Of course I am British but not a blindly patriotic and xenophobic Brit!
My belief is that the British were good at certain things but not supermen and our armies have always been of a modest size. The contradictions are there for all to see:
Excellently disciplined infantry and difficult to control and tactically naive cavalry. The men are the same, from the same country and their officers are from the same backgrounds. We were good at some stuff and bad at other stuff!
It is easy to be over indulgent towards 'pet' troops and I think too many rule sets over the years have treated the British as ubermensch and pandered to the fantasy ideals of armchair generals who wish to imagine that every victory gained against foreigners was won by the solid yeomanry of Britain and every defeat we were involved with was the fault of some unreliable foreign ally contingent. The list of Usual Suspects is long, tedious, normally ill informed and predictable.
British soldiers got beat and ran away too!
We have a friend who just cannot accept the fact that Napoleon's Imperial Guard can lose at any time against any opponent in any battle.. why? because he loves the ideal of the IG!
I hope I have been even handed in my treatment of my countrymen!
Good disciplined infantry. well trained to shoot
Ill disciplined and rash cavalry difficult to control
Death threats to the usual address please