Despite its inglorious performance earlier in the wars, by 1815 the prestige of the British army was high because of its successes in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. The irony was that the prestige of the navy was not high at the end of the war. Despite the glorious fleet victories in the Revolutionary war, and of course at Trafalgar, its role in the later years of the Napoleonic war, though absolutely vital, was less visible. Nevertheless it was the British navy's virtual command of the oceans that made military success attainable by facilitating reasonably unfettered shipment of the army and also of the trade that sustained Britain's financial and fiscal stability and fed the nation when harvests were poor. However, in the end Napoleon was defeated not by British military and naval capacity alone. The proud nation had finite capacities in manpower which were insufficient to defeat the French single-handed or even to materially influence the foreign policy of its allies. The French were only quelled when the interests of the coalition of states of Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria coalesced, significantly encouraged by heavy subsidies from Britain, which during the wars amounted to over £65 million. This demonstrates that British financial and fiscal stability, underpinned by naval hegemony, together with patient, often painful diplomacy were also important contributors to the defeat of Napoleon. To this mix, should be added industrial inventiveness and manufacturing capacity, and the diligence of the government administrative backroom civil servants.

Successful expeditions depended upon support from the local population and from allied armies. The repeated breakdown of coalitions tended to oblige the British government to be reactive to events. When it did react it tended to be over-ambitious, particularly in respect of attacks on the European mainland: den Helder in 1799, Hanover in 1805 and Walcheren in 1809 were organised relatively quickly on a scale that was too large for effective planning and co-ordination, but more importantly these expeditions failed because of the absence of effective support from local populations and the allies – from the Dutch (den Helder, 1799), from Prussia (Hanover, 1805) and from Austria (Walcheren, 1809). The West Indies expeditions of 1793–97 were also conducted on a large scale.