Golden Cavalry of St George

The Golden Cavalry of St George was the colloquial name of subsidies paid out by the British government to other European states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. The name comes from the image of Saint George, the patron saint of England, on the British golden guinea coin.

During the Napoleonic Wars a number of European states were allied with the British against France who were attempting to achieve continental supremacy. Britain, which had a large navy but a small army, was unable to deploy major forces on the European continent. As was a wealthy commercial power, they were able to pay out millions of pounds to Allied nations, who could field much larger armies against the French. An example is the £1,500,000 paid to Austria to commit troops to the campaign against the French in the Netherlands in 1793, an expedition to which the British could contribute only men. [Harvey p.]

Large sums were made avalible for the purpose, sometimes as formal subsidies and sometimes as bribes for European statesman. This was partly funded by the introduction of the Income Tax by Prime Minister William Pitt. Though the policy was extremely costly, it ultimately proved successful as a coalition of European nations eventually defeated France in 1814.

Bibliography

* Esdaile, Charles. The Peninsular War. Penguin Books (2003)
* Hague, William. William Pitt The Young. Perennial (2005)
* Harvey, Robert. The War of Wars: The Great European Conflict, 1793-1815. Robinson (2007)

References