ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the period, the British Standing Army was a fledgling organization attempting to find its feet after the wholesale demolition of its predecessor, the New Model Army of the Commonwealth, following the Restoration of the Monarchy. The acquisition of Tangier dictated the dispatch of a sizeable British garrison, recruited mainly from former Parliamentary soldiers then serving in Dunkirk, to defend the new colony against marauding local tribesmen. William III was an unlucky monarch in war. His military defeats were suffered more as a result of misfortune than through any deficiency in his command ability. Similar numbers of nurses were employed in the army's other hospitals during both the Nine Years' War and the campaigns of Marlborough. There can be little doubt that the lot of sick and wounded soldiers would have been much worse without the intervention of these men and women.
