The book The Soldier’s Trade – British Military Developments 1660-1914 by Frederick Myatt, McDonald & Jane’s, London, 1974 outlines military happenings through the years and the tactics for war changed. The goal of defense of the country never changes but how to battle the opposition does. In the early days, there was few people in armor so essentially the armies beat each other with swords and axes on the appointed day and whoever was left standing won the battle. In the evening both sides collected the dead and dying and then determined if the battle was to continue the next day or go home.

Henry 1 introduced archers into the mix. When the average person lived in the country archery was very useful to know. Long bow archery takes more skill and many fathers taught their sons how to be archers. When peace came, the boys begin to want to do something else. Archers just allowed arrows to be shot first, to injure or kill the front lines so the troops would come down and battle each other. The archer role was limited with the use of gun powder.

In the book, the author believes the best general, the British army has ever produced is the Duke of Marlborough. His campaigns during the War of the Spanish Succession were brilliantly conceived and carried out. He achieved this through the brilliant appreciation of the landscape, planning, careful deception and cover plans, good administration and freedom of manoeuvre afforded by the remarkable marching power of his armies when well-trained and adequately supplied with food, clothing, footwear and other necessities.

Marlborough made the platoon, or the half company the fire unit. Under his new system each platoon fired in turn (all three ranks together) so that the fire ran down and down the line again in a continuous thunder-like roll. The horsemen used shock action only against enemy horsemen and they were to rely on the weight and speed of a disciplined charge to overthrow any opposition.  For ranges outside the musket, the cannon was used

An interesting commentary about the American War of Independence  is the British lost because of the guerilla tactics of the Americans as well as the unintelligent leadership. The British could not adapt.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, similar to looking at the British army over the years, it was not blessed with great leaders all the time. Only a few of them were great, thus if you only buy on the basis of management, you have to very selective. If you buy on the inherent moat around the company which allows it to be profitable on a year to year basis, your dividend is safe and as when management is great it is a nice bonus, the stock will rise in value.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions