Black J. A Military History of Britain From 1775 to the Present

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we were no w within 300 yards of the enemy’s batteries which were dealing

forth grape and canister without mercy. All of a sudden, they were observed

to waver under our seve re cannonading, and the line givin g a wild hurrah,

rushedforward,drovethemfromtheir guns, which we spiked , pursued

them onwards as fast as we were able. They rallied, formed square, the 16th

Lancers were ordered to charge.

In the Second Sikh War (1848–1849), the Sikh army was weaker. The key

victories were Chillianwala and Gujrat, both in 1849. A British participant

recorded of the Sikh artillery in the former, ‘‘The havoc they committed

was fearful...and every bush you passed out rushed a Sikh a nd tried to

cut you down. Of course we never thought of looking into every bush

we passed and thus they go in our rear.’’

Once conquered and annexed,

the Punjab was to become a major center for recruitment into the British

army.

Elsewhere, naval and amphibious actio n again st Mehmet Ali of Egypt

in 1840—the blockade of Alexandria, the occupation of Beirut, and the

bombardment and capture of Acre—blocked Egypt’s northward advance

in Syria and Egypt. In South Africa, the British expanded inland from

Cape Colony, annexing Natal in 1845 and British Kaffraria in 1847.

The major conﬂicts in the 1850s occurred with Russia and in Indi a.

Begun between Russia and the Turks in 1853, the Crimean War widened

when Britain and France came to the support of the latter in March 1854

in order to prevent Russia from dominating the Black Sea and the Balkans

(in each of w hich the Turks were under consider able pressure), and thus

apparently threatening the overland route to India. Despite French sug-

gestions of a march on Moscow, this was to be no 1812: the Allies lacked

the land resources of Napoleon, not least because both Austria and

Prussia were neutral; but, conversely, were far more powerful at sea. The

war focused on naval and amphibious action, with a major naval deploy-

ment in the Baltic, matched by a full-scale expedition to the Black Sea. Ini-

tially designed to protect Constantinople (Istanbul) and h elp the Turks

again st the Russian advance into the Balkan s, this force was left without

a clear mission when, under Austrian pressure, the Rus sians withdrew.

As a result, attention ﬁxed on another goal that had been mentioned, but

for whic h plannin g was lacking, t he capture of the Russian Bl ack Se a

naval base of Sevastopol which threatened the Turkish position on the

Black Sea. The difﬁculty of the task had not been properly assessed, while

the Allies lacked the necessary manpower. However, the steamships that

took British and French troops to the Crimea were not matched on the

Russian side by railways capable of moving large numbers of troops a nd

ample supplies.

Landing to the north of Sevastopol on 14 September 1854, the 6 0,000-

strong Anglo-French force fa ced a contested passage o f the river Al ma

(20 September) . Superiority in weaponry ensured that this frontal a ttack

80 A Military History of Britain

was successful, the poorly trained Russians suffering heavily from an

absence of riﬂes and riﬂed a rtillery. The Allies then besieged the well-

defended Sevastopol, with the French providing the majority of the force,

although the siege was not fully effective, as some road links into Sevasto-

pol stayed open. The Allies also had to face both particularly bad weather,

which hit both supply routes and the living conditions of the troops, and

attempts by the Russian army to disrupt the siege by attacks on Allied

supply routes. These were the c ause of the b attles of Balaclava (25 Octo-

ber) and Inkerman (5 November), in which the Russians were blocked,

albeit with heavy casua lties.

This success gave rise to one of the key totemic images of the British

military. The journalist William Howard Russell described the British

infantry who successfully resisted a cavalry advance on the base of Bala-

clavaon25Octoberasa‘‘thinredstreaktippedwithsteel.’’Thereport

led to Robert Gibb’s painting The Thin Red Line (1881), although that made

the engagement more dramatic than was the case. Balaclava also entailed

the most memorable blunder, when a lack of clarity in passing on orders

led to the charge of the Light Brigade into the face of Russian cannon.

Despite heavy artillery support, Anglo-French land assaults in 1855 ini-

tially failed. The attackers lacked adequate experience in siege craft, and

had to face a type of trench warfare that was different to earlier sieges.

The Russians were supported by over 1,000 cannon, while the Allies ﬁred

1,350,000 rounds of artillery ammunition. Such ﬁgures suggest that the

Crimean conﬂict can be seen as the ﬁrst indu strial war. One British ofﬁcer

wrote to his beloved, ‘‘[N]ow I am so accust omed to the noise that I

believe I could go to sleep in a battery when the enemy were ﬁring at

it.’’

Sevastopol, however, ﬁnally fell that September, ensuring that the

peace settlement satisﬁed Anglo-French goals. Although operations in

the Crimea engage the bulk of attention, the British and French also

launched a major na val force into the Gulf of Finland in 1854, and this

was responsible for attacks on Russian forts. Furthermore, Russian posi-

tions elsewhere, in the Baltic, and, with less force, in the White Sea and

on the Paciﬁc coast , were all attacked. However, the navy was unable to

turn its command of the sea in order to win decisive advantage.

Victory was won but at a heavy cost. The Crimean War offers an

instructive parallel with World War One (1914–1918), both of which are

generally seen in terms of folly, futility, and horror. In the former, attention

focuses on the heavy casualties and mismanaged heroism of the charge of

the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and on the horriﬁc conditions in the siege

of Sevastopol. The terrible conditions of the t roops, especially a lack of

adequate food, clean water, medical attention, shelter, and clothing,

helped lead to very heavy losses from d isease, and the administrative

deﬁciencies were bitterly criticized in Parliament and the pre ss. The Cri-

mean War saw major advan ces in war reporting in the press, with news

Imperial Ascendancy, 1815–1871 81

sent home by telegraph, and in war photography.

In both wars, there

was also criticism of the caliber of the generalshi p. As in Wo rld War

One, only a brief conﬂict was an ticipated, and there were no adequate

preparations, not least in strategic and tactical doctrine, for the struggle

that was to arise. In the Crimean War, s trategy occurred almost by acci-

dent and there was a lack of purposeful planning. At the tactical level,

the British were fortunate that th e Russians, st ill reliant o n smooth-bore

muskets, lacked modern riﬂes (the British had introduced them from

1851) and artillery. At Inkerman, attacking Russian columns, seeking to

close to bayonet point, took casualties from the Enﬁeld riﬂes of the British

and were defeated. The percussion-lock riﬂe was more accurate and effec-

tive than the musket. The riﬂed barrel gave bullets a spin, which led to a

more stable and thus reliable trajectory.

More generally, the multiple weaknesses of Ru ssia as a military power

were important to British success. On the British side, c oncern over the

number of troops led to a recour se to foreign mercenaries. The deﬁcien-

cies highlighted by the war, and the accompanying furor, led to a measure

of reform that in part reﬂected impulses already present before the c on-

ﬂict. The consolidation of the War Ofﬁce, Horse Guards, and Board of

Ordnance, a key adm inistrative d evelopment, began in 1854–1855 and

there were improvements in the handling of logistics.

However, the rela-

tionship between the Secretary for War and the Commander-in-Chief, the

key element in political-military links, remained unclear.

The other major challenge was the Indian Mutiny of 1857–1859, which

led to the largest deployment of British forces between the N apoleonic

Wars and the Boer War of 1899–1902. Victory was seen as crucial to British

prestige and power in India. Many factors contributed to discontent

among the Indian troops, and more generally in India. Given the strategic

needs of British power, it is striking that a major cause of tension was the

reluctance of many soldiers to serve abroad for caste reasons, and the

newfound determination of the authorities to ensure that they were abl e

to do so. This was understandable given the military resource India pro-

vided. For example, in 1838–1846, Indian troops had been very useful in

the conquest of north Borneo a nd Labuan. The trigger for the rising was

the British demand that their Indian soldiers use a new cartridg e for their

new Lee-Enﬁeld riﬂes allegedly greased (to keep the powder dry) in

animal fat, a measure that was unacceptable to Muslims and Hindus for

religious reasons, although there was a concerted plan for mutiny with

communications between the rebels long before the issue of cartridges.

This was signiﬁcant because of the low level of conﬁdence between British

ofﬁcers and Indian subordinates: the army in India in 1857 contained

about 232,000 Indian and 45,000 British troops. Most of the Indian troops

in this army’s largest section, the Bengal army (which comprised

135,000 Indian and 24,000 British troops), mutinied in May 1857, while

82 A Military History of Britain

there was also a large-scale civilian rising in north-central India. The gar-

rison of Meerut mutinied on 10 May, and Delhi was seized the next day.

Fortunately for the British, much of the Indian army remained loyal (the

Madras and Bombay armies, and about 30,000 sepoys of the Bengal army)

and the rulers of Hyderabad, Kashmir, and Nepal provided assistance,

helping ensure that the British outnumbered the rebels in many of the

clashes in 1858. No major prince joined the rebellion, and it also had no

foreign support: Afghanistan provided no support for the rebellion. Fur-

thermore, the movement of British troops into the region, and the inability

of the badly led rebels, who lacked effective coordination or indeed a clear

program, to spread the rebellion, helped the British regain the initiative,

storming Delhi and clearing the city in bitter street ﬁghting in September

1857. Nevertheless, the campaign revealed serious ﬂaws in the British

military system, not least over transport and medical services. In the

spring of 1858, the British overran the rebellious area, capturing Lucknow

on 22 March, Jhansi on 3 April, and Kalpi on 22 April. Thanks to impres-

sive generalship by Sir Hugh Rose, who unde rstood the need for effective

logistics, the rebellion in central India was ended in June with the capture

of Gwalior and victory at Jaura-Alipur. Peace was ofﬁci ally declared by

the Governor-General on 8 July 1858, although small-scale resistance con-

tinued, with a fresh rising at Multan in August 1858. However, the last

battle was at the Sirwa Pass on 21 May 1859, on the frontier of Nepal.

The defeated remnants ﬂed into Nepal.

The Mutiny led, in 1858, by the India Act, to the end of rule by the East

IndiaCompany,and,instead,tothedirectadministrationbytheBritish

government of what was not left under dependent local princes, a system

that continued until India gained independence in 1947. The British also

became more cautious in their treatment of Indian opinion, not least in

their willingness to consider unwelcome reforms. Caution owed some-

thing to the bitterness and racial violence of the struggle, and the long-

standing images of cruelty it provided. Fo r the British , this was the case

with mutineers massacring wom en, child ren, civilians, and prisoners, as

at Cawnpore in June–July 1857. In contrast, Colin Campbell’s ability to

lead a column to the relief of Lucknow in November 1857 became a

totemic occasion of Victorian soldiering and s erved as a model for sub-

sequent actions, while Henry Havelock and other commanders demon-

strated Christian militarism.

However, there were alternative images of

cruelty, with British troops killing captured mutineers, most dramatically

by strapping them across the muzzles of cannon which were then ﬁred. In

modern India, the Mutiny was reinterpreted, somewhat anachronistically,

as India’s ﬁrst war of independence or nationalism, and is now widely

referred to as the ‘‘Rebellion.’’

Once the Mutiny was suppressed, India returned to its former role as a

key support for British power elsewhere, including China. The separate

Imperial Ascendancy, 1815–1871 83

local army, however, was now abolished, while the percentage of British

troops among the forces in India was g reatly increased, and the artillery

became nearly all British. Furthermore, the Gurkhas and Sikhs, groups

who had remained loyal, became increasingly important among the Indi-

an troops, at the expense of Brahmins, many of whom had rebelled.

Also in the 1850s, Britain annexed Rangoon and southern (Lower)

Burma, as the result of a war in 1852–1853 that proved easier, shorter,

and less expensive than the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826.

Awadh (Oud h) in India was annexed in 1856. Also that year, an expedi-

tion to the Persian Gulf in which Bushire was captured, led Persia to yield

to British demands that its forces retreat from Herat in Afghanistan, an

interesting contrast with present-day capabilities at a time of concern

about Afghan security a nd Ira nian (P ersian) a ssertivenes s. A war with

China, begun in 1857, in which year C anton was captured, led, in 1860,

to the Anglo-French occupation of Beijing, a major blow at the heart of

Chinese power. The role of Sikh cavalry supported by Armstrong artillery

showed the combination of imperial manpower and home industry in the

spread of British power.

In the 1860s, the British annexed Lagos in West Africa (1861), although

an expedition against the Asante farther west in 1864 was wrecked by dis-

ease. Another major Af rican kingdom, Abyssinia (Eth iopia), was brought

low in 1868. In a methodically planned campaign, an expedition entered

the Red Sea, landed and marched from the coast into the mountains, a for-

midable logistical task, defeated the Abyssinia ns at Arogee, stormed the

fortress of Magdala, and rescued the imprisoned British hostages who

were the cause of the crisis, before withdrawing. Battleﬁeld effectiveness

was furthered by the new Snider breech-loading riﬂe, i ntroduced in

1864. The campaign helped boost conﬁdence in the military, and reﬂected

the growing strategic importance of the region for British power, an

importance that was to be furthered by the opening of the Suez Canal.

The Abyssinian campaign drew on the resources of the empire in India,

an example of the reinforcing nature of the British Empire at this time.

Expansion in New Zealand indicated the global reach of British power,

but also th at progress was far from easy. The Maori (m any of whom did

not resist) responded ably to British artillery and dug well-sited trench

and pa (fort) systems that were difﬁcult to bombard or storm, adopting

layouts in order to increase the potential for their own muskets. The Maori

inﬂicted serious checks on the British in the 1860s, but the av ailabi lity of

British, colonial, and allied Maori units, and the process of extending

control, that included road and fort construction, ensured an eventual set-

tlement on British terms. Operations in New Zealand, never theless, indi-

cated the difﬁculties facing British imperial warmaking.

The conﬂicts

of the period did not preﬁgure to any great degree the problems that were

to be encountered in the twentieth century in holding colonies in the face

84 A Military History of Britain

of insurrectionary movements, not least because there was little need, as

then, to fear foreign intervention, but there were some a nticipations.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lister wrote of an expedition in East Bengal in 1850

about the problems caused by ‘‘the facilities which t heir jungles afford,

both materials and position, for throwing obstacles in the way of an ad-

vance or retreat.’’

What might have been the major war of the period, that between Britain

and the United States, did not occur. From 1815 until the revival of French

naval strength from the mid-1820s, the Admiralty saw the American ﬂeet

as its most likely rival, but Anglo -American relations improved in the

aftermath of the War of 1812–1815, and the two pow ers agreed in oppos-

ing Spanish attempts to reimpose control in Latin America and in sup-

pressing the slave trade. In 1818, the frontier between Canada and the

United States was agreed as far as the Rockies, while, beyond, the Oregon

Territory was jointly administered. Nevertheless, there were tensions,

including a dispute over the Maine frontier in 1838–1839, although the

Ashburton-Webster Treaty of 1842 settled frontier disputes east of the

Rockies. When risings occurred in Canada in 1837–1838, American sym-

pathizers attacked, but the regular garrison overcame the c hallen ge sup-

ported by extensive Loyalist volunteer a ctivity, and war with the United

States was avoided.

Although James Polk successfully campaigned for

the presidency in 1844 on the platf orm of ‘‘54º40’ or ﬁght,’’ in fact he was

willing to partition the Oregon territory and settle the frontier in 1846

without British Colombia or Vancouver Island. Military expenditure in

Canada and the number of troops there then fell. A 1859 border crisis over

the San Juan Islands off Vancouver Island led to the deployment of local

forces, but it was swiftly ended.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), relations were tense, as the

British government expressed sympa thy for the Confederacy, and there

was anger about the Union blockade, which hit British trade. In turn, the

Union complained that British policy helped Confederate privateering.

As tension rose, the British ﬂeet in North American and Caribbean waters

was strengthened and troops were sent to Canada, but c aution prevailed

and conﬂict was avoided.

Furthermore after the war, the Union forces

did not turn to challenge British interests in Canada or overseas. Instead,

Anglo-American differences were settled by the Treaty of Washington of

1871, and this permitted a reduction in the British military presence, with

garrisons in Canada restricted to the naval bases of Esquimalt on Van-

couver Island and Halifax, both important co aling stations for the navy.

Meanwhile, the organization of the army was being transformed as a

result of the Ca rdwell reforms. As Secretary of State for the Colonies

(1864–1866), Edward Cardwell withdrew regular troops from the colonies

for which the latter were not willing to pay, a key move toward colonial

self-defense, and, as Secretary of Stat e for War (1869–1874 ), he pushed

Imperial Ascendancy, 1815–1871 85

through the ending of the purchase of commissions, instead insisting on

appointment and promotion by merit and s election. This did not trans-

form the social composition of the ofﬁcer corps, which remained an

adm ixture of landed elite and professional groups, with particular co m-

mitment derived from the extent to which, as in the navy, many ofﬁcers

were the sons of those who had ser ved as ofﬁcers. The failure to increase

pay ensured that ofﬁcers had to be men of means, while merit was con-

strued in terms of seniority.

Peacetime ﬂogging was abolished in 1869,

while provisions were made for better military education, the retirement

of ofﬁcers and, under the Army Enli stment Act of 1870, the introduction

of a short ter m of service. This did not make recruitment easier, as Card-

well had hoped, but it did lead to a larger reserve. The Commander-in-

Chief was in theory brought under the close control of the War Ofﬁce by

the War Ofﬁce Act of 1870. Infantry regiments were organized into two

regular battalions, one on overseas station and another in a home bar-

racks, a system designed to s upport the goals of imperial defense; a nd

the regiments were linked by name to their county recruiting area. In this

‘‘territorialization,’’ Britain was divided into 62 districts.

The merits of the reforms were contested, particularly by traditionally

minded ofﬁcers, not least George, 2nd Duke of Cambridge, the ﬁrst cousin

of Queen Vienna, who was Commander-in-Chief of the army from 1856 to

1895. His determination, connections, and experience helped ensure that

the War Ofﬁce Act did not have the impact t hat might have been antici-

pated. Furthe rmore, the n ew organizational system offered more f or

imperial punitive expeditions than for the em phasis on mass seen in t he

American and European warfare of 1861–1871. The latter, instead, sug-

gested a need for the large-scale training and maneuvers the British

lacked, and for which the Crimean War had revealed a major need. How-

ever, with their stress on professionalism, the Cardwell reforms meant the

end of an ancien re

gime that no longer seemed appropriate in an age of

general reform.

More generally, the emphasis was on change. The opening of the Suez

Canal in 1869 transformed the geopolitics of British power, while the

spread of steam power and ironclad warships ensured that Nelson’s navy

no longer set the model for naval conﬂict. The ability and readiness of the

navy to achieve its goals depended on a willingness to respond to devel-

opments in naval technology that was an indication o f the strength of

the economy and the willingness to spend money on the navy. Victoria,

launched in 1859, the largest wooden screw warship built, which

mounted 131 guns, cost £150,000. Steam power, in which Britain led the

world, was a key aspect of her industrial revolution, and transformed

naval capability thanks to the harnessing of steam power to the cause of

marine propulsion. The ﬁrst warship, Demologos (Voice of the People), lat-

er renamed Fulton, was laid dow n by th e America ns in order to p rovide

86 A Military History of Britain

protection for New York against Britain in the War of 1812 (although it

was not in acti on befo re the peace), but the Brit ish rap idly developed a

steam capability at sea. Their industrial capacity ensured that, even when

other countries took the lead in technological innovation, Britain would

be best placed to catch up and to develop what seemed appropriate. This

ﬂexibility enabled the navy t o cope with the absence of any comparable

lead in formal training or doctrine, while the deﬁciencies in formal train-

ing were more than compensated for by the experience that stemmed

from the number and diversity of Britain’s commitments. The navy at ﬁrst

leased small p rivate steamships for use as tugs, purchasing its ﬁrst in

1821. Eight years later Columbia, the ﬁrst armed steamship in the navy,

entered service, followed, in 1830, by Dee, the ﬁrst purpose-built steam

warship.

Early steam ships su ffered from slow speed, a high rate o f coal con-

sumption, and the problems posed by side and paddle wheels, which

included their vulnerability to ﬁre, and the space taken up by wheels

and coal bunkers. This ensured thatsteamerswouldbeoutgunnedin

any clash with ships of the line, which helped explain the British reluc-

tance to throw away their existing lead i n sail warships by embracing

the new technology.

Nevertheless, steam po wer replaced depen dence on the wind, ma king

journey times more predictable and quicker, and increased the maneuver-

ability of ships, making it easier to sound inshore and hazardous waters,

and to attack opposing ﬂeets in anchorages. Steamers helped in the use

of naval power to brin g an end to the slave trade, particularly from Wes t

Africa. The ability of ships to operate during bad weather and on rivers

was also enhanced by steam power. In Janua ry 1841, th e Nemesis, a700-

ton, iron-hulled paddle steamer which had sailed round the Cape of Good

Hope to China, destroyed eleven war junks near Canton. Far from being

static, maritime steam technology developed rapidly, providing opportu-

nities for the navy. In the 1840s, the screw propeller (placed at the stern)

offered a better a lternative t o the pa ddle wheel, by making it possible to

carry a full broadside armament. Screw steamers were also more mobile.

The sloop Rattler launched in 1843, w as followed in 1846 by the frigate

Amphion, and the next year by the conversion of Ajax, a ship of the line,

to screw propulsion. The French, whose naval ambitions and

international moves in the 1840s alarmed Britain, were outspent in order

to ensure that Britain had more steam ships of the line.

There were also developments in naval ordnance. In 1826, 32-pounders

were introduced for all ships of the line, and in 1838 the shell gun was

adopted as part of the standard armament. Firing exploding shells in

place of the solid shot hitherto used,itwasaseriousthreattowooden

ships. The new naval capability was shown when Acre was bombarded

in 1840: steamers showed their ability to operate inshore, while a shell

Imperial Ascendancy, 1815–1871 87

caused the explosion of the fortress’s main magazine. This operation was

a key step in the expulsion of Egyptian forces from Syria and Palestine.

Shells helped lead to their antidote, armored warships. The ﬁrst iron-

clad warship, the 5,630-ton Gloire, was laid down by the French in March

1858. A wooden frigate with 4.5-inch-thick metal plates, this was designed

to challenge Bri tain, and ﬁve more ironclads were ordered in 1858. Wor-

ried that their naval lead was being destroyed, the British, in a major burst

of expenditure, m atched Gloire with an armored frigate, Warrior, laid

down in May 1859. With its iron hull and displacement of 9,140 tons,

this was a true iron (as opposed to ironclad) ship, with watertight compo-

nents below, the ﬁrst large seagoing iron-hulled warship. It could make

14 knot s, compared with the Gloire’s 13, and carry 200 more tons of coal,

thus having a greater range. Costing £377,000, the Wa rri o r was a testi-

mony to British manufacturing capability, which was a marked contrast

to F rance where ironworking facili ties we re limited. Concern about

France also led in 1859–1860 to a war scare that spurred the development

of a large-scale Volunteer movement designed to protect the country

against invasion.

The shift to iron reﬂected not simply the vulnerability of wooden ships

to shell ﬁre, but also success in overcoming the problems that had delayed

the use of iron, including its effect on magneti c compasses, the fact that

iron hulls fouled very much worse than those that were copper bottomed,

and the difﬁculties of securing sufﬁcient consistency and quality in the

iron. The ability to overcome these problems reﬂected the strength of the

economy in the acquisition and application of relevant knowledge. Iron

ships were structurally stronger and made redundant the wooden sc rew

steamers built in large numbers in the 1850s. Britain’s last wooden screw

ship of the line entered service in 1861, and, having gained the lead in iron

ships, the British retained it, ensuring a major advantage over the French.

There w ere also other advances in maritime technology. In the 1860s,

high-pressure boilers were combined with the compound engine, improv-

ing the efﬁciency of steam power. Continuing strength in industrial

capability and de velopment in naval ordnance were shown with the

development, in place of the early shell guns, of 7-inch Armstrong

breech-loading riﬂed guns. In 1864, the modern self-propelled torpedo

originated with the invention of a s ubmerged self-propelled torpedo

driven b y compressed air and arme d with an e xplosive charge at the

head.

The practice of locating heavy guns in an armored casement began with

the Research in 1864 and was followed in 1866 by the larger Bellerophon, a

battleship protected by six inches o f armor plating. In the absence of a

major conﬂict, and with Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) still on th e throne,

it might seem difﬁcult to point to a major turning point in military power,

but the move away from a navy of smoothbore guns, wood, and sail broke

88 A Military History of Britain

with the pattern of centuries, a nd contribut ed to a more general sense of

ﬂux and novelty, if not uncertainty.

This shift also underlined the relationship between changing technol-

ogy and international competition. Britain’s dominance as a naval power

had ensured an ambivalent response to new technology that might lead

to its overthrow, for example submarines. Steam power, shell guns, and

iron construction all appeared to offer opportunities to other powers and

the last, in particular, was pushed hard by Napoleon III of France in a

naval race with Britain in the late 1850s and 1860s. Combined with con-

cern about his international ambitions, particularly in the Middle East

and farther aﬁel d, this led to an ups urge in conce rn abo ut defense . The

development of French naval capacity led to major anxiety about the pos-

sibi lity of an invasi on attempt. This encouraged an active buildup of the

navy, as well as the construction of a new naval base at Portland. Fear of

invasion also led to major defensive preparations in Britain, including

the construction of impressive fortiﬁcations on t he south coa st designed,

in particular, to protect naval bases, particularly Portsmouth, from attack:

the fortiﬁcations were intended as part of an integrated defense system,

the focus of which was naval power. There was also a major interest in

volunteer home-defense forces, and this helped contribute to the growing

acceptability and popularity of military service.

International developments, however, transformed the situation. Prus-

sia’s success against Denmark in 1864 and, even more, against Austria

and its German allies in 1866, revolutionized the strategic situation in

Europe and forced France to focus on the threat from a uniﬁed Germany.

The defeat of France by the Germans in 1870–1871 accentuated an empha-

sis in French military expenditure on the army and fortiﬁcations. This

underlined Britain’s nav al and imper ial strength, as did the demobiliza-

tion of much of the American navy in 1865 and t he limited extent of

American transoceanic imperialism prior to the 1 880s. As yet, Germany,

Italy, Japan, and the United States were not mounting a challenge in the

naval or imperial category. There were still limits to British power. It

would have been unwise to contest America’s advance to the Paciﬁc in

the early nineteenth century or the German uniﬁcation that had led, in

1866, to the annexation of Hanover (which was ruled by Victoria’s ﬁrst

cousin ); but the strength of other powers did not yet pose a serious chal-

lenge to British interests. There was concern about Russia’s advance into

Central Asia and the apparent threat it posed to the security of India,

but the international situation appeared relatively benign and, with her

rapidly growing econo my, Britain cou ld act as a majo r power without

too great an impact on her public ﬁnances or society. This helped ensure

that the navy in the 1870s displaye d scan t improvement in organization,

technology, or doctrine,

while the army did not seek to emulate the

capabilities displayed by the Prussians/Germans. The maneuvers held

Imperial Ascendancy, 1815–1871 89