Black J. A Military History of Britain From 1775 to the Present
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As a result of the relatively small size of the army, there might seem to
be pragmatic reasons to avoid direct engagement with the main field
army of Britain’s opponents (and this was the basis o f what was seen as
the strategy of the ‘‘indirect approach’’); and, inst ead, to use the mobility
offered by the amphibio us capability offered by naval power. Such a strat-
egy was seen at work in the Peninsular War in 1808–1813, with the British
not committed against Napoleon’s main force, which was just as well.
This strategy was also seen in the pressure for an invasio n of Italy in
1943, which was presented by American critics as a diversion from the
task of in vading France in order to fight the principal German forces not
engaged against the Soviets. Britain then had conscription, but there was
concern among British poli cy makers about the fightin g ability of the
citizen army, and a sense that if the main field army was destroyed it
would be impossible to replace. The stress on the indirect approach also
led to criticism of the ‘‘Westerners’’ who, in World War One, supported a
focus on t he Western Front, rather than probing the opposing Central
Powers for weaker points where Britain could employ its forces more
effectively.
The applicability of the general a rgument is limited by the extent to
which each war posed particular strategic issues, not lea st in response to
different goals and the dynamics of alliance politics , a point that i s also
pertinent for the future. As far as the idea of the indirect approach as cru-
cial is concerned, in the Nine Years’ War and the Wars of the Spanish and
Austrian Successions, the British engaged the main French field army.
Insofar as there was a distinctive a pproach in British s trategy, it related
to the role of naval power in defensive and offensive capability, ranging,
in the latter case, from commerce raiding to blockade, lift, and am phibi-
ous operations. Britain’s island identity ensured distinctive naval tasks
as well as accentuated responsibilities.
To a consider able extent, this w as an aspect of the joint operational
capability that was a key feature of t he British military experience going
back to medieval roots. This capability had long attracted comme ntators,
for example Thomas More Molyneux in his Conjunct Expeditions; or Expe-
ditions that have been carried on jointly by the Fleet and Army (1759) and
C.E. Callwell’s Military Operati ons and Maritime Preponderance: Their Rela-
tions and Interdependence (1905). Looking back on the war with Germany,
a Times editorial of 7 March 1945 wrote of
the outstanding lesson of the past five years: that in spite of the natural tend-
ency of accomplished specialists to self-reliance and se lf-sufficiency, each of
the three services exercises its peculiar powers with the most decisive effects
upon the enemy only when the efforts of all three are intimately coordinated
by men who have learnt to plan and execute a strategy embracing land, sea,
and air, which has been conceived as an indivisible whole.
170 A Military History of Britain
Indeed, as an instance of air-sea cooperation in 1943, Admiral Sir
Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, noted,
At the moment we are doing all we can to produce super long-range aircraft
so that we can cover the whole of the Atlantic from one side to the other, as
there is no question but that if you can put aircraft over the U-boats during
the day, it prevents them getting into position for their night attacks. I am
hoping very much that we shall be able to blast them out of their operational
bases in the Bay of Biscay [in France] by air attack.
2
Alongside the emphas is on j ointness, came co mpetition between the
services, wh ich indeed remains the case today. In 1936, when he resigned
the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Archibald Montgomery-
Massingberd wrote,
I feel that the biggest battle that I have had to fight in the last three years is
against the idea that on account of the arrival of air forces as a new arm, the
Low Countries are of little value to us and that, therefore, we need not main-
tain a military force to assist in holding them...the elimination of any arm y
commitment on the [European] Continent sounds such a comf ortable and
cheap policy...especially among st the air mad...If there are any lessons to
be drawn from the present war in Abyssinia [Italian conquest of Ethiopia],
it seems to be that even against savages with no air force and no anti-
aircraft weapons of any valu e, a strong airforce is unable to bring about an
early decision.
Indeed, he claimed that a war on the Continent would still be decided on
land.
3
Domestically, the crucial politico-cultural context from the late-
seventeenth century was of a military that was clearly and consistently
subordinated to a representational political system and the rule of law.
The ability of the military to support government was an aspect of poli-
tics, but usually an implicit one, and a ‘‘hidden hand’’ held very much
in reserve. Partly as a re sult, Britain has had a more benign military his-
tory than most countries. There have been defeats and setbacks as w ell
as victories in war outside the country, but, within it, there have been rel-
atively few occasions in which the military has been expected to act
against compatriots. This is crucial to the country’s military history and
also to the public perception of the m ilitary, particularly over the last
150 years. This perception is very different in Ireland and in other former
colonies where the experience of British rule is, at best, controversial, but
the extent to which colonial methods were not applied in Britain was
important to its history and helped make it very different to those of
France and Spain.
Success in war was part of the experience of national identity and the
recovered memory of this was important to the way in which this identity
was expressed and disseminated. The arts were important to this process.
Conclusion 171
Thus, Benjamin West (1738–1820), an American Loyalist who was Histori-
cal Painter to George III from 1772, exh ibited The Battle of Boyne and the
Destruction of the Battle of La Hogue in 1780. Produced in a period of nation-
al challenge and defeat during the War o f American Indepen dence, this
depiction of crucial victories in 1690 and 1692 greatly increased West’s
popularity. His Edward III Crossing the Somme (1788) wa s par t of a series
on fourteenth-century victories. Next century, parliamentarians were
reminded that liberty h ad had to b e d efended: Daniel Maclise received
£7,000 for painting Wellington and Blu
¨
cher at Waterloo (1861) and The Death
of Nelson (1864) for Parliament. His oeuvre, for example Alfred the Great in
the Tent of Guthruyn (1852), reflected the demand for an exemplary nation-
al history on c anvas, especially a history of monarchs and war. Alfred
shared with Arthur the happy role of providing distinguished ancestry
for notions of valiant liberty, and in 1873 the carving of a white horse in
a hillside near Westbur y that was held to commemorate Alfred’s victory
over the Danes at Ethandune in 878 was restored. Novels made similar
points. Charles Kingsley (1819–1875), a clergyman who was Regius Pro-
fessor of Modern History at Cambridge from 1860 to 1869 , w rote a num-
ber of histo rical novels glorifying heroes from the past, including
Westward Ho! (1855), an account of the Elizabethan struggle with
Philip II of Spain, and Hereward the Wake (1866) about resistance to the
Norman Conquest. The historical accounts that the war correspondent
George Alfred Henty (1832–1902) provided in his popular adventure sto-
ries for boys continued to enjoy substantial sales until after World War
Two, and were read by the author as a schoolboy. His novels included
Under Drake’s Flag (1883), With Clive in India: or the Beginni ngs of an Empire
(1884), St. George for England: A Tale of Cressy [Cre
´
cy] and Poitiers (1885),
With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent (1887), and Held Fast for
England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1892): all accounts of past victories.
A.E.W. Mason’s novel TheFourFeathers(1902) presented imperial
endeavor in Sudan as a definition of manliness and heroism.
The cultural location of British military activity was greatly challenged
by the presentation of World War One from the 1930s, and, more, per sist-
ently, the 1960s. Then, the antiwar beliefs of the 1930s were revived in a
potent context that owed much to the culture of the 1960s, t he end of
national service, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the impact of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Antiwa r culture became more
insistent and two dimensional. This focused on World War One. The lost
generation and the futility of the war are myths so deeply imbedded in
popular conscious ness that they have become irrefutable facts, as well as
folk memory passed down through families, and any attempt to disabuse
believers is treated with hostility. Belief in the wrongness of killing has
made it difficult to understand the values o f the combatants.
4
In many
respects, this response to World War One continues to mold the m ore
172 A Military History of Britain
general perception of war held by a so ciety that is singularly lacki ng in
bellicosity. This is linked to the need to adopt a moralistic attitude to for-
eign military commitments in ordertoseektowinsupportforthem,a
marked characteristic of the politics of the 1990s and 2000s. If t his pro-
vides an important element of contemporary strategic culture, it is far
from clear how this situation may change in the future. The implications
of terrorism, growi ng European Union direction, and resource crises, on
military ac tivity are all unclear, and underline t he need when looking at
the past, present, a nd future to avoid the pitfalls of clear-cut accounts of
change and of determinism.
Conclusion 173
Notes
Chapter 1
1. R.P. Abets, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship, and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England
(London, 1998).
2. R.A. Brown, English Medieval Castles (London, 1954); N.J.G. Pounds, The
Medieval Castle in England and Wales: A Social and Political History (Cambridge,
1990); C. Coulson, ‘‘Cultural Realities and Reappraisals in En glish Castle-study,’’
Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), pp. 171–207; R. Higham and P. Barker, Timber
Castles, 2nd ed. (Exeter, 2004).
3. D.S. Bachrach, ‘‘The Military Administration of England: The Royal Artillery
1216–1272,’’ Journal of Military History, 68 (2004), pp. 1083–1104.
4. A. Ayton and P. Preston (eds.), The Battle of Cre
´
cy (Woodbridge, 2005).
5. A. Curry, The Hundred Years War (Basingstoke, 1993).
6. M. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages. The English Experience
(New Haven, 1996), pp. 260–1.
7. O. Creighton and R. Higham, Medieval Town Walls: An Archaeology and Social
History of Urban Defence (Stroud, 2005).
8. With a focus on 1387–1388, A.R. Bell, War and the Soldier in the Fourteenth Cen-
tury (Woodbridge, 2004).
9. R. Higham, ‘‘Public and Private Defence in the Medieval South West: Town,
Castle and Fort,’’ in Higham (ed.), Security and Defence in South-West England before
1800 (Exeter, 1987), pp. 40–42.
10. J. Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1981); A Goodman, The Wars of
the Roses: Military Activity a nd English Society, 1452–1497 (London, 1981); A.W.
Boardman, TheBattleofTowton(Stroud, 1994) and The Medieval Soldier: The Men
Who Fought the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1998); P.A. Haigh, The Military Campaigns
of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1995) and The Battle of Wakefield (Stroud, 1996); A.J.
Pollard, The Wars of the Roses (Basingstoke, 1998).
11. N. Barr, Flodden 1515 (Stroud, 2001).
12. M. Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Edinburgh, 2000).
13. C.G. Cruickshank, Army Royal: Henry VIII’s Invasion of France, 1513 (Oxford,
1969); C.S.L. Davies, ‘‘Provisions for Armies, 1509–60: A Study in the Effectiveness
of Early Tudor Government,’’ Economic History Review, 17 (1964–1965), pp. 234–48;
S.J. Gunn, ‘‘The Duke of Suffolk’s March on Paris in 1523,’’ English Historical
Review, 101 (1986), pp. 596–634; M.C. Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642 (London,
2001).
14. G.J. Miller, Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 1485–1547 (Charlottesville,
1980).
15. H.A. Lloyd, The Rouen Campaign, 1590–1592: Politics, Warfare and the Early-
Modern Sta te (Oxford, 1973); R.B. Wernham, After the Ar mada: Eliza bethan England
and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588–1595 (Oxford, 1984) and The Return of the
Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War Against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford,
1994).
16. C. Martin and G. Parker, The Spanish Armada (London, 1988).
17. C. Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish Wars (London, 1950); J. McGurk, Elizabethan Con-
quest of Ireland (1997); C. Brady and J. Ohlmeyer (eds.), British Interventions in Early
Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2005).
18. A.J. King (ed.), Muster Books for North and East Hertfordshire 1580–1605 (Hert-
ford, 1996); G. Phillips, ‘‘Longbow and Hackbutt. Weapons Technology and Tech-
nology Transfer in Early Modern England,’’ Technology and Culture, 40 (1999),
pp. 576–93.
19. H. Morgan (ed.), The Battle of Kinsale (Bray, 2004).
20. A. Grosjean, An Unofficial Alliance: Scotland and Sweden, 1569–1654 (L eiden,
2003).
21. M.C. Fissel, The Bis hops’ Wars: Charles I’s Campaigns Against Scotland, 1638–
1640 (Cambridge, 1994).
22. J. Morrill, Revolt in the Provinces: The People of England and the Tragedies of War
1630–1648, 2nd ed. (Harlow, 1999).
23. M. Wanklyn and F. Jones, A Military History of the English Civil War (London,
2005), pp. 92–94.
24. A. Marsha ll, Oliver Cromwell-Soldier: The Military Life of a Revolutionary at
War (London, 2004).
25. I. Gentles, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653
(Oxford, 1992).
26. J.R. Jones, The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1996).
27. B . Capp, Cromwell’s Navy, the Fleet and the English Revolution, 1648–1660
(Oxford, 1989).
28. R. Hutton, The British Republic 1648–1660, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, 2000).
29. L.G. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies: The Anti-army Ideology in Seventeenth-
century England (Baltimore, 1984); P. Seaward, The Restora tion 1660–1688 (Basing-
stoke, 1991).
30. J. Childs, The Army of Charles II (London, 1976).
31. J. Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution (Manch ester, 1980);
E. Cruickshanks, The Glorious Revolution (Basingstoke, 1999).
Chapter 2
1. Jenkinson to Amherst, 24 Oct. 1780, NA. WO. 34/127 fol. 155.
2. P. Lenihan, 1690. Battle of the Boyne (Stroud, 2003).
3. J. Childs, The British Army of William III, 1689–1702 (Manchester, 1987).
4. J.B. Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Study o f the
English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1702–1712 (New York, 1987).
5. J.R. Jones, Marlborough (Cambridge, 1993), p. 183.
6. Richards Diary, BL. Stowe papers vol. 467 fols. 21–23.
176 Notes
7. J.A. Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795
(Oxford, 1981).
8. A. G uy, Economy and Discipline: Ownership and Administration in the British
Army, 1714–63 (Manchester, 1985).
9. Richmond to Grey, 27 Ap. 1782, Durham, University Department of Palaeog-
raphy, papers of 1st Earl Grey, no. 61.
10. R. Harding, Amphibious Warfare in the Eighteenth Century: The British Expedi-
tion to the West Indies, 1740–1742 (Woodbridge, 1991).
11. A.W. M assie, ‘‘Great Britain and the Defence of the Low Countries, 1744–
1748,’’ Ph.D. (London, 1988).
12. C. Duffy, The ’45 (London, 2003).
13. Stewart to John, 2nd Ear l of Stair, 10 Sept. 1741, New Haven, Connecticut,
Beinecke Library, Osborn Shelves, Stair Letters, no. 70.
14. C.M. Hand, The Siege of Fort Beause
´
jour, 1755 (Fredericton, 2004).
15. Con way to Duke of Devonshire, 7 Oct. 1756, Derby Library, Catton Collec-
tion, WH 3450.
16. M. Ward, Breaking the Backcountry. The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Penn-
sylvania, 1754–1765 (Pittsburgh, 2003).
17. Journal, possibly by Henry Fletcher, Providence, Rhode Island, John Carter
Brown Library, Codex Eng. 41.
18. P. Mackesy, The Coward of Minden: The Affair of Lord George Sackville (London,
1979).
19. S. Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755–1763
(Cambridge, 2002).
20. C. Wilkinson, The British Navy and the State in the Eighteenth Century (Wood-
bridge, 2004).
21. Bull to General Amherst, 15 Ap. 1761, NA. CO. 5/61 fol. 277.
22. M. McConnell, Army and Empire. British Soldiers on the American Frontier,
1758–1775 (Lincoln, 2004).
23. G. Cornwallis-West, The Life and Letters of Admiral Cornwallis (London, 1927),
pp. 50–51.
24. N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, I, 660–
1649 (London, 1997), pp. 430–34.
Chapter 3
1. George to Viscount Melville, 12 July 1804, BL. Add. 40100 fol. 319.
2. Oliver to John Parsons, 30 Dec. 1789, Gloucester, County Record Office D214
F1/93.
3. J. Gwyn, Frigates and Foremasts: The North American Squadron in Nova Scotia
Waters, 1745–1815 (Vancouver, 2003).
4. J.D. Gra inger, The Battle of Yorktown, 1781. A Reassessment (Woodbridge,
2005).
5. S.R. Taaffe, The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777–1778 (Lawrence, 2003).
6. G.J. Bryant, ‘‘Asymmetric Warfare: The British Experience in Eighteenth-
Century India,’’ Journal of Military History, 68 (2004), p. 469.
Notes
177
7. Fawcett to George, 22 Feb. 1786, A. Aspinall (ed.), The Later Correspondence of
George III, 1783–1810, 5 vols. (Cambridge, 1962–1970) I, 211.
8. Memorandum, BL. Add. 33120 fol. 162.
9. Pelham to Henry Addington, First Lord of the Treasury, 2 3 Sept. 18 01, BL.
Add. 33120 fol. 59.
10. A. Burne, The Noble Duke of York (1949); R. Glover, Peninsular Preparation: The
Reform of the British Army, 1795–1809 (Cambridge, 1963); R.H. Thoumine, Scientific
Soldiers: A Life of General Le Marchant, 1766–1812 (London, 1968); J.L. Pimlott, ‘‘The
Administration of the British Army, 1783–1793,’’ Ph.D. (Leicester, 1975); D. Gates,
The British Light Infantry Arm c. 1790–1815: Its Creation, Training and Operational Role
(London, 198 7); K. Bartlett, ‘‘The Development of the Brit ish Army during the
Wars with France, 1793–1815,’’ Ph.D. (Durham, 1998).
11. J. Cookson, The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815 (Cambridge, 1997).
12. R .G. Glov er, Britain at Bay: Defence Against Bonaparte, 1803–14 (London,
1973).
13. Dundas, memorandum, Oct. 1796, BL. Add. 59280 fols. 189-90.
14. R. Hopton, The Battle of Maida 1806: Fifteen Minutes of Glory (Barnsley, 2002).
15. C. Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic War, 1803–1815 (Manchester, 1992);
D. Gates, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War (London, 1986); R. Muir,
Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815 (New Haven, 1996).
16. P. Griffith (ed.), Wellington Commander (Chichester, 1985); R. Muir, ‘‘So Bril-
liant a Victory’’: Wellington at Salamanca (New Haven, 2001).
17. BL. 56088 fol. 5.
18. Gordon to General Craig, 7 May 1808, BL. Add. 49512 fol. 17.
19. Atlas of Portsmouth (Portsmouth, 1975), section 3/6(d).
20. L. Brockliss, J. Cardwell, and M. Moss, William Beatty, Naval Medicine and the
Battle of Trafalgar (Oxford, 2005).
21. Hely-Hutchinson memorandum, 22 Nov. 1806, BL. Add. 59282 fols. 76–81.
22. R.G.S. Cooper, The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India: The
Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy (Cambridge, 2003).
23. R.N. Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1793–1815
(New Haven, 1979).
24. Silhouette to Amelot, French foreign minister, 7 September 1741, NA. SP.
107/49.
25. C.J. Bartlett and G.A. Smith, ‘‘A ‘Species of Mil ito-Nautico-Guerilla-
Plundering Warfare’. Admiral Alexander Cochrane’s Naval Campaign against
the United States, 18 14–1815,’’ in J. Flavell and S. C onway (eds.), Britain and
America Go to War. The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754–1815
(Gainesville, 2004), pp. 187–90.
26. P. Taylo r, Indentured to Liberty: Peasant Life and the Hessian Military State,
1688–1815 (Ithaca, 1994).
27. I. Gordon, Soldier of the Raj (Barnsley, 2001), pp. 92–93.
Chapter 4
1. K. Bourne, Palmerston: The Early Years, 1784–1841 (London, 1982).
178 Notes
2. S.H. Myerly, British Military Spectacle from the Napoleonic Wars through the Cri-
mea (Cambridge, MA, 1996).
3. J. Beckett, ‘‘The Nottingham Reform Bill Ri ots of 1831,’’ in C. Jones,
P.Salmon,andR.W.Davis(eds.),Partisan Politics, Principle and Reformation in
Parliament and the Constituencies, 1689–1880 (Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 121–9.
4. P. Hofschro
¨
er, Wellington’s Smallest Victory: The Duke, the Model Maker, and the
Secret of Waterloo (London, 2004).
5. H. Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy: The Reform of the British Army 1815–1854
(Manchester, 1984).
6. P. Burroughs, ‘‘An Unreformed Army? 1815–1868,’’ in D. Chandler and
I. Beckett (eds.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (Oxford, 1994),
p. 164.
7. J.F. McMahon, ‘‘The British Army: Its Role in Counter-Insurgency in the
Black War in Van Diemen’s Land,’’ Tasmanian His torical S tudies, 5 (1995–1996),
pp. 56–63.
8. D.M. Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State
in India, 1819–1835 (London, 1995).
9. M. Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society,
1787–1834 (Urbana, 1982); E.V. d’Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Deme-
rara Slave Rebellion of 1823 (New York, 1994).
10. J.A. N orris, The First Afghan War, 1838–42 (Cambridge, 1967); L. Dupree,
‘‘The Retreat of the British Army from Kabul to Jalalabad in 1842: History and
Folklore,’’ Journal of the Folklore Institute, 6 (1967), pp. 25–45; T. H eathcote , The
Afghan Wars, 1839–1919 (London, 1980).
11. B.S. Nijjar, Anglo-Sikh Wars, 1845–1849 (New Delhi, 1976).
12. Pierce’s journal, 27 January 1846, BL. IO. MSS. Eur. A 108 fol. 14.
13. Letter by an unidentified officer of Bengal 30th Native Infantry, 26 January
1849, BL. IO. MSS. Eur. C 605 fols. 1–2.
14. BL. Add. 54483 fol. 22.
15. A.D. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy, 1853–56 (Manches-
ter, 1990).
16. H. and A. Gernsheim (eds. ), Roger Fenton, Photographer of the Crimean War:
His Photographs and his Letters from the Crimea (London, 1954); N. Bentley (ed.), Rus-
sell’s Despatches from the Crimea, 1854–1856 (London, 1966).
17. J. Sweetman, War and Administration: The Significance of the Crimean War for
the British Army (Edinburgh, 1984); O. Anderson, A Liberal State at War: English
Politics and Economics during the Crimean War (London, 1967).
18. J.A.B. Palmer, The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857 (Cambridge, 1966);
S.N. Sen, Eighteen Fifty-Seven (New Delhi, 1957); R. Mukherjee, ‘‘‘Satan Let Loose
upon Earth’: T he Kanpur Massacres in Indi a in the Revolt of 1857,’’ Past and
Present, 128 (1990), pp. 92–116; B. English, ‘‘Debate: The Kanpur Massacres in India
in the Revolt of 1857,’’ Past and Present, 142 (1994), pp. 169–89.
19. J. Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Con-
flict (London, 1988).
20. Lister to Secretary to Governor of Bengal, 2 Feb. 1850, BL. Add. 49016 fol. 88.
21. E.K. Senior, Redcoats and Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada, 1837–38
(Stittsville, Ontario, 1985).
Notes
179