CHAPTER VIII
THE ARMY AT SEA—TO 1815

The history of the army in early days, and, in fact, up to the termination of the long war with France, was intimately associated with naval operations. This naturally arose from our insular situation; and though at first English armies were largely employed in Continental war only, the time came when it was evident that blows of greater weight and greater political consequence could be aimed at an enemy’s colonial empire than even in great Continental battles, which were invariably fought with the assistance of allies. There was little but barren honour to be got by such land campaigns; but the naval operations were not only valuable as lessening an enemy’s prestige, but also gave tangible rewards and results in prize-money for the men and territory for the State. In no other way, in fact, could Great Britain’s supremacy at sea be used with greater effect; and hence it is that in the battle-roll of many an English regiment are names of victories which are practically semi-naval affairs. In fact, the army has in its time been largely employed as marines, doing their twofold duty of in some cases acting as the ship’s guard, and at others that of a force to be landed for active service and re-embarked when their work was done. Hence, regiments, though on the strength of the army, were often lent to the navy for such duty. Thus in 1664 was raised the “Admiral’s Regiment,” for service in the Dutch war, and was really the “Old Buffs,” as this was the colour of their facings. Said to be raised from the London trained bands, which at that time must have formed a very good recruiting ground of drilled men, they in all numbered nearly 10,000 men, each ward furnishing a certain fixed proportion. But these early naval soldiers were practically regarded as a mere nursery for the navy, and when they had qualified as “foremast men,” they were drafted as seamen, and fresh levy-money granted for recruits to take their place. On the cessation of the Dutch wars, the regiment was disbanded, to reappear in 1684 again as an “Admiral’s Regiment,” but with the imposing title of “H.R.H. the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot.” This was eventually incorporated with the Coldstream Guards, the Holland Regiment, formed about the same time, which had also sent some of its companies on naval duty, taking its place on the list, and numbering eventually the 3rd Regiment of the line, or “Old Buffs.” The second title was given from the colour of the facings and linings of their coats, and to it was added the term “old” to distinguish them from the “Young Buffs,” the 31st, which wore the same colour. Several other marine regiments were also raised, but they successively disappeared or were incorporated with other regiments. Naval operations themselves were also becoming more extended, and large fleets, rather than a few isolated ships, were beginning to push out, from the narrow offensive-defensive actions in and about the Channel, to wider seas and with greater aims. All this necessitated, if any impression was to be produced on the actual coastal people and defences of an enemy, the employment of soldiers. Not that the effect of local naval victories was less important in the past any more than in the future. The naval battle of La Hogue was, in a way, as effectual in checking invasion as was Trafalgar later. The very extension of the naval war of 1694 to the Mediterranean gave an opening for one of these maritime operations, of which the naval and military annals were for more than a century to be full. The action of the army as an irritant to the general body politic of the hostile state with which we were at war was to be evidenced. Thus, in 1694, the absence of the French fleet in the Mediterranean led to an effort to damage the French arsenal at Brest, for which purpose a landing was attempted in Camaret Bay, when twelve regiments of the line and two of marines embarked under Talmash. Churchill was currently believed to be the cause of the disaster which followed; for he is stated to have communicated the intended surprise to King James in France, so that when the expedition reached its destination, it was most vigorously opposed, and the general with 700 men fell.

But in 1702, while six regiments were specially raised for sea service, of which only three, the 30th, 31st, and 32nd, now remain, six other battalions were lent from the regular army for naval duty. These were the 6th, 19th, 20th, 34th, 35th, and 36th; and they returned to land service in 1713, when the other three of the six marine battalions were disbanded.

Again, in 1739 and 1749, ten other marine regiments were formed; but these again were, according to the prevailing custom, done away with when, in 1748, war for a time ceased. But these newer levies were becoming more like true marines. They were to be quartered near the Government dockyards. They were to assist in the fitting out of ships as well as helping to man them. Other independent companies of a similar character were also formed in America and the West Indies, and many of these became absorbed in the ranks of the land forces; but so close was the union between the sea and land regiments then, that exchanges between the officers of both were permitted.

Up to this time, the sea service regiments had done good work. In 1702 eleven regiments of the line, of which the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 32nd still remain, with a battalion of Guards and some Dutch regiments, were despatched to the Spanish coast. An attack was first made at Rota, in the bay of Cadiz, which was captured, but abandoned; and then the squadron moved to Vigo Bay, where the Spanish galleons, laden with treasure and convoyed by a French fleet, had taken refuge. The entrance was difficult and guarded with batteries, and with a boom “made up of masts, yards, cables, top chains, and casks, about three yards in circumference, but this, though three-quarters of a mile long, and guarded at the ends by seventy-four-gun men-of-war, was broken by the Torbay of eighty guns, the other ships following, while the troops landed, stormed, and silenced the shore batteries at the Rhondella, and this with little loss. The booty amounted to 20,000,000 pieces of eight, and an equally valuable amount of merchandise, of which 14,000,000 pieces were saved, and about £50,000,000 worth of stores; while 4,000,000 pieces of plate and ten of merchandise were lost.”[28]

But the most noteworthy event of these times was the capture and retention in 1704 of Gibraltar, in which the 30th, 31st, and 32nd Regiments, serving as marines at first in Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s fleet, bore a gallant part. This is the early history of one of our proudest possessions, even if it be not as valuable strategically now as it was when the century was young.

Whoever the primæval inhabitants of “the Rock” may have been, and their skulls and bones found in the stalagmitic limestone of the caves show they were of no high class but merely cave-dwellers, they were followed, somewhere about the eighth century, by the Moors. This curious wave of invasion from the East seems to have simply skirted the northern parts of Africa, until it reached what is now Algeria. It never penetrated far south, and yet it represents one of the few traces of civilisation in the dark continent. Most curious of all is it that African aborigines have done so little for themselves. All the civilising waves have been immigrant, from those who built the dead cities of Mashonaland to the men who have made Buluwayo. Such civilisation as North Africa possesses has been wholly of foreign origin. The negro race has done nothing worth mentioning, and it may well be believed, after the experience of Liberia, never will. So that the Arab invasion sought for other outlets for its expansion than the warmer clime of Mid or Central Africa. Reaching Algiers, Tarik the Conqueror passed across the straits to the peninsula of Gibraltar, and built there, somewhere about 725, a castle of which the existing Moorish tower may be a relic. It remained in Mohammedan hands for seven hundred and forty-eight years, and then, captured by the Spaniards, was remodelled, the “Gebel al Tarik” becoming Christian “Gibraltar.” Its present arms, a castle with a key pendent at the gate, granted by Henry IV. of Castile, refer to its condition as a fortress once the key to the Mediterranean, but now, with the improvements in the range and size of modern guns, of less value than heretofore.

In 1704 the place was but feebly garrisoned, and fell mainly owing to the silencing of the batteries by the squadron and their occupation then by seamen landed from the ships. The troops, under the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, meanwhile occupied the isthmus until the fortress surrendered. So important a capture was not likely to be agreed to without a further struggle, and in 1705 the Marquis de Villadarius was despatched to formally besiege it. The garrison, however, had been reinforced by the 13th and 35th Regiments, a battalion of Guards, and some Dutch troops, and though several gallant efforts were made to carry the place by assault they successively failed, and after seven months the siege was abandoned and converted into a partial blockade. It had cost the Spaniards and French some 10,000 men, but the garrison lost only some 400.