Black J. A Military History of Britain From 1775 to the Present
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Part I: Imperial Parent, 1775
CHAPTER 1
Or igins
There is no one way to discuss the military history of Britain. As with oth-
er states, there are the contrasts that derive from deciding whether to
address primarily the history of state, or country, or people. There is also
the related tension between the long-term ‘‘structural’’ factors of environ-
ment and the medium- or short-term emphasis on the role of conjunctures
in the shaping of g oals and p riorities. In the case of Britain, the former
leads to an emphasis on island status and maritime destiny, a navalist
interpretation that generally sees Britain as able, thanks to naval strength,
to turn its back to Continental Europe, a nd as looking out instead across
the oceans. This can then lead to discussion of the comparatively minor
role o f land warfare in British military hist ory and the relatively modest
part of related social-political practices, especially conscription. In place
of a stress on structural factors, however, an emphasis on the role of con-
junctures will lead to an underlining of the e xtent to which Britain has
been linked politically to the Continent, and the consequences that had
for military tasking. This reflects an important aspect of military history
as a whole, namely, the extent to which developments are driven by tasks
and their resultant consequences for priorities in military procurement,
structure, and doctrine.
It is easiest to write military history in terms of environmental deter-
minism. That, however, is a misleading approach because it underplays
the role of politics in shaping the response to environmental and other fac-
tors; although politics itself was affected by both conflict and the distribu-
tion of force within society. One key feature in the political history of the
country was the failure, until the campaigns of Oliver Cromwell in
1648–1651, of successive attempts to unite Britain (modern England,
Wales, and Scotland), and indeed the British Isles (Britain and Ireland).
Prior to the arrival of the Romans, Britain was occupied by a number of
independent tribes. Little is known of their history, but successive changes
in material culture affected the ability to fight. For example, in the Meso-
lithic pe riod (c. 8,300
B.C.toc.6,000B.C. ), the number of hunter-gatherers
increased. They were equipped with microlithic flints, mounted in wood
or bo ne hafts, which provided effective tools for use, for example, as
knives or as arrowheads. From c. 2,300
B.C., in the Bronze Age, bronze
supplemented not only copper but also hard stone and flint. It has been
suggested that it was a more bellicose age. There is increased evidence
of fortifications, in the shape of hill forts, and weapons , and it has been
argued that society was dominated by warriors. From c. 700
B.C., the
smelting and forging of iron arrived. Iron mad e be tter weapons, particu-
larly when carbon was added to make steel. Whatever the level of conflict,
there was no one state nor federation of states.
Britain wa s the sole island attacked by Rome outside the fa r le ss tidal
waters of the Me diterranean, and Julius Caesar’s invasions in 55 and
54
B.C. therefore were bold st eps. He claimed that they were necessary to
end support for resistance to his conquest of Gaul (France). However, it
was largely personal prestige and the dictates of politics in Rome that
led to his expeditions, as they also did for the following expedition, th at
of the Emperor Claudius in
A.D. 43. Caesar neede d to show that the inva-
sions were necessary for him to remain in control of the army, and he also
wished to win glory.
In 55
B.C., Caesar did not move from his precarious bridgehead in Kent.
The Romans were victorious in hard fighting, but the damage done to
their ships by equinoctial gales and the scale of the resistan ce led Caesar
to come to terms with the local tribes. The following year, however, in a
reminder of the apparently inexorable persistence of a major state, Caesar
led a larger invasion force. Landing in Kent, Caesar won a victory near
Canterbury, defeating the tribal l eader, Cassivellaunus, and crossed the
Thames, seizing his capital, Wheathampstead. A settlement was then
reached in which hostage s and tribute were promised by the local rulers,
before Caesar withdrew. The Romans had benefited from their oppo-
nents’ naval weakness, which meant that they could not contest the pas-
sage of the English Channel, and from their own fighting advantage once
landed. The disciplined Roman infantry, with its body armor, javelins,
and short swords, w as more effective than that of the British, who had
little body armor and lacked effective missile power. British chariots were
vulnerable to Roman archers and their hill forts t o siegecraft. Further-
more, as a demonstration of the problems posed by universal military
service when in conflict with regulars , the British farmer-soldiers could
not afford to be soldiers all the time, and their farming also made them
vulnerable to Roman devastation.
Due to rebellion in Gaul, civil war, and the higher priority of the Ger-
man frontier, Caesar’s expedition was not followed up until 43
A.D.when
about 40,000 troops invaded. After an uno pposed landi ng, probably in
Kent, the Romans defeated a confederation of forces in three battles, two
of which were c aused by contested crossings of the rivers Medway and
Thames. Claudius then arrived, with the first elephants seen in Britain,
4 A Military History of Britain
and received the surrender of Colches ter. After he deci ded to make
Britannia a Roman province, southern England was rapidly overrun. Pre-
figuring British imperialism in India, Malaya, and Africa in the nineteenth
century, some rulers accepted client status, but there was also much fight-
ing, with hill forts such as Maiden Castle outside modern Dorchester
being stormed. This fortress, which belonged to the tribe of the Duro-
triges, survives as a striking manifestation of the t ask the R omans faced.
The serried banks of the hill fort were calculated to break up an attacking
charge. The innermost bank would have carried a palisade.
Caratacus, the leader of the Catuvellauni tribe, continued resistance
from Wales, but was defeated in 50–51. In 60, a strong rebellion was
launched when the Iceni tribe of East Anglia, enraged by vicious and
corrupt Roman mismanagement and expropriation, and led by Queen
Boudica, rebelled, storming the major Roman settlements: Colchester,
London, and St. Albans, and slaughtering their inhabitants with great cru-
elty. However, as with the Indian Mutiny against English rule in 1857,
there was no united response, in large part because there wa s no b asis
for political unity. For example, Cogidubnu s, the client ruler of the Atre-
bates of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, remained loyal to the Romans.
The lack of a united response provided the key political co ntext for deci-
sive action by the regular forces, who moved rapidly, defeating Boudica’s
army. She died, probably by suicide. The Iceni and their allies were then
‘‘pacified’’ with typical Roman brutality. The pace of R oman advance
resumed in 71 with the subjugation of the Brigantes of northern England
(71–73/74) and of Wales (73/74–76).
However, Highland Scotland was never conquered. Agricola, Roman
Governor from 77 to 83, completed the conquest of Wales and northern
England, and invaded Scotland, winning a notable victory at Mons
Graupius, but only the Scottish lowlands were conquered. As a reminder
of the difficulty of judging the environmental factor, in explaining devel-
opmentsitispossibletostressthedifficultyofthehighlandterrainin
the Roman failure, but also the quality of the def ense. Although Agricola
considered its conquest, Ireland was not attacked by the Romans, and ,
indeed, it was probably a task beyond Roman capacity.
Thereafter, the main theme in the military history of Britain under
the Romans was defensive. The competing demands of the vulner able
Danube frontier meant a reduction in the considerable military effort
devoted to Britain. By the early yea rs of the second century, the Romans
had abandoned their occupation of southern and central Scotland.
Instead, they constructed Hadrian’s Wall, a 70-mile long fortified stone
wall (with supporting forts such as Housesteads), built from about 122
by the Emperor Hadrian across Bri tain at its narrowest from Tyne to Sol-
way. Designed to mark a frontier, this was not the end of Roman attempts
to move north, but none proved more than short-term, and the wall came
Origins 5
to have a defensive function, stopping the Picts from raiding south.
Hadrian’s successor, Antonious Pius, had ordered a fresh advance north.
Eastern Scotland was occupied as far north as the river Tay, and a wall
of turf on a stone base was built from the Firth of Forth to the Clyde in
about 140. That line was held until about 163 or later, when Hadrian’s
Wall again became the frontier. The Emperor Septimus Severus advanced
into Scotland in 209–210, but, thereafter the frontier stabilized on the
Tyne-Solway line.
Similarly, the ten forts of the Saxon Shore built from the 270s onward
from Brancaster, Norfolk to Portchester, Hampshire, were i ntended to
limit attacks on the east and south coasts of England by seaborne raiders
from Germany. These forts, most o f which had bastion towers, were
designed to protect harbors and estuaries. The construction of town
defenses from the third century also indicated an attitude of growing
defensiveness in the face of outsid e attack. Ch allenges from outside
inclu ded Picts from Scotland, Scots from Ireland, and Sax ons from north
Germany. Their attacks b ecame serious in the 350s, while a successful
invasion in 367 led to widespread devastation. Some additions to Britain’s
defenses followed on the restoration of order.
Roman Britain was also weakened by the repeated inability of the
Roman Emp ire to devise a consistently accepted system of imperia l suc-
cession, and the willingness of military units to support their
commanders in bids for power, although such bids were not continual.
In the 400s, when Gaul was invaded by ‘‘barbarians,’’ a cutoff Britain
backed its own emperor, Constantine III, who took a significant part of
the military forces to Gaul. They did not return. The disillusioned
Romano-Britons expelled his administrators, and appealed to the true
emperor, Honorius, for the restoration of legitimate rule, but he, hard-
pressed in Italy, by Alaric, the Visigothic leader, who cap tured Rome in
410, could do no more th an tell them to look to their own defense. This,
the formal end of imperial government in 409, was the close of the Roman
Empire in Britain.
The invaders who overthrew Roman Britain in the fifth and sixth centu-
ries, particularly the Angles and Saxons, conquered England (though not
Wales): England was divided into a number of kingdoms, particularly, but
not only, eventual ly the Anglian kingdoms of Northumbria (north of Eng-
land), and Mercia (Midlands), and the Saxon kingdom of Wessex (western
England). The scarcity of sources makes the nature of the conquest uncer-
tain. As elsewhere in Western Europe, ‘‘barbarian’’ mercenaries were ini-
tially hired , and probably came to dem and pow er for themselve s,
although it is unclear how far there were large-scale migrations into Eng-
land. The same is true of the movement of Scots from Ireland into Pict-
dominated Scotland.
6 A Military History of Britain
In any event, late- and post-Roman society in England and Wales was
increasingly militarized and able to mount long-lasting resistance. In
about 500, the resistance achieved a major victory, possibly under a war-
rior called Artorius (Arthur) at Mons Badonicus. However, the economy
of Roman Britain collapsed after the formal end of imperial government,
it was no longer possible to call for assistance from the Continent, and
post-Roman Britain was divided into warring kingdoms. Most of lowland
England had been conquered by the ‘‘b arbarians’’ by 600. Furthermore,
links between the surviving British communities were broken. Strath-
clyde, Wales, and Dumnonia (Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset) were
thus separated, at least by land: as a result of the Saxon victory at Dyrham
(c. 577), Gloucestershire was taken, while a victory by the Northumbrians
near Chester in 615 led to the conquest of Cheshire. Furthermore, the Brit-
ish k ingdoms of Elmet, centered on Leeds, and Rheged, around the Sol-
way estuary, were absorbed by Northumbria in the late sixth and seventh
centuries, Dorset by Wessex in the same period, and Herefordshire by the
Magonsaete (who were brought under the control of Mercia) in the mid-
seventh century. Devon wa s absorbed by Wessex in the late seventh and
eighth centuries. However, Cornwall was only conquered by Wessex in
838, and the kingdoms in Wales w ere not conquered, although pressure
from the English shaped the extent of Wales. Offa, king of Mercia, in about
784–796, created a ditched rampart, known as Offa’s Dyke, that was at
once a boundary and a defensive line. The Welsh border on its full length
was a composite and Offa’s Dyke wa s only the c entral portion, along the
Powys border.
Expansion helped to tip the balance between the Anglo-Saxon king-
doms, leading to a fall in the importance of the once leading kingdoms
of Kent and East Anglia. Northumbria became the most powerful state
for much of the seventh century, but defeat by Mercia (678 ) and the Picts
of modern Scotland (685) ended its hegemony, and Mercia became the
leading kingdom, until, in turn, defeated by Egbert of Wessex at Ellendum
(near Wroughton) in 825. In Scotland, it is unclear how far violence was
involved in the development of the kingdom of Alba in the ninth century,
but it represented a fusion of Scots and Picts.
The Vikings from Scandinavia launched a wave of attacks on Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales as well as Anglo-Saxon England from the late eighth
century, overturning the existing order across m ost of the British Isles,
but without creating a unitary Viking state, altho ugh kingdoms emerged
based on York, Dublin, and the East Midlands. From the 830s, Viking
pressure increased markedly. East Anglia was overrun in 865, Yorkshire
in 866–867, and Mercia in 874. Having been nearly crushed in 871, Alfred,
king of Wessex, stopped the Viking conquest of southern England in 878,
defeating them at Eding ton, and his victorious success ors, Edward the
Origins 7
Elder (r. 899–924) and Athelstan (r. 924–939), were able, as a result of cam-
paigns in the early tenth century, particularly victory over the Scots,
Strathclyde Britons, and Norse from Ireland at Brunanburh (937), eventu-
ally to claim kingship of the English and a tentative overlordship of Brit-
ain. The system of military recruitment and o rganization devised by
Alfred, including that of burhs (fortified positions) and the creation of a
large navy, rested on public authority, and all freemen w ere in theory
obliged to serve in the fyrd or army; although the role of lords, their reti-
nues, and landholding was also important, and there was also a tradition,
from the 990s onward, of using taxation to pay for trained mercenaries in
royal service. The debate about the ‘‘nation in arms’’ as opposed to a high
status warrio r army is long and complex. The core of armies raised on a
shire base probably came from the landholding class.
1
As a comparable
process, the kingdom based i n central a nd souther n Scotland expanded,
overrunning the Britons of Strathclyde in the early tenth century and the
Angles of Lothian later that century, the latter a success cemented by vic-
tory at Carham in 1018.
Fresh invasions of England in the eleventh century, first by the Danes,
under Sweyn and his son, Cnut, who ruled England from 1016 to 1035,
and then , in 1066, by the Normans, led, however, twice to the overthrow
of the Old English m onarchy and, instead, in each occasion, to England
being joined to a wider realm. The Norman victory at Hastings on 14 Octo-
ber 1066 was crucial to the fate of England. It arose as a result of a conflict
over the succession to the childless Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066).
His relative William, Duke of Normandy, competed with Edward’s
brother-in-law, Earl Harold of Wessex, while Harald Hardrada, king of
Norway also advanced a claim. In what became a year of three kings (like
1483 and 1936), Harold became king with the support of the bulk of the
English aristocracy and having beendesignatedbyEdward.However,
William and Harald both prepared to invade. In response to William’s
preparations, Harold deployed his forces on the south coast, but William
did not invade first. Instead, Harald did so, close to York, defeating the
local forces on 20 September at Fulford Gate. Harold then rapidly
marched north, surprising, de feating, and killing Harald at Stamford
Bridge on 24 September.
Four days later, however, William landed o n the south coast. Harold
rapidly m arched south and the two clashed at Hastings. This was a
hard-fought battle between two effective systems, and its outcome was
far from certain. Eventually, the outnumbered English defensive shield-
wall, well deployed on a ridge, was disrupted by attacks designed to
exploit real or feigned retreats by the Normans, and, at last, the English
position was broken. The Normans had crucial adva ntages in archers
and cavalry. Harold’s death was key both in helping what became the
final N orman assault and in ensuring the outcome of the battle. Without
8 A Military History of Britain
clear leadership, England fell, as William rapidly exploited his victory
and seized the throne, becoming William I, and going down in history as
William the Conqueror. He then rapidly and brutally suppressed native
risings in 1067–1069, 1075, and 1080, particularly with a brutal ‘‘harrying’’
of the north in 1069–1070. As so often in British military history, control of
domestic opposition was a key task.
The Normans introduced a system, some elements of which had Old
English precedents, spanning landowning, m ilitary service, and politics
—feudalism, with land granted to v assals in return to military servi ce.
Norman lords were obliged to provide a number of knights (as likely to
fight on foot as on horseback) for service roughly proportionate to the size
of the estate, an obligation that was usually discharged by enfeoffing the
required number with lands of their own in return for service. However,
the familia Regis, the king’s own military household, was a permanent
and professional military body that was therefore more important than
the feudal host. The obligation of all freemen to provide military service
continued, but it was of only limited importance, essentially for local
defense, as in the Battle of the Standard, when a Scottish invasion of
northern England was defeated in 1138. Nevertheless, the tradition of
rural and urban militias, important in later centuries, thus had early ori-
gins. In 1181, Henry II underlined the general responsibility for military
duty by specifying military equ ipme nt, which was to reflect social rank.
Thi s, however, could not serve as the ba sis for projecting power a broad,
which was a key requirement of the kings as they struggled to maintain
their territorial interests in France.
The new order in England was also entrenched with the constructi on of
numerous castles, though the principle of private defended residences is
known from both documentary and archaeological evidence in the late
Saxon period, some built by Norma n and French prote
´
ge
´
s of Edward the
Confessor. Castles were very different to the characteristic feature of
Anglo-Saxon fortification, the burh or fortified town. Early Norman cas-
tles in England and Wales were generally motte and bailey, earth and tim-
ber constructions, thrown up in a hurry (although still requiring many
man-days to construct) and able to give protection against local discon-
tent. Not all early Nor man castles in England and Wales , however, were
built of timber and earthwork: Exeter, London, and others had also early
stone phases. Timber-built forms were often of either mo tte and ba iley
or ringwork (enclo sure) form, both of which had a l ong currency to the
thirteenth century. Cost and the shortage of skilled masons affected the
attraction of construction in stone. Castle design, whether of timber, stone,
or both, was intended to promote a powerful symbol of the new authority
over native society, as well as of the power s of the new landholding fam-
ilies in relation to each other. William I and his successors also maintained
castles in the shire towns (as well as in London) as part of their framework
Origins 9