“The Eye Must Entrap the Mind”: Army Spectacle and Paradigm in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Spectacle is an intrinsic dimension of armies and conflict,1 but the impact of army spectacle upon nineteenth-century Britain has been neglected by scholars. This omission is puzzling, for a number of writers, most notably Max Weber, have claimed that the military serves as a metaphoric model of organization in civilian society, yet no scholarly work has examined the appeal of the military show or the relationship between this spectacle and the adoption of the military paradigm in civilian life.2 The present study seeks to examine this significant but neglected subject by focusing on values inherent in the military paradigm which were adopted by British society. The nineteenth century is particularly appropriate for two reasons: first, the long French wars made the greatest military impact on British society of any previous period in history, and second, between 1815 and 1855 the army reached the high point of its sartorial brilliance.3 Military spectacle was undeniably conspicuous during this era, and the first part of this article will examine the public's fascination with this display, demonstrating that the show's enormous popularity led to the adoption of military themes in civilian culture. The second part will examine how values which were visually inherent in the military imagery became an inspirational model and paradigm in a variety of non-military endeavors, all of which were linked with social control and largescale organization, but especially with institutions. These relationships have been overlooked, in part because the subject is complicated in several ways. The small size of the army and its deliberate isolation from the public in barracks might mislead a scholar to believe that the contacts between soldiers and civilians were of limited importance.4 The public's attitude toward the army was also paradoxical, and the civilian response to the military often depended upon context. During peacetime, civilians often neglected and ignored the military or complained that it was a wasteful expense,5 yet during a European war, many of these same people gave wholehearted support to the armed forces.6 This very ambivalence shows that historians cannot view the homeservice army only in terms of its role as an internal police force or as a political issue: these views fail to note the enormous attraction of the spectacle, an omission largely shared by recent works on the era's popular entertainment and recreations.7 But soldiers were a most unlikely group for admiration, for on one level, the army was viewed by Britons with mistrust and distaste, due to poor discipline and its forming a sub-culture in British life.8 The Other Ranks were commonly seen as being pathetic slaves in red coats-the passive machinery in an engine of oppression, and therefore most un-English but also as coarse, drunken, louts whose brawls with civilians and each other were a widespread problem. They were also despised as lazy wastrels and the outcasts and dregs of society; the officers were often viewed as violent, drunken scoundrels and arrogant snobs, and all ranks had a reputation as unprincipled seducers.9