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

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was executed. Captain Porteous’s troops ﬁred on the crowd, causing fatal-

ities, and he was tried, sentenced to death, reprieved, but lynched. The

roleofthearmyintheSt.George’sFieldsMassacreinLondonin1768

and in the Boston Massacre of 1770 also led to bitter responses. More gen-

erally, military sup port to the civi l power did not endear the army to the

populace, and contributed to the antimilitarism of this very patriotic age,

a situation that was to continue in the ﬁrst half of the nineteenth century.

The navy played a key role in the campaign against the Jacobites in

1745–1746, joining the weather in dissuad ing the French from invading

in support of the Jacobites. The navy also covered the movement of troops

back from the Low Countries in 1745 and the supply of advancing forces

in eastern Scotland in 1746. Furthermore, two naval victories off Cape Fin-

isterre in 1747 badly hit the French navy. They demonstrated that the

French ﬂeet could no longer escort major convoys bound for French colo-

nies, and this destroyed the logic of the French imperial system. More

generally, the war showed that the British navy was an effective ﬁghting

force and administrative body, a nd this w as t rue not only in Europea n,

but, also, in transoceanic waters. In the war, transoceanic naval strength

was joined to a developing imperial military capability when warships

and New England militia in 1745 jointly ca ptured Louisbourg, the major

FrenchfortiﬁedbaseonCapeBretonIsland.Thecombinationofforces

from different areas wa s to be an important characteristic of British mili-

tary power, helping give it a range, ﬂexibility, and versatility lacking with

other militaries. Count ering disease was one goa l of this versatility, as in

1741 when Britain was at war with Spain and Colonel John Stewart wrote

from Jamaica,

if ever Brit ain strikes any considerable s troke in this part of the world, the

blow must come from the North American colonies not by bringing raw

men from...[Britain], but by sending ofﬁcers of experience and good corps

to incorporate with and discipline the men to be raised there, these troops

as the passage from thence is much sh orter might be transported directly to

any part of the Spanish West Indies and arrive there with the health and vig-

our necessary for action, whereas troops sent from home as our own experi-

ence has taught us, are by the length of the passage one half disabled with

the scurvy and the other half laid up with diseases contracted by conﬁnement

and the feeding of salt provisions.

Transoceanic naval capability was to be much in demand during the

Seven Years’ or French and Indian War, ﬁghting in which broke out in

1754 as a result of competition over the Ohio Valley. British concern that

French activity would exclude them from the interior of North Am erica

was responsible for clashes that escalated when domestic political pres-

sures obliged the government to adopt a ﬁrm attitude, and led to the

dispatch of regulars ordered to mount attacks. Fort Beause

jour, which

threatened Nova Sc otia , was captured in Ju ne 17 55,

but a force under

40 A Military History of Britain

the inexperienced General Braddock was defeated on 9 July 1755 near

Fort Duquesne by the outnumbered French and their Native allies, who

made excellent use of tree cover. T he unprepared column’s response to

the ambush was inadequate. Instead of attacking the ambushing troops,

they held their ground, thus offering excellent targets.

War was formally declared in 1756, and, over the next seven years, Brit-

ish forces were to be engaged against th e French in home waters, Ger-

many, the Mediterranean, North America,theWestIndies,WestAfrica,

and India. The war started badly, with the French driving the British from

Lake Ontario, and capturing the Mediterranean base of Minorca after a

British ﬂeet failed to press home a relief effort; while, in India, in an unre-

lated co nﬂict, the Nawab of Bengal stormed th e British base in Cal cutta.

Initial failures revealed inadequacies in the British military, for example

with the garrison of Minorca, and improvements were not always easy

to effect. Deﬁciencies threw c onsiderable light on peacetime priorities

and, in partic ular, on the extent to whic h the army was not at the cutting

edge and to which defense dependedonthenavyandnotonfortiﬁca-

tions. Henry Conway reported from Dublin in 1756,

among the places c ommonly spoke of as garrisons the greatest part are

improperly termed so, such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick etc which not being

in any state of defence are no otherwisetobeconsideredasgarrisonsthan

as they want some troops to defend any stores, trade e tc that are in them

and to keep the Papists [Catholics] in awe, so that the only places which

deserve to be thought of as garrisons to be held against an enemy are almost

reduced to Charlesfort and Duncannon Fort now repairing.

In 1757, the situation dramatically changed in eastern India with Robert

Clive’s striking victory over the far larger forces of the Nawab of Bengal at

Plassey, but there was no comparable success in North America . Instead,

poor weather and the presence of a French squadron ensured that the

planned attack on L ouisbourg, the French base on Ca pe Breton, was not

mounted, while the French successfully besieged Fort William Henry at

the head of Lake George. In Europe, an attack on the French port of

Rochefort failed due to a combination of poor intelligence, inadequate co-

operation between naval and army commanders, and indifferent and hes-

itant generalship.

In 1758, British commitments broadened out with troops sent to Ger-

many, to help Britain’s ally Frederick the Great of Prussia; while a massive

three-pronged offensive was launched against New France (Canada), tak-

ing the initiative from the French. Separate expeditions attacked Louis-

bourg, Carillon (Ticonderoga), and Fort Duquesne, in an unprecedented

effort at this distance for any world power. The advance on Carillon, of

6,400 British regulars and 9,000 American provincials, became a frontal

assault, and was a costly failure. The successful attack on Louisbourg

The Struggle for Mastery with France, 1689–1775 41

involved 13,000 troops and indicated the importance of army-navy co-

operation in the amphibious deployment of strikin g power. That on Fort

Duquesne, by an a rmy of 7,000, mostly American provincials, indicated

the value of experi ence. Braddock’s mistakes were avoid ed and the

French position was weakened when Pennsylvania authorities promised

the N ative Americans that they would not claim land west of the

Appalachians.

The consequent shift of Native support obliged the

French to give up the Ohio region. Viewed from Europe, this was still a

two-sided conﬂict, whereas on the ground, the shifting support and fears

of Native groups could be decisive.

In 1759, the British concentrated on the St. Lawrence valley where their

naval power could be used most effectively. The navy convoyed a force of

8,600 troops under James Wolfe to near Quebec. Even tually, Wolfe moved

his troops past the city, scaled the cliffs from the river, and, on 13 Septem-

ber, defeated the French outside the city. The French advanced in col-

umns, but were hit by British volley ﬁre, and then attacked with a bayonet

charge. A participant recorded,

About 9 o’clock the French army had drawn up under the walls of the town,

and advanced towards us briskly and in goo d order. We st ood to receive

them; they began their ﬁre at a distance, we reserved ours, and as they came

nearer ﬁred on them by divisions, this did exec ution and seemed to check

them a little, however they still advanced pretty quick, we increased our ﬁre

without altering our position, and, when they were within less than an hun-

dred yards, gave them a full ﬁre, ﬁxed our bayonets, and under cover of the

smoke the whole line charged.

Earlier that year, at Minden in Germany on 1 August, an Anglo-German

army defeated the French thanks to the courage and ﬁre discipline of the

British infantry which defeated cavalry and i nfantry attacks.

Also, in

what became the ‘‘year of victories,’’ the navy inﬂicted two major victorie s

on the French ﬂeet. The French lost ﬁve warships near Lagos on the Portu-

guese coast on 18–19 August. An invasion attempt on Britain that Novem-

ber was thwarted by British blockaders, but the French ﬂeet took refuge in

Quiberon Bay, counting on its shoaly waters and strong swell to deter the

British. The latter, however, launched a bold attack on 20 November. With

topsails set, despite the ferocity of the wind, which was blowing at nearly

40 knots, his ships sailed into the c onﬁned space of the bay and forced a

general action in which British seamanship and gunner y proved superior,

leading to heavy French casualties.

The war continued to bring triumphs for Britain, although its result no

longer appeared to be in the balance. In 1760, the fate of Canada was

ﬁnally settled, with the three-pronged advance converging on Montreal

where the French surrendered. This campaig n was an impressive triumph

of resources and planning, and indicated the accum ulated skill of the

42 A Military History of Britain

British army in North America.

In southern India, the French force was

decisively defeated at Wandewash; Pondicherry, the major French base,

surrendering to the British besiegers in 1761.

In 1762, the war broadened out, when Spain entered it on the side of

France. This did not end operations against the latter, and, in the West

Indies, the British captured Martinique, Grenada, St. Lucia, and

St. Vincent. The major effor t, however, was directed against Havana, the

principal Spanish base in the West Ind ies and their leading naval facility

in the New World. The siege force was badly affected by malaria and yel-

low fever, leading to a loss of valuable experience in the army, which was

to weaken the subsequent response to the American Rev olution; but the

British ﬁnally stormed the key fortiﬁcation and the city then surrendered.

The Spaniards also had to cede Florida at the subsequent peace to regain

Cuba. As with the Americans in 1898, the British also captured Manila.

Another British force played a crucial role in thwarting the Spanish inva-

sion of Britain’s ally Portugal.

These expeditions displayed the strength of the British po sition at the

close of the war. Naval superiority gave them the ability to choose where

to direct efforts and permitted the application of strength to achieve a

local superio rity at a time of cho osing a t crucial points. The French

Empire depended on the maintenance of its major bases, but, unless the

French could threaten the British at sea, these bases could be isolated

and attacked with overwhelming force. Fortiﬁcations could prolong the

defense and force the British to resort to siege, but fortiﬁcations were only

designed to last so lon g against an effective siege; indeed they were prin-

cipally designed to force attackers to resort to a siege. The effectiveness of

British sieges could be lessened by poor leadership, inadequate resources,

especially manpower, and disease. Poor leadership and inadequate

resources, never theless, were increasingly overcome as the British devel-

oped consider able and unmatched experience in amphibious operations.

The creation of overseas naval bases, providing reﬁtting and repair facili-

ties, helped considerably.

This was important to sust aining naval strength, which was a difﬁcult

task, not least as a consequence of the natural decay of what were organic

working parts. The longevity of most ships of the line was about twelve to

seventeen years, longevity deﬁned as the time between launch and the

need for at least middling repair, alt hough a complex combination of fac-

tors, beginning ﬁrst with the cutting of the timber, its sto rage, the mode of

construction, weather conditions, the service of the ship, and its care

while in reserve, determined the longevity of a ship and the amount of

repair that it was likely to need. In 1749, as a result of long war service,

including damaging operations in the Caribbea n, the battle ﬂeet in good

condition had been greatly reduced, and the dockyards could not cope

with requirements for repair and replacement. This problem was

The Struggle for Mastery with France, 1689–1775 43

overcome in the early 1750s, not least through using the private sector to

build new ships. In t he long-term improved infrastructure and better

naval construction lessened the problems of cyclical decay.

Until the

age of air power and space, ﬂeets were the most complex and costly pub-

lic artifacts of their societies.

Military success depended upon a systemic coordination: the ability to

mount amphibious operations stemmed from a degree of naval superior-

ity in home waters that both made invasion improbable and could permit

the dispatch of ﬂeets to distant waters. These ﬂeets had to ensure superi-

ority there, sufﬁcient both to cover expeditions and to provide supporting

ﬁrepower. Such an account may make the task seem both obvious and

easy, but it was neither. It was necessary to make cal culations about rela-

tive strengths in a context in which reliable information was scanty. Even

if reliable intelligence about the strength and moves of opposing naval

forces could be obtained, such intelligence could only move at the speed

of the fastest ship. Strategy was also challenged by operational uncertain-

ties, most obviously disease and weather.

More generally, both in Europe and fu rther aﬁeld, the British faced the

problems of being a maritime power using amp hibious forces against

Continental states. British o ptions were far less i n the face of powerful

opponents whose coast al strength was supported by an extensive hinter-

land, the problem facing amphibious attacks on France, as well as consid-

eration of action against Russia in 1719–1720 and 1791. This problem was

also serious during the War of American Independence. Britain was fortu-

nate during the Seven Years’ War that the attac ks on metropolitan France

were subordinated to those on the more vulnerable French Empire.

Nevertheless, despite British organizational success in lessening the del-

eterious impact of distance and the challenge o f the oce ans, the French

Emp ire was not con quered rapidly, while Louisbourg, Ticonderoga, and

Martinique only fell at the second attempt. An ability and willingness to

sustain the war was part of the reason for Briti sh success, an ability that

rested in part on the strong public ﬁnances that stemmed from Britain’s

central role in world trade, as well as from public conﬁdence in

gover nment . However, as is always the case in w arfare, systemic advan-

tages had to be translated into operational achievements.

The same was true of the conquest of Bengal which was complet ed in

1765. This was attributed by contemporary Indian histories not to British

military supe riori ty, but to the fa ctionalism and moral decline of the rul-

ing India families of the region. The British certainly beneﬁted from their

ability to win local allies, but it was also necessary to sustain forces and

to defeat opponents. Victories at Patna and Buxar in 1764 we re crucial to

British success.

There were also conﬂicts with Native forces in North America. Native

military potential was considerable given their hunter-warrior training

44 A Military History of Britain

and their not inconsiderable numbers, particularly in the South, especially

in comparison to the back country whites. The heavy losses inﬂicted on

the Tuscarora in North Carolina in 1713 owed something to colonial artil-

lery, but the army consisted of fewer than 100 whites: the support of over

700 Catawba, Cherokee, and Yamasee was crucial. Farther north, the

Cherokee resisted regular and colonial forces successfully in 1759–1760.

Governor William Bull of South Carolina reported in 1761 that Anglo-

American prisoners released by the Cherokees claimed that

their young men from their past observations express no very respectable

opinion of our manner of ﬁghting them, as, by our close order, we present a

large object to their ﬁre, and our plato ons do l ittle execution as the Indians

are thinly scattered, and concealed behind bushes or trees; though they

acknowledged our troops thereby show they are not afraid, and that our

numbers would be formidable in open ground, where they will never give

us an opportunity of engaging them.

However, a shortage of ammunition, and British scorched-earth tactics,

led the Cherokee to opt for peace. There was effective resistance to regular

and colonial forces in Pontiac’s War (1763–1764), with the Natives driving

them from the Ohio Valley, although the capacity of the regulars and col-

onials to respond to Native successes and to mount fresh e fforts was

indicative of the manpower resources they enjoyed. Conﬂict with Natives

tested both regulars and colonials and encouraged the development of

experience with what was termed small war.

The politics of power, par-

ticula rly the display of force, were also at a premium. This was captured

by Captain William Cornwallis in his report to the Admiralty about a voy-

age to the vulnerable limits of the empire on the River Gambia in West

Africa in 1775,

Upon sending an ofﬁcer up to James’ Fort, I was informed by the command-

ing ofﬁcer that the French had spirited the natives up against the English, and

that he had been obliged to take a schooner of some force belonging to the

trad ers into the service in order to supply himself with wate r. I thought the

appearance of a man of war might be of service. I therefore went up the river

in the Pallas to James’ Fort, which I found in great distress for want of stores,

and particula rly g un-carriages, not having above three or four serviceable

ones in the fort, and most of th eir guns rendered totally useless for want of

them...I stayed in the river eight days, during which time we got the king

of the country on board and showed him all the civility we could. He seemed

very well pleased, so I hope all will go on well again.

Cornwallis’s mission reﬂected one aspect of British power, for fort and

warship were protecting part of the British stake in trade from West Afri-

ca, which included the leading role in the slave trade, to the New World.

Alongside a very different form of coercion, the use of impressments to

obtain sailors, th is sc arcely suggests a benign account of British military

The Struggle for Mastery with France, 1689–1775 45

power. However, naval strength also reﬂected a less authoritarian society

than what lay behind the land-based military systems of Continental

Europe. As also in the United Provinces (Netherlands), it was the creation

of consensual practices and institutions within Britain that were impor-

tant in producing the readiness to sustain naval power. Relatively open

and participating societies have been seen as a precondition for naval efﬁ-

ciency, while, as part of the same relationship, armies can more easily hold

down societies, by direct force or its threat, than navies can do.

46 A Military History of Britain

Part II: Imperial Rival,

1775–1904

CHAPTER 3

Conﬂicts with Amer ica and

France, 1775–1815

The bulwark of the nation, the wooden walls of Great Britain.

—George III of the navy, 1804

The new and different challenges that were confronted in 1775–1815

posedproblemsforthewaysinwhich the British waged war. A large-

scale tr ansoceanic revolution, the War of American Independence, was a

new military challenge, as, from 1793, was the particular way in which

the armies of Revolutionary France fought. In each case, the strategic

questions and tactical problems facing British forces were matched by

how best to deﬁne winnable goals and to bring the conﬂict to a close

accordingly. It was here that failure was most obvious, but there is a tend-

ency to focus on operations in the ﬁeld as if they explain the entire failure.

This is mistaken. Even had the run of British success continued in North

America in 1776, there was still the serious problem of devising, negotiat-

ing, and sustaining a successful peace settlement. The experience of nego-

tiating with Revolutionary and Napoleonic Fran ce indicated very similar

problems.

While it i s understandable that these wars dominate attention, it is

important also to appreciate the range of warfare that Britain faced in this

period, as that indicated the interacting nature of problems and capability

that was important to the molding of development. This range also

became characteristic of the British military and anticipated that of its

American counterpart in the twentieth century. As a far from exhaustive

list, British forces in 1775–1815 fought Native Americans in North

America and St. Vincent, rebel slaves in the West Indies, a revolution in

Ireland in 1798, a series of local powers in India, as well as oppon ents in

Egypt, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the Persian Gulf and the East Indies, and, in

1788, established the ﬁrst European colony in Australia. In terms of the

development of the British Empire, this was a key period of activity, as it

also was for the military, especially with the creation of a large British-

led a nd trained Indian army, able to act both in India and further aﬁeld.