Hey stufer,

Well I'm learning something here if that is the case.

I certainly recognise the British Army as small in comparison to the rest of Europe for the time period, but France was the most massive force due to a combination of conscription and volunteering. It was hovering around 250 000 from memory for most of the period.

I'm interested to see some references. I'm more than happy to be corrected.

The only thing I can think of to create my current understanding is that perhaps I'm getting mixed up with the usual number of troop numbers present at the time of major battles, as opposed to the entire standing army of the time.

I read that Prussia got up to 100 000 around 1750 odd, but was knocked back to 60 000 thousand after a few battles due to the army being made of fresh conscripts. Pretty impressive when you think of the size of the place.