David Dundas

General Sir David Dundas (1735 – 18 February 1820) was a British Army officer who fought in the Seven Years' War and French Revolutionary Wars, wrote important texts on the Principles of Military Movements and then served as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1809 to 1811. Military service The son of Robert Dundas, a Scottish merchant, and Margaret Dundas (née Watson), Dundas was enrolled at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Whilst still a cadet at the Academy he spent some time with his uncle, Colonel David Watson, the Director of the Military Survey of the Highlands, where he was grounded in the arts of surveying under the tutelage of William Roy. He graduated as a lieutenant-fireworker in the Royal Artillery on 1 March 1755. He exchanged to the 56th Foot as a lieutenant on 24 January 1756, serving with this regiment during the Seven Years' War taking part in combined operations against the French ports of St. Malo and Cherbourg and fighting at the Battle of Saint Cast in September 1758. Promoted to captain on 21 March 1759, he transferred to the 15th Dragoons and fought at the Battle of Warburg in July 1760, the Battle of Kloster Kampen in October 1760 and the Battle of Villinghausen in July 1761. Dundas was also present at the fall of Havana in August 1762. He was promoted to major on 28 May 1770 and lieutenant colonel on 12 December 1775. On 31 December 1777 he was appointed Quartermaster-General in Ireland, in which post he was promoted to brevet colonel on 12 February 1782. Army improvements On 31 August 1783 Dundas left regimental service and became an advocate of officer training in the British Army, writing many manuals on the subject, the first being Principles of Military Movements published in 1788. He chose to play down the light infantry tactics that generals such as Lord Cornwallis or Willam Howe favoured during the American War of Independence. Instead Dundas, after witnessing Prussian army manoeuvres in Silesia in 1784, favoured the army model that Frederick the Great had created. Its use of drilled battalions of line infantry marching in formation was a stark contrast to the light brigades that fought in small independent groups and with cover during the American War of Independence.