My thoughts in relation to Paul's observation re. precedence follow on from my main point in relation to the role of Third Brigade at Boxtel on 15th September, which is that the component battalions were not being fought as a brigade but were being deployed as Abercromby the force commander saw fit.

We know for sure that the 12th Regt were out on the right flank and that elements of the 33rd and the 42nd saw action covering the retreat of the forward battalions of Abercromby's force, which suggests they had been been posted in support; of the 44th we have no details (I suspect that the only facts Carter (1887) had available to him were that the 44th Regt were in Third Brigade, the other component battalions were the 12th, 33rd and 42nd, and that 'England's greatest chief in his first brigade command' was [technically] commander of the brigade).

Employment of the Third brigade in this piecemeal way seems to have been characteristic of the Reserve corps. Whether it was significant that Third Brigade was effectively without a Major General in active command during the latter part of the campaign in southwest Holland, I am not sure. Perhaps under the circumstances, it was not thought essential, when Major Generals were in such short supply. Certainly, when Major General David Dundas had Third Brigade under his command as part of his Right Flank corps in late December 1794, he disposed of the battalions as he saw fit, for instance to bolster ad hoc brigades formed for the counter attack at Tuil on 30th December.

Nevertheless, a week later three battalions of the brigade were concentrated when holding the pass at Geldermalsen (the situationof the depleted 12th Regt in those final weeks remains vague). Although by that date the brigade structure which had existed when the French made their move on 27th December had effectively ceased to operate, the posting of Third Brigade across the high road from the Waal to the Linge crossing placed a core of Dundas' few remaining effective battalions at the most vulnerable point. By then Third Brigade was under nominal command of Lieut. Col. Alexander Mackenzie of the 78th Regt, who had replaced the 44th in November, but it seems that in the Meteren-Geldermalsen fight on 5th January 1795 General Dundas was up forward, runnning the battle himself.

Two points arise from these observations. The first is that we have to accept that the role of a battalion commander as as brigade commander in 1794 would have been essentially administrative, as a link in the chain of command between battalions and higher command- (Abercromby/Dundas) i.e. relaying reports up and orders down, rather than having command of the Third Brigade as a fighting formation, (for which Arthur Wesley had no experience at all).

The second is that given that at Boxtel the Third Brigade not fight as a coherent formation, the custom of precedence is unlikley to have applied to where they were on the battlefield that day. Did Abercromby decide on the night of 14th /15th to send the 12th Regiment to march out first to take up a position at St Michelsgestel because it was senior corps in Third Brigade (rather than because the right was the 'post of honour')? It's an interesting proposition. I don't suppose we can ever know. Whether questions of precedence subsequently affected the order of march of the 33rd, 42nd and 44th, we would for a start need to establish the starting point of each battalion, and then where they ended up on the battlefield. That also presents certain difficulties.