Sir John Fortescue described the work of the British army in the first ten years of the Wars as ‘vast … thankless … and unprofitable’. His assessment might well have been shared by many of the medical officers who laboured during those years in difficult and disease-ridden environments, overseeing the deaths of large numbers of soldiers, for little apparent strategic gain. The West Indian expeditions of the years 1793–8 have, in particular, attracted the attention of historians for their appalling death rates among British troops. These expeditions have also been identified by historians of medicine as an important contributor to the development of a distinct empirical and experimental approach to medicine particular to the tropics, and to the reform of the AMD. In contrast, the other major British military undertaking of the period, the Duke of York's campaigns in the Low Countries during the years 1793–5, has been largely ignored by historians both military and medical. However, the campaigns in the Low Countries were fundamental to the ways in which British military medicine, and the self image of British army medical officers, developed over the course of the Wars.

The campaigns in the Low Countries began in February 1793 when France declared war on Britain and Holland. Britain responded by entering an alliance with Austria and Prussia to protect the neutrality of Holland and to maintain the free access of shipping in the Scheldt. A meagre force of 2,500 British men was embarked under the leadership of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York.