temporal angles to the topic. These will include regional differences, questions of citizenship and manliness, and the changes wrought by the almost permanent state of war against France between 1754 and 1815.Alongside academic outputs, the project aims to make key documents available in an online repository for anyone interested in the subject of soldiers in this period. The aim is to distribute the findings of the project beyond academia, to users such as schools, local historians, military enthusiasts, and genealogists. A fundamental part of the project will be an interactive website allowing these interest groups not only to view what the network is doing, but to contribute their questions, expertise and knowledge. This will further assist us in our goal of promoting a better understanding of this crucial period in the making of the concept of 'soldiering' in Britain. Furthermore, these outputs will be well timed for the forthcoming 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.