Chapter 7
In This Chapter
● Founding the first professional British army
● Adding structure to the military system
● Introducing the first regiments
● Using the new regiments on campaign
Cromwell’s death in 1658 and Parliament’s invitation to Charles II to return to the throne in 1660 meant the end of the New Model Army. You couldn’t get much more anti-monarchy than those chaps, and inviting the king back meant the return of a monarchy.
However, the end of the Civil Wars didn’t mean the end of the need for a standing army. All the major continental powers now possessed their own standing armies, and in the changed circumstances of the times, Britain could not do without one. This chapter covers the earliest days of Britain’s first regular army, from 1660 to 1695.
The formation of the Regular Army saw the use of the following troop types in the late seventeenth century:
Infantry: Most infantrymen (or regiments of foot) were musket armed, although a few pikes remained. New types of infantrymen emerged in this period - fusiliers and grenadiers (see the section ‘Introducing new types of soldier’, later in this chapter, for more on them).
Cavalry: Regiments of horse were armed with swords and pistols, and regiments of dragoons fought as mounted infantrymen.
Artillery: Guns were used both on the battlefield and in sieges.
For more on how the army looked, see the section ‘Dressing for battle’, later in this chapter.
The Changing Army
Raising the new army from scratch presented difficulties. Designed to be a volunteer, long-service army, the numbers required to raise new regiments meant that they had to be recruited by persuasion. That was no easy task. Even regular soldiers dislike being shot in the best of causes, so why should a civilian expose himself to death, wounds, hard living, tough discipline, brutal punishments, and poor pay? He may receive bed, board, and clothing, but was that enough? Some men did indeed enlist because the life appealed to them. The rest were petty criminals whom the magistrates told to join as an alternative to prison, men trying to escape their debts, husbands escaping their wives, and those down on their luck or starving because they were unable to find employment. If a recruit could read and write, he was lucky because he was well on the way to becoming a corporal.
In the days before permanent barracks were built, the army often quartered its men in inns. The civilian population detested soldiers, regarding them as useless, drunken, licentious brutes. As no police existed at the time, the government often used the army to put down riots and disturbances. The curious thing is that having been forced by circumstances to become soldiers, and knowing that their countrymen despised them, the recruits began to value each other on their merits, came to rely on their colleagues, and so recovered their self-respect. The regiment became their home and family.
This was the beginning of something that remains peculiar to the British and some Commonwealth armies, namely regimental spirit. We may want to remember the Duke of Wellington’s comment (a century or so after the formation of the regular army) on his troops:
They are the scum of the earth - it really is remarkable what fine fellows we have made of them!
Raising a regiment: The proprietary system
When Parliament raised a new regiment, it gave a prominent individual such as a peer or a significant landowner authority to carry this out, voting him a sum of money for the task. He also received the sums that the regiment’s first officers paid for their commissions (see the next section), as well as government money handed over to him and his successors in subsequent years for the regiment’s maintenance. The regiment was, in practical terms, this man’s property. He was its colonel and was responsible for running it (including its complex financial deals such as pay, uniform allowance, purchase of horses, and recruiting costs).
This proprietary system was open to abuse, as the colonel was allowed to pocket whatever he could save from the regiment’s running expenses. He perhaps claimed allowances for soldiers listed on the muster roll who did not exist, or did a deal with a contractor to supply inferior-quality goods such as uniforms. By no means all colonels were crooked, but for some raising a regiment was a licence to print money.
Colonels rarely served with their regiments; lieutenant colonels commanded them in the colonel’s absence. Although each regiment had an official number, during the early days of the Regular Army period people generally knew it by its colonel’s name.
Buying a commission
Most officers purchased their commissions (a commission is a document signed by the sovereign authorising the individual name to serve as an officer in one of the armed services), as they did every step of promotion up to lieutenant colonel. An officer serving with one regiment could purchase promotion when a vacancy appeared in another, and he transferred across. Guards regiments were considered an elite, the rest of the army’s cavalry and infantry being referred to as line regiments. Commissions in the guards cost twice as much as those in line regiments because those holding them were of a social standing acceptable to the monarch. Commissions in the cavalry cost more than those in the infantry because their holders were drawn from a stratum of society that could afford country pursuits based on the horse, not always affordable to others; indeed, many cavalry officers went to war mounted on their own horses. The government set a tariff for commissions, but in reality prices were much higher. When he retired or left the army, the officer sold his commission. If he was lucky it had appreciated in value and he used the money to buy a pension.
The system of commission by purchase is difficult to defend, but in truth it worked very well. Most officers came from a stratum of society used to making decisions and giving orders, and were quite capable of courageous leadership if the circumstances demanded it - although the odd idiot or bad egg did put in an appearance. Not every officer bought his commission, however. In some regiments, promising non-commissioned officers (NCOs; that is, corporals and sergeants) were granted commissions as adjutants, quartermasters, and paymasters.
On active service, vacancy and merit played a part in obtaining promotion. After a particularly successful action, some NCOs and even private soldiers received a battlefield commission. Officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, having received specialist training, did not need to purchase their commissions, but as their promotion was by seniority a lieutenant may have reached middle age before he attained his captaincy.
Introducing new types of soldier
Evolving military technology led to new types of soldier appearing in the army. Gunpowder offered more possibilities than merely being the propellant in guns and muskets - it could be used in a grenade, too. When thrown into the enemy’s ranks, these hand-held bombs caused casualties among those closest to them. Of course, no one wanted a grenade exploding too close to their own troops and for that reason the new grenadiers (who threw the bombs) were only selected from the tallest men, as they were able to throw further. Because the tricorne hat worn by most of the line infantry interfered with the natural swing of the arm when throwing a grenade, grenadiers wore a headdress similar to a bishop’s mitre, with the front embroidered to a regimental pattern (shown in Figure 7-1).
Another new type of soldier was the fusilier, who got their name because they were armed with an improved type of musket, called a fusil. Their original purpose was to provide an escort for the Royal Artillery’s guns. This meant not only defending the guns against the enemy, but also preventing the civilian drivers from making off with the horses when things seemed to be taking a turn for the worst (the ancient practice of hiring teams of horses to pull the guns was to continue throughout this period). The first fusilier regiment was The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), 7th Foot, raised in 1685. They wore similar caps to the grenadiers.
One event changed the nature of the infantryman’s war in the seventeenth century more than any other. French soldiers invented the bayonet by accident and of necessity during the 1640 siege of Bayonne. Pikemen were in short supply and, to defend themselves at close quarters, musketeers cut the heads off pikes and stuck them in the muzzles of their muskets, which they otherwise only used as clubs. This plug bayonet had the obvious disadvantage that the musket could not be fired when it was in use, so the ring bayonet, which fitted over the musket’s muzzle, followed quickly, and the socket bayonet, which clipped on to permanent fittings on the musket barrel, succeeded it in turn.
As a result of this invention, the musketeer became his own pikeman and the pikeman proper disappeared from the battlefield.
Dressing for battle
All soldiers in the Regular Army wore a uniform, unlike in earlier times. A uniform provided a useful means of identification in battle that had not existed in any clear form previously, and it added to an individual unit’s esprit de corps (pride in your regiment). The national colour chosen for English armies was scarlet and the cut of a soldier’s coat was not very different from a civilian’s.
For most practical purposes, the army discarded the remaining vestiges of armour after the Civil Wars (see Chapter 6). Many cavalry regiments still wore iron skull caps under their tricorne hats and heavy cavalry continued to wear the breastplate for a while, the reason in both cases being to protect the wearer against sword cuts. Figure 7-1 shows a typical infantryman, grenadier, and cavalryman of the late seventeenth century.
Figure 7-1: English infantryman, grenadier, and cavalryman in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Regiments recognised each other by the facing colour of their cuffs and, later, turned-back coat tails and lapels. As a general rule, Royal regiments had blue facings, English regiments white, Scottish regiments yellow, and Welsh regiments green, but many exceptions existed. Royal regiments wore blue breeches, and the rest wore white. Until 1716 the Royal Artillery wore scarlet, but after that date its uniforms were blue with scarlet facings. Engineers wore scarlet for the excellent reason that they were too valuable to lose, and to an enemy sniper this colour made them indistinguishable from their infantry working parties.
The First Regiments
The longest-serving armed unit in Britain is the Yeoman of the Guard, which Henry VII formed in 1485 as a personal bodyguard. Next comes the Honourable Artillery Company, directly descended from The Fraternity of the Guild of St George, which Henry VIII incorporated in 1537. These, however, are not regular units, and even some of those that are actually predate the formation of the Regular Army in 1660.
The first regiments actually to be embodied in the army were:
● The Buffs (The Royal East Kent Regiment) or 3rd Foot, 1572. Originally raised by Elizabeth I as ‘The Hollands Regiment’. Still serving with the Dutch when Charles II declared war on Holland in 1665, and refused to fight against England, so was absorbed into the British army.
● The Royal Scots or 1st Foot, 1633. Claimed descent from a Roman legion serving in Scotland, hence its nickname of ‘Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard’. During the Crimean War this assertion led to a punch-up with a French infantry regiment that claimed descent from the legion that had been on duty at the Crucifixion. The Royal Scots’ continuous existence began under Charles I in 1633. It subsequently served the King of France before transferring back to the British service.
● The Coldstream or 2nd Foot Guards, 1650. Originally Monck’s Regiment in the New Model Army. Disliked being second to the Grenadier Guards and deliberately adopted the motto Nulli Secundus (second to none).
● The Life Guards, 1660. Served as Charles II’s escort while he was in exile.
● The Grenadier or 1st Foot Guards, 1660. Originally known as ‘The Royal Regiment of Guards’. Accompanied Charles II in exile.
● The Royal Horse Guards, 1661. Began life as a Parliamentary regiment.
● The Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey) or 2nd Foot, 1661.
● The King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) or 4th Foot, 1680.
● The Scots Guards or 3rd Foot Guards, 1685. Originally formed about 1639.
More infantry regiments formed between 1685 and 1689, more in 1701, and other at intervals up to 1800. Seven regiments of horse and six of dragoons became established between 1681 and 1689.
In theory, an infantry regiment had a nominal strength of 1200 and contained ten companies. Two companies, known as the flank companies, differed from the rest. One was the Grenadier Company, containing the biggest and strongest men in the regiment (who also lobbed grenades at their enemies - described in the section ‘Introducing new types of soldier’ earlier in this chapter), and the other was the Light Company, whose men were employed as skirmishers (usually marksmen who picked off the enemy’s officers and kept the enemy’s skirmishers at a distance). On active service, these companies were often temporarily removed from the regiment to form Grenadier or Light regiments. Orders were given within a company by:
● A captain
● A lieutenant
● An ensign or second lieutenant
● Two sergeants and three corporals
Regiments of horse consisted of six troops, each with a nominal strength of 100 men. The troop’s leaders were:
● A captain
● A lieutenant
● A cornet
● A quartermaster-sergeant and three sergeants or corporals-of-horse.
Colours
An infantry regiment possessed two Colours (regimental flags), the Sovereign’s and the Regimental Colour; this holds true even today. Before going on campaign, a regiment trooped its Colours along the ranks, allowing soldiers to recognise them amid the noise, confusion, and dense smoke of a real battle. In action Colours were deployed in the centre of the regiment’s line and formed a rallying point in critical circumstances.
The Colours enshrined the regiment’s honour, spirit, and traditions, and men guarded them to the death if the situation warranted it. The capture of an enemy Colour was a signal feat of arms.
Cavalry regiments carry a single standard or swallow-tailed guidon of smaller dimensions than the infantry Colours. The Royal Regiment of Artillery has never possessed Colours, but attaches a similar importance to its guns.
Battle honours and honour titles
Battle honours started to be awarded to regiments that have distinguished themselves in specific battles or campaigns, and this tradition continues in the modern British army. Honours are not awarded for defeats, no matter how gallantly a regiment may have fought, nor in civil wars. The honour consists of a name and sometimes a date, and is embroidered on a regiment’s Colours.
The first battle honour, Tangier, 1662-80, was awarded to The Grenadier Guards, The Coldstream Guards, The Royal Dragoons (The Royals, 1st Dragoons), The Royal Scots, and The Queen’s Regiment. This was for the defence of Tangier, which formed part of Portuguese princess Catherine de Braganza’s dowry when she married Charles II.
Preparing for War: Logistics, Ballistics, ana Fortification
The introduction of a Regular Army, and the increasing professionalism and organisation of the troops, required the military support services and infrastructure to catch up:
● Logistics (the science of supply) involves everything an army eats, wears, and uses, and requires considerable forethought. At this period logistic science was in its infancy, but the need was apparent for conveniently sited supply depots and magazines (weapon, gunpowder, and ammunition storage). Logistics went hand in hand with accountability, which meant that from the outset an item of equipment such as a musket had to be signed for every time it changed hands. This made the last signatory responsible for the item, ensuring that he took care of it and preventing its loss or sale to interested outsiders. This started the ball rolling on a bureaucracy that, as discussed in Chapter 13 on the Crimean War, got completely out of hand and resulted in severe hardship for the fighting troops.
● Ballistics (the study of how guns and their ammunition perform) was still at a comparatively early stage. The army had much to learn, but it already knew a great deal about such things as trajectories, fuse setting, and probable casualties inflicted at a given range. Heavy guns always played a major role in sieges, but the army was now giving serious thought to lighter weapons with increased mobility that field armies used together in batteries. Infantry battalions were already issued with two small guns apiece, manned at first by their own men but later by members of the Royal Artillery.
● Fortification underwent a radical change. Medieval castles were no match for sustained gunfire, and Henry VIII’s old forts still left dead ground for the enemy to exploit (see Chapter 5). The same was not true of wedge-shaped bastions, which provided mutual support covering every angle of approach; from these bastions evolved the star system of fortification (so called because the overall design of a fortress consisting of bastions linked by curtain walls resembled a star). Most of these defences were sunk into the earth, with only the fighting parapets and gun embrasures visible above ground. From their outer edges the permanent defences consisted of a sloped glacis, counterscarp, ditch, scarp, and ramparts. To an outside observer, even the parapets were difficult to spot as a deep layer of earth covered them to cushion the impact of cannon balls and so reduce the danger from flying stone splinters.
Vauban forts: The best of the best
The master of the star system fortification was a French officer, Sebastien le Prestre du Vauban, who became the French army's Director of Engineering. Vauban's approach was precise and mathematical. Given the number and type of guns employed in a siege, together with the construction of the fortress, he calculated with reasonable accuracy how long the defences may be capable of holding out. Comparatively few Vauban-style fortresses were built in the British Isles, but British engineer officers had to be familiar with them as they had to deal with them in Europe. The new complexities of fortification and siegecraft led to the establishment of permanent bodies of military engineers, whose work also included bridge and road building.
To launch an assault on such a fortress without adequate preparation was to invite crippling casualties; mining offered an alternative if the ditch was dry, but this involved tunnelling through the foundations of the counterscarp, then under the ditch, and finally through the thickness of the scarp. The only method likely to guarantee success was to concentrate artillery fire against a weak spot in the defences; these batteries were dug in 550 metres (600 yards) from the walls, and connected by a trench that became known as the First Parallel. From this zigzag saps (smaller trenches) were pushed out and the guns brought forward to establish a Second Parallel 250 metres (300 yards) from the defences. This was repeated until a Third Parallel existed within musket shot of the defences. When the defences had been battered into silence and a breach in the walls effected, the garrison surrendered, or the attacker launched an assault.
Getting Some Action!
The Regular Army’s first campaign took place in North Africa, defending Tangier against the Moors until possession of the town was relinquished in 1684.
The Battle of Sedgemoor, 6 July 1685
The following year the Duke of Monmouth (the illegitimate son of Charles II) landed in the English West Country to raise the standard of rebellion against his unpopular uncle, James II, who had become king in February 1685 after Charles II’s death. Government troops destroyed the Duke’s small army, consisting mainly of countrymen armed with little better than scythes, at
Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. The Duke rashly attempted a night approach march with his raw levies, but this failed to achieve the hoped-for surprise. The outcome of the battle was predictable. Nevertheless, the battle demonstrated the efficiency of well-drilled infantry armed with muskets and is interesting for the presence of a Regular Army officer named John Churchill, who later became Duke of Marlborough (for more on him, see the very next chapter).
The Battle of the Boyne, 1 July 1690
In 1688, William of Orange, a staunch Protestant married to James II’s daughter Mary, landed in Devon with Dutch troops to overthrow the pro-Catholic King of England, James II (for more on this, see Sean Lang’s British History For Dummies, published by Wiley). No fighting took place, the army simply joining William’s cause. When James escaped to France, Parliament adjudged him to have abdicated and conferred the crown jointly on William and Mary. Then James thought better of leaving and attempted to recover his throne, landing in Ireland in 1689 with some French troops. He managed to put together 18,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry, most of whom were Irish Catholics, and six guns. James was withdrawing towards Dublin when, on 1 July 1690, William’s army forced a battle at the crossing of the river Boyne. William had 35,000 men at his disposal: 26,500 infantry, 8000 cavalry, and 50 guns. As well as English and Dutch, his army included Irish Protestants and French Huguenots. English regular regiments present included 11 cavalry or dragoon regiments and 12 infantry regiments.
William launched a frontal attack across the river, simultaneously sending a force upstream to fall on James’s left flank. William’s attack met fierce opposition, but as soon as pressure from the flanking force made itself felt, James’s army began to disintegrate. For such an important battle, casualties were remarkably light on both sides: William had 2000 men killed or wounded, while James suffered 1500 casualties.
James took off for France again and died in exile, although his family and supporters, named Jacobites (the posh Latin name for James or Jimmy is Jacobus), continued to be a real pain in the neck for the British monarchy in the next half-century (see Chapter 9).
Under William’s rule, British troops took part in the long-forgotten War of the League of Augsburg (1689-1697). They fought in several equally forgotten battles, some of which were very bloody indeed, but the only one deemed worthy of a Battle Honour was Namur, 1695.