Henry Lloyd (soldier)

Henry Humphrey Evans Lloyd (c.1718 – 19 June 1783) was a Welsh army officer and military writer. He fought for the French against the Austrians, the Jacobite forces of Charles Stuart against the British, the Austrians against the Prussians and the Prussians against the Austrians (during the same war), and the Russians against the Turks. He also undertook various diplomatic missions for Britain. His writings on military theory were studied by George Washington and George S. Patton, and were used by J.F.C. Fuller to espouse a science of war.

Lloyd, a clergyman's son, was possibly born in Llanbedr, Merioneth, but the “Memoir of General Lloyd, Author of the History of the Seven Years War, etc, etc by his son Hannibal Evans Lloyd. [Printed for Private Circulation] 1842: Marchant, Singer, and Smith, Printers, Ingram Court “ [copy in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge] states he was born in Wrecsam (Wrexham). Lloyd was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, 1740-c.1742. He could not afford to purchase a commission in the army and so resorted to alternative methods to begin his military career. He travelled to France in 1744, but was unable to obtain an appointment as an officer. He then spent a year at a Jesuit college as a lay brother, instructing officers in geography and field engineering.

In 1745, Lloyd accompanied the French army on an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands (part of the War of the Austrian Succession which lasted from 1740 to 1748). He was commissioned into the French engineer corps after his sketches at the battle of Fontenoy came to the attention of the French commanding engineer.

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