I want to start a discussion regarding Moore's military record.
At first (when I just had a general surface level understanding of him), I thought of him as being similar to Barclay de Tolly in terms of achievements; Like Barclay, being involved in military reforms and saving an army from destruction for it to triumph in the end under another commander (with their respective Russia and Corunna retreats).
Now however, my estimation of him has gone down. Firstly, he was the overseer of the Light Infantry training at Shorncliffe and not the creator nor implementer of the training program (that was chiefly Colonel Kenneth Mackenzie). Secondly, Charles Esdaile has made multiple points regarding the Corunna campaign which make him out to be a bungler whose army survived through luck.
So, how does everyone else rate him? Am I wrong? Is there something I've missed? Feel free to make your opinions known.
He was dealt a very bad hand for the Corunna campaign - from the time of year, to limited logistics and a lack of shipping, and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it's easy point to errors where he didn't play his hand particularly well - such as the multitude of routes he took into Spain. But I things probably looked very different from his point of view, especially with the orders he had.
The main issue I have with the way he's seen as 'the father of Light Infantry' in the British army is that if you look at all the works written on light troops during the 18th century you can see the evolution of thought on the subject. And singling him out ignores other contributors like Howe, Grey, de Rottenburg etc. The vast majority of light infantry in the British Army had nothing to do with Shorncliffe. He was less the father of LI and more one of the many midwives.