Right. Exactly why Lord Cornwallis bagged the rebel colonial army, and it's leader, George Washington, on the Yorktown peninsula and was later named the Royal Governor for all of His Majesty's territories along the north Atlantic seaboard.

(Just joking.)

Actually, the long stretch of British history is filled with their military exploits in which they used their control of the seas to insert small, highly professional armies or units of armies into locations around the world where their presence could directly or indirectly leverage results greater than their actual strength would seem to justify. Additionally, they depend more on smarts than on raw firepower. I thought the job they did on the Argies in 1982, in taking back their property in the Falkland Islands and on New Georgia, is worth studying in many a military academy.

"England swing like a pendulum do,
"Bobbies on bicycles, two by two,
"Westminster Abbey, the Tower of Big Ben,
"The rosy red cheeks of the little children."

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold, you had me going for just a second in your first paragraph :))

In many ways, the British Army has held to a level of professionalism that the Union could only aspire to, until recently.

In some ways the Royal Marines are even more professsional than our own (no disrespect to the gyrenes). The only other comrades I could wish for are the Aussies, Ireland, and Texas. :)))

In the final days before the war there was some talk of the UK being about to ditch the coalition, and I recall some people urging Bush to stop trying to accommodate Blair's political needs and do it without them. I shudder to think what that would have been like. We'd have gotten through, sure, but, for instance, would there be so few oil wells on fire and no slick in the Gulf?