Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language and history, sometimes involving neighbouring countries; the demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming. The official capital of Flanders is Brussels, although the Brussels Capital Region has an independent regional government, the government of Flanders only oversees the community aspects of Flanders life in Brussels such as culture and education. Flanders, despite not being the biggest part of Belgium by area, is the area with the largest population. 7,876,873 out of 11,491,346 Belgian inhabitants live in the bilingual city of Brussels. Not including Brussels, there are five modern Flemish provinces. In medieval contexts, the original "County of Flanders" stretched around AD 900 from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary and expanded from there; this county still corresponds with the modern-day Belgian provinces of West Flanders and East Flanders, along with neighbouring parts of France and the Netherlands.
Although this original meaning is still relevant, during the 19th and 20th centuries it became commonplace to use the term "Flanders" to refer to the entire Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, stretching all the way to the River Meuse, as well as cultural movements such as Flemish art. In accordance with late 20th century Belgian state reforms the Belgian part of this area was made into two political entities: the "Flemish Community" and the "Flemish Region"; these entities were merged, although geographically the Flemish Community, which has a broader cultural mandate, covers Brussels, whereas the Flemish Region does not. Flanders, by every definition, has figured prominently in European history since the Middle Ages. In this period, cities such as Ghent and Antwerp made it one of the richest and most urbanized parts of Europe and weaving the wool of neighbouring lands into cloth for both domestic use and export; as a consequence, a sophisticated culture developed, with impressive achievements in the arts and architecture, rivaling those of northern Italy.
Belgium was one of the centres of the 19th century industrial revolution but Flanders was at first overtaken by French-speaking Wallonia. In the second half of the 20th century, due to massive national investments in port infrastructures, Flanders' economy modernised and today Flanders and Brussels are more wealthy than Wallonia and in general one of the wealthiest regions in Europe and the world. Geographically, Flanders is flat, has a small section of coast on the North Sea. Much of Flanders is agriculturally fertile and densely populated, with a population density of 500 people per square kilometer, it touches France to the west near the coast, borders the Netherlands to the north and east, Wallonia to the south. The Brussels Capital Region is an bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. Flanders has exclaves of its own: Voeren in the east is between Wallonia and the Netherlands and Baarle-Hertog in the north consists of 22 exclaves surrounded by the Netherlands; the term "Flanders" has several main modern meanings: The "Flemish community" or "Flemish nation", i.e. the social and linguistic, scientific and educational and political community of the Flemings.
It comprises 6.5 million Belgians. The political subdivisions of Belgium: the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community; the first does not comprise Brussels, whereas the latter does comprise the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels. The political institutions that govern both subdivisions: the operative body "Flemish Government" and the legislative organ "Flemish Parliament"; the two westernmost provinces of the Flemish Region, West Flanders and East Flanders, forming the central portion of the historic County of Flanders. An ancien régime territory that existed from the 8th century until its absorption by the French First Republic; until the 1600s, this county extended over parts of what are now France and the Netherlands. One of the Flemish regions which are now part of France, in the Nord department; this is referred to as French Flanders, can be divided into two smaller regions: Walloon Flanders and Maritime Flanders. The first region was predominantly French-speaking in the 1600s, the latter became so in the 20th century.
The city of Lille identifies itself as "Flemish", this is reflected, for instance, in the name of its local railway station TGV Lille Flandres. The Flemish region which became part of the Dutch Republic, now part of the Dutch province of Zeeland; the significance of the County of Flanders and its counts eroded through time, but the designation remained in a broad sense. In the Early modern period, the term Flanders was associated with the southern part of the Low Countries: the Southern Netherlands. During the 19th and 20th centuries, it became commonplace to refer to the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium as "Flanders"; the linguistic limit between French and Dutch was recorded in the early'60's, from Kortrijk to Maastricht. Now, Flanders extends over the northern part of Belgium, including Belgian Limburg (corresponding to t
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War known as the American War of Independence, was an 18th-century war between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America. After 1765, growing philosophical and political differences strained the relationship between Great Britain and its colonies. Patriot protests against taxation without representation followed the Stamp Act and escalated into boycotts, which culminated in 1773 with the Sons of Liberty destroying a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor. Britain responded by closing Boston Harbor and passing a series of punitive measures against Massachusetts Bay Colony. Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, they established a shadow government which wrested control of the countryside from the Crown. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, establishing committees and conventions that seized power. British attempts to disarm the Massachusetts militia in Concord led to open combat on April 19, 1775.
Militia forces besieged Boston, forcing a British evacuation in March 1776, Congress appointed George Washington to command the Continental Army. Concurrently, the Americans failed decisively in an attempt to invade Quebec and raise insurrection against the British. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, issuing its declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe launched a British counter-offensive, capturing New York City and leaving American morale at a low ebb. However, victories at Trenton and Princeton restored American confidence. In 1777, the British launched an invasion from Quebec under John Burgoyne, intending to isolate the New England Colonies. Instead of assisting this effort, Howe took his army on a separate campaign against Philadelphia, Burgoyne was decisively defeated at Saratoga in October 1777. Burgoyne's defeat had drastic consequences. France formally allied with the Americans and entered the war in 1778, Spain joined the war the following year as an ally of France but not as an ally of the United States.
In 1780, the Kingdom of Mysore attacked the British in India, tensions between Great Britain and the Netherlands erupted into open war. In North America, the British mounted a "Southern strategy" led by Charles Cornwallis which hinged upon a Loyalist uprising, but too few came forward. Cornwallis Cowpens, he retreated to Yorktown, intending an evacuation, but a decisive French naval victory deprived him of an escape. A Franco-American army led by the Comte de Rochambeau and Washington besieged Cornwallis' army and, with no sign of relief, he surrendered in October 1781. Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tories in Parliament, the surrender gave them the upper hand. In early 1782, Parliament voted to end all offensive operations in America, but the war continued overseas. Britain scored a major victory over the French navy. On September 3, 1783, the belligerent parties signed the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States and formally end the war.
French involvement had proven decisive. Spain failed in its primary aim of recovering Gibraltar; the Dutch were compelled to cede territory to Great Britain. In India, the war against Mysore and its allies concluded in 1784 without any territorial changes. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765 to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War. Parliament had passed legislation to regulate trade, but the Stamp Act introduced a new principle of a direct internal tax. Americans began to question the extent of the British Parliament's power in America, the colonial legislatures argued that they had exclusive right to impose taxes within their jurisdictions. Colonists condemned the tax because their rights as Englishmen protected them from being taxed by a Parliament in which they had no elected representatives. Parliament argued that the colonies were "represented virtually", an idea, criticized throughout the Empire. Parliament did repeal the act in 1766, but it affirmed its right to pass laws that were binding on the colonies.
From 1767, Parliament began passing legislation to raise revenue for the salaries of civil officials, ensuring their loyalty while inadvertently increasing resentment among the colonists, opposition soon became widespread. Enforcing the acts proved difficult; the seizure of the sloop Liberty in 1768 on suspicions of smuggling triggered a riot. In response, British troops occupied Boston, Parliament threatened to extradite colonists to face trial in England. Tensions rose after the murder of Christopher Seider by a customs official in 1770 and escalated into outrage after British troops fired on civilians in the Boston Massacre. In 1772, colonists in Rhode Island burned a customs schooner. Parliament repealed all taxes except the one on tea, passing the Tea Act in 1773, attempting to force colonists to buy East India Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to Parliamentary supremacy; the landing of the tea was resisted in all colonies, but the governor of Massachusetts permitted British tea ships to remain in Boston Harbor, so the Sons of Liberty destroyed the tea chests in what became known as the "Boston Tea Party".
Parliament passed punitive legislation. It closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for and revoked the Massachusetts Charter, taking upon themselves the right to directly appoint the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Additionally, t
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, the ninth-largest island in the world. In 2011, Great Britain had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan; the island of Ireland is situated to the west of Great Britain, together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago. The island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, Great Britain is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutes most of its territory. Most of England and Wales are on the island; the term "Great Britain" is used to include the whole of England and Wales including their component adjoining islands. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland by the 1707 Acts of Union.
In 1801, Great Britain united with the neighbouring Kingdom of Ireland, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" after the Irish Free State seceded in 1922. The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term'British Isles' derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia; the earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning "white" or the "island of the Albiones". The oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles and Ierne".
Pliny the Elder in his Natural History records of Great Britain: "Its former name was Albion. Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne; the French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Bryten, Breten. Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together, it is derived from the travel writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι; the peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Priteni or Pretani. Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland; the latter were called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans. Greek historians Diodorus of Sicily and Strabo preserved variants of Prettanike from the work of Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, who travelled from his home in Hellenistic southern Gaul to Britain in the 4th century BC.
The term used by Pytheas may derive from a Celtic word meaning "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk" in reference to body decorations. The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. In his work, Geography, he gave the islands the names Alwion and Mona, suggesting these may have been the names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest; the name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae refers to the island as Britannia major, to distinguish it from Britannia minor, the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain; the term Great Britain was first used in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, James the son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee".
It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine and Ireland". Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, it is often used to refer politically to the whole of England and Wales, including their smaller off shore islands. While it is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, this is not correct. Britain can refer to either all island
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U. S. state of Louisiana. Located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, the most populous parish in Louisiana, it is the 99th most populous city in the United States, second-largest city in Louisiana after New Orleans. It is the 16th most populous state capital; as of the U. S. Census Bureau's July 2017 estimate, Baton Rouge had a population of 227,549, down from 229,493 at the 2010 census. Baton Rouge is the center of Greater Baton Rouge, the second-largest metropolitan area in Louisiana, with a population of 834,159 as of 2017, up from 802,484 in 2010 and 829,719 in 2015; the city of Baton Rouge is a major industrial, medical, motion picture, growing technology center of the American South. It is the location of Louisiana State University, the LSU System's flagship university and the largest institution of higher education in the state, it is the location of Southern University, the flagship institution of the Southern University System, the only black college system in the nation.
The Port of Greater Baton Rouge is the 10th-largest in the United States in terms of tonnage shipped, is the farthest upstream Mississippi River port capable of handling Panamax ships. The Baton Rouge area owes its historical importance to its strategic site upon the Istrouma Bluff, the first natural bluff upriver from the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico; this allowed development of a business quarter safe from seasonal flooding. In addition, the city built a levee system stretching from the bluff southward to protect the riverfront and low-lying agricultural areas; the city is a culturally rich center, with settlement by immigrants from numerous European nations and African peoples brought to North America as slaves or indentured servants. It was ruled by seven different governments: French and Spanish in the colonial era. Human habitation in the Baton Rouge area has been dated to 12000–6500 BCE, based on evidence found along the Mississippi and Amite rivers. Earthwork mounds were built by hunter-gatherer societies in the Middle Archaic period, from the fourth millennium BCE.
The speakers of the Proto-Muskogean language divided into its descendant languages by about 1000 BCE. The Eastern Muskogean language began to diversify internally in the first half of the first millennium AD; the early Muskogean societies were the bearers of the Mississippian culture, which formed around 800 CE and extended in a vast network across the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, with numerous chiefdoms in the Southeast, as well. By the time the Spanish made their first forays inland from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the early 16th century, by some evidence many political centers of the Mississippians were in decline, or abandoned. At the time, this region appeared to have been occupied by a collection of moderately sized native chiefdoms, interspersed with autonomous villages and tribal groups. Other evidence indicates these Mississippian settlements were thriving at the time of the first Spanish contact. Spanish expeditions encountered the remains of groups who had lost many people and been disrupted in the aftermath of infectious diseases, chronic among Europeans, unknowingly introduced by the first expedition.
French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville led an exploration party up the Mississippi River in 1698. The explorers saw a red pole marking the boundary between the Houma and Bayogoula tribal hunting grounds; the French name le bâton rouge is the translation of a native term rendered as Istrouma a corruption of the Choctaw iti humma. According to Pénicaut, From there we went five leagues higher and found high banks called écorts in that region, in savage called Istrouma which means red stick, as at this place there is a post painted red that the savages have sunk there to mark the land line between the two nations, namely: the land of the Bayagoulas which they were leaving and the land of another nation—thirty leagues upstream from the baton rouge—named the Oumas; the location of the red pole was at Scott's Bluff, on what is now the campus of Southern University. It was a 30-foot-high painted pole adorned with fish bones; the settlement of Baton Rouge by Europeans began in 1721 when French colonists established a military and trading post.
Since European settlement, Baton Rouge has been governed by France, Spain, the Republic of West Florida, the United States, the Confederate States, the United States again. In 1755, when French-speaking settlers of Acadia in Canada's Maritime provinces were expelled by British forces, many took up residence in rural Louisiana. Popularly known as Cajuns, the descendants of the Acadians maintained a separate culture. During the first half of the 19th century, Baton Rouge grew as the result of steamboat trade and transportation. Baton Rouge was incorporated in 1817. In 1822, the Pentagon Barracks complex of buildings was completed; the site has been used by the Spanish, British, Confederate States Army, United States Army and was part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida. In 1951, ownership o
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa and the Philippines; the conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain on one side and the Kingdom of France, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swedish Empire on the other. Meanwhile, in India, some regional polities within the fragmented Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, tried to crush a British attempt to conquer Bengal; the war's extent has led some historians to describe it as World War Zero, similar in scale to other world wars. Although Anglo-French skirmishes over their American colonies had begun with what became the French and Indian War in 1754, the large-scale conflict that drew in most of the European powers was centered on Austria's desire to recover Silesia from the Prussians. Seeing the opportunity to curtail Britain's and Prussia's ever-growing might and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a grand coalition of their own, bringing most of the other European powers to their side.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned itself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. However, French efforts ended in failure when the Anglo-Prussian coalition prevailed, Britain's rise as among the world's predominant powers destroyed France's supremacy in Europe, thus altering the European balance of power. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke out in 1754–1756 when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America. Hostilities were heightened when a British unit led by a 22 year old Lt. Colonel George Washington ambushed a small French force at the Battle of Jumonville Glen on 28 May 1754; the conflict exploded across the colonial boundaries and extended to the seizure of hundreds of French merchant ships at sea. Meanwhile, rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside the Holy Roman Empire in central Europe. In 1756, the major powers "switched partners". Realising that war was imminent, Prussia pre-emptively struck Saxony and overran it.
The result caused uproar across Europe. Because of Austria's alliance with France to recapture Silesia, lost in the War of the Austrian Succession, Prussia formed an alliance with Britain. Reluctantly, by following the imperial diet, which declared war on Prussia on 17 January 1757, most of the states of the empire joined Austria's cause; the Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states. Sweden, seeking to regain Pomerania joined the coalition, seeing its chance when all the major powers of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France and together they launched an utterly unsuccessful invasion of Portugal in 1762; the Russian Empire was aligned with Austria, fearing Prussia's ambition on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762. Many middle and small powers in Europe, as in the previous wars, tried to steer clear away from the escalating conflict though they had interests in the conflict or with the belligerents.
Denmark–Norway, for instance, was close to being dragged into the war on France's side when Peter III became Russian emperor and switched sides. The Dutch Republic, a long-time British ally, kept its neutrality intact, fearing the odds against Britain and Prussia fighting the great powers of Europe, tried to prevent Britain's domination in India. Naples-Sicily, Savoy, although sided with the Franco-Spanish alliance, declined to join the coalition under fear of British naval power; the taxation needed for war caused the Russian people considerable hardship, being added to the taxation of salt and alcohol begun by Empress Elizabeth in 1759 to complete her addition to the Winter Palace. Like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia; the war ended with the Treaty of Paris between France and Great Britain and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony and Prussia, in 1763. The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent.
The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement. In Europe, the war began disastrously for Prussia, but with a combination of good luck and successful strategy, King Frederick the Great managed to retrieve the Prussian position and retain the status quo ante bellum. Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia, its military prowess was noted by the other powers; the involvement of Portugal and Sweden did not return them to their former status as great powers. France was deprived of many of it
George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville
George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, PC, styled The Honourable George Sackville until 1720, Lord George Sackville from 1720 to 1770 and Lord George Germain from 1770 to 1782, was a British soldier and politician, Secretary of State for America in Lord North's cabinet during the American War of Independence. His ministry received much of the blame for Britain's loss of thirteen American colonies, his issuance of detailed instructions in military matters, coupled with his failure to understand either the geography of the colonies or the determination of the colonists, may justify this conclusion. He had two careers, his military career ended with a court martial. Sackville served in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, including at the decisive Battle of Minden, his political career ended with the fall of the North government in March 1782. Sackville was the third son of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Lieutenant-General Walter Philip Colyear.
His Godfather George I attended his baptism. He was educated at Westminster School in London and graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1737. Between 1730 and 1737 and again from 1750 to 1755, his father held the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. While in Dublin he befriended the celebrated writer Jonathan Swift, he encountered Lord Ligonier who would assist his career in the military. He entered the army. Sackville was elected Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1751, serving in this post for the next two years, he married Diana Sambrooke, daughter of John Sambrooke and Elizabeth Forester, on 3 September 1754. They had two sons and three daughters, including: Hon. Diana Sackville. Hon. Charles Sackville changed his name to Charles Sackville-Germain. George Sackville Elizabeth, married Henry Herbert, MP Sackville started as a captain in the 7th Horse. In 1740, he transferred to the Gloucestershire Regiment of Foot as a lieutenant colonel; the regiment was sent to Germany to participate in the War of the Austrian Succession.
In 1743. Sackville was advanced to brevet colonel, he saw his first battle, leading the charge of the Duke of Cumberland's infantry in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745. He led his regiment so deep into the French lines that when he was wounded and captured he was taken to the tent of Louis XV; when he was released and returned home, it was to duty in Scotland as the Colonel of the 20th Foot Regiment. In 1747 and 1748, he again joined the Duke of Cumberland, he served in Holland. There was a break in his military career between wars when he served as first secretary to his father. During the Seven Years' War, Sackville returned to active military service, he had been considered for the post of Commander-in-Chief in North America, which went to Edward Braddock who led his force to disaster during the Braddock Campaign. In 1755, he was returned to active service to oversee ordnance. In 1758, he joined the Duke of Marlborough as a lieutenant general, he was sworn of the Privy Council in January 1758. In June 1758 Sackville was second in command of a British expedition led by Marlborough which attempted an amphibious Raid on St Malo.
While it failed to take the town as instructed, the raid was still considered to have been successful as a diversion. Follow-up raids were considered against Le Havre and other targets in Normandy but no further landings were attempted and the force returned home. In 1758 they joined the allied forces of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany, with the first detachment of British troops sent to the Continent; when Marlborough died, Sackville became Commander of the British contingent of the army, although still under the overall command of the Duke of Brunswick. In the Battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, British and Hanoverian infantry of the centre made an advance on the French cavalry and artillery in that sector, they went in without orders and their attacking line formation repulsed repeated French cavalry charges, holding until the last moment firing a massive volley when the charge came within ten yards. As the disrupted French began to fall back on Minden, Ferdinand called for a British cavalry charge to complete the victory, but Sackville withheld permission for their advance.
Ferdinand sent his order several times, but Sackville was estranged from Lord Granby, the force commander. He continued to withhold permission for Granby to gain glory through an attack. For this action, he was sent home. Granby replaced him as commander of the British contingent for the remainder of the war. Sackville refused to accept responsibility for refusing to obey orders. Back in England, he demanded a court martial, made it a large enough issue that he obtained his demand in 1760; the court found him guilty, imposed one of the strangest and strongest verdicts rendered against a general officer. The court's verdict not only upheld his discharge, but ruled that he was "...unfit to serve His Majesty in any military Capacity whatever." ordered that their verdict be read to and entered in the orderly book of every regiment in the army. The king had his name struck from the Privy Council rolls. Sackville had been a Member of Parliament at intervals since 1733, he had served terms in both the Dublin and the Westminster bodies, sometimes but had not taken sides in political wrangles.
Between 1750 and 1755 he served as Chief Secretary for Ireland, during his father's second term as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. When George III
British Army during the American Revolutionary War
The British Army during the American Revolutionary War served for eight years in campaigns fought around the globe. Defeat at the Siege of Yorktown to a combined Franco-US force led to the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in eastern North America, the concluding Treaty of Paris deprived Britain of many of the gains achieved in the Seven Years' War; however several victories elsewhere meant. In 1775 the British Army was a volunteer force; the army had suffered from lack of peacetime spending and ineffective recruitment in the decade since the Seven Years' War, circumstances which had left it in a dilapidated state at the outbreak of war in North America. To offset this the British government hired contingents of German mercenaries to serve as auxiliaries alongside the regular army units in campaigns from 1776. Limited army impressment was introduced in England and Scotland to bolster recruitment in 1778, however the practice proved too unpopular and was proscribed again in 1780; the attrition of constant fighting, the inability of the Royal Navy to decisively defeat the French Navy, the withdrawal of the majority of British forces from North America in 1778 led to the British army's defeat.
The surrender of Cornwallis's army at Yorktown in 1781 allowed the Whig opposition to gain a majority in parliament, British operations were brought to an end. Britain had incurred a large national debt fighting the Seven Years' War, during which the armies' establishment strength had been increased to an unprecedented size. With the ascension of peace in 1763 the army was reduced to a peacetime home establishment of just over 11,000 men, with a further 10,000 for the Irish establishment and 10,000 for the colonies; this meant 20 regiments of infantry totaling just over 11,000 men were stationed in England, 21 regiments were stationed in Ireland, 18 regiments were stationed in the Americas, 7 regiments stationed in Gibraltar. Alongside this the army could call on 16 regiments of the cavalry, a total of 6,869 men and 2,712 men in the artillery; this gave a theoretical strength of just over 45,000 men exclusive of the artillery. The British government deemed this troop strength to be inadequate to prosecute an insurrection in the Americas, as well as deal with defence of the rest of its territories, so treaties with German states were negotiated for a further 18,000 men.
This measure brought the Army’s total establishment strength to around 55,000 men. After the losses at the Battles of Saratoga and the outbreak of hostilities with France and Spain, the existing voluntary enlistment measures were judged to be insufficient. Between 1775 and 1781, the regular army increased from 48,000 to 121,000. In 1778 the army adopted some non traditional recruiting measures to further augment its strength, a system of private subscription was established, whereby some 12 new regiments totaling 15,000 men were raised by individual towns and nobles. In the same year the government passed the first of two recruiting acts which allowed a limited form of impressment in parts of England and Scotland under strict conditions, however the measure proved unpopular and both acts were repealed in May 1780, permanently discontinuing impressment in the army; the recruiting acts of 1778 and 1779 provided greater incentives for voluntarily joining the regular army, including a bounty of £3 and the entitlement to discharge after three years unless the nation remained at war.
Thousands of volunteer militia battalions were raised for home defense in Ireland and England, some of the most competent of these were embodied to the regular army. The British Government took a further step by releasing criminals and debtors from prison on the condition they joined the army. Three entire regiments were raised from this early release program. In Nov 1778 the establishment was set at 121,000 men, of whom 24,000 were foreigners, along with 40,000 embodied militia; this was raised the next year to 104,000 men on the British establishment, 23,000 on the Irish establishment, 25,000 foreigners, 42,000 embodied militia, for a total force of about 194,000 men. Although a large portion of the rank and file were lower class and the officers upper class, the army recruited from a variety of social backgrounds, both among the regular and officer ranks. According to Reid, the Georgian army through necessity drew its officers from a far wider base than its Victorian counterpart and was much more open to promotion from the ranks.
Officers were required to be literate, but there was no formal requirement on the level of education or their social standing, most regimental officers did not come from the landed gentry, but from middle class private individuals in search of a career. Although the system of sale of commissions governed the selection and promotion of officers, in practice the system was relaxed during wartime, with far more stringent requirements placed on promotion. Many British officers were professional soldiers rather than wealthy dilettantes and showed themselves ready to discard their drill manuals and use innovative methods and tactics; the Commander-in-Chief, India formally held command over crown forces in the East Indies and the Commander-in-Chief, North America commanded crown forces in the Americas. However, the British Army had no formal command structure, so British commanders worked on their own initiative during the war; the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces remained vacant until 1778 when it was given to Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst who held it until the end of the war.
However his role in advising the gover