He marched them up to the top of the hill.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only half way up,.
They were neither up nor down.
I would like to start by saying, this was a hard nursery rhyme to find info on. I would have much rather had an easy one like ba ba black sheep or jack sprat. The Duke turns out to be Frederick Augustus, son of King George III. "Frederick was the "The Grand Old Duke of York", celebrated in the nursery rhyme for marching his men up to the top of the hill and marching them down, a commentary on his unsuccessful Flanders campaign of 1793-99" (Mills). .
In response to Napoleon kicking everyone's butt in the early part of the Napoleonic Wars, King George sent Freddie with 6500 troops and 21,000 reinforcements promised, to bail out the Dutch and Austrian's. Freddie's army joined up with Prince Josias of Coburg-Saalfeld forces and took the offensive against the French pushing them out of Antwerp and Brussels. Rather than taking the fight to France itself they stalled and attack boarder forts and outposts. Giving the French time to regroup. Then in its military brilliance England decided to split up the force and send Freddie to attack Dunkirk. He did well and pushed the French out of Dunkirk, but without any siege artillery he was unable to finish the job. He then was forced to retreat all the way back to Germany (campaign). So I guess the line in the rhyme, "And when they were up, they were up.", means when they were on the offensive the did well. When they were on the defensive they were down and half way up they did nothing. That is just my interpretation from the materials I read. So I maybe right or wrong. .
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