In reading the accounts of this war between the Allies and the French, one feels how just was the remark of Louis XV. after Val, that the "British not only paid all, but fought all." On them fell all the brunt of every engagement, and the discussion and misunderstanding which so often prevailed among the Allied commanders had no effect upon the bravery of the British troops. At Val, the Artillery had thirty men killed, Major Michelson, Lieutenants McLeod, Farrington, Dexter, Stephens, Pedley, and nineteen men wounded; and twenty-five taken prisoners. They received the special thanks of the Duke for their conduct during this obstinate and bloody engagement.
The next thing that strikes one is the cool and able generalship of Marshal Saxe. He had superior numbers under his command; nor did he suffer from divided counsels, but these advantages do not conceal his military talent.
Next, to the student's mind, the absurdly luxurious way of making war then prevalent suggests itself, if the term can be applied to any contest where loss of life was so great. It was, indeed, a game at which the leaders played; and in the quiet of their systematic winter-quarters they devised and matured new moves for the coming season. How changed is modern warfare! What a different system is to be read in the stories of the trenches before Sebastopol, or the winter encampment of the Germans round Paris!
The war gradually filtered itself away into the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. After Val came the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, where fourteen men of the Royal Artillery were killed; then came winter quarters at Breda; then came preparations for a new campaign in 1748; although peace was in every one's mind, and the plenipotentiaries to conclude it had already met; then came the siege of Maestricht, with its Quixotic ending; and at last came peace itself. A peace which brought profit neither to England nor to France; which could not obliterate the long list on the rolls of each nation which war had entered in the books of death; which, if possible, only made the folly of the contest more apparent; and which, while it ceased the actual roll of cannon, and crossing of bayonets, did not stop the pulsation of hatred in each nation's breast, which was to throb with increasing vigour, until a new and more bitter war should gratify the unsmothered longings of each. A peace which—with the solitary exception of Prussia—seemed to do good, or bring rest to none but unhappy Flanders, the battleground of Europe, the victim in every international contest.
But a peace, also, which closed for a time that sterner school of discipline in which the Royal Artillery had now for years been studying; in which there had been officers such as Macbean, Desaguliers, Phillips, and Pattison, learning lessons, which were to bear fruit in yet grimmer warfare, both in Europe and America; and on whose black-boards—blank in this respect, when the war commenced—there had now been indelibly inscribed the words, that "an Army without Artillery is no Army at all!"
Before closing this chapter, there are one or two points connected with the Artillery in the field, which deserve mention. First; the amount of ammunition which was carried in the field with each gun was as follows:—100 round-shot, and 30 rounds of grape; with the exception of the long 6-pounder guns, which carried 80 round-shot, and 40 grape. Second; the stores and ammunition were issued direct by the Commissaries to the officers commanding Brigades of guns, i.e. Batteries—on requisition—who had, however, to make their own cartridges, and fix the wooden bottoms to the round-shot and grape, after receipt. The wooden bottoms were made by the artificer, called the turner; and were fastened by the tinman. Another of the tinman's duties was the manufacture of the tubes—and of boxes to contain them. Third; luxurious in one sense, as the war was, it had its hardships, as the following extract will show:—August 27th, 1746.—"Arrived at camp after a most difficult march, the Artillery constantly moving for four days and three nights without encamping—nearly starved; through woods, over mountainous country, with the bottoms full of rapid little rivers and deep marshes. Almost all the horses lost their shoes, and men and horses nearly starved. 3rd September.—Marched from the camp at 3 A.M., and crossed the Maise, 170 yards broad, over the pontoon bridges, near Maistricht. The bridges were commenced laying at one o'clock in the morning, and were completed by seven, when the heads of the column made their appearance. The French army was in order of battle on the heights of Hautain, opposite to Visel, where he supposed we were to pass, with a design to fall upon us when we were partly crossed the river. 5th September.—The enemy attacked our light troops posted opposite to Visel, on the Maise, and handled them very roughly; those that were not killed, being forced into the river, where they were drowned." Lastly, it is to be noted that, as in all our later wars before they have lasted any time, the ranks were thinned by disease and death, and there was a difficulty in replenishing them, even with recruits. It is to be hoped that the system of reserves recently organized in the English Army will in future mitigate this evil.
On the return of the Army to England in 1748, three companies of Artillery were reduced; the officers being gradually brought in, as vacancies occurred. Among other customs brought by the companies from Flanders was that of employing fifers as well as drummers: "the first fifers in the British Army having been established in the Royal Regiment of Artillery at the end of this war, being taught by John Ulrich, a Hanoverian fifer, brought from Flanders by Colonel Belford, when the Allied Army separated."[[12]]
So much for the school of discipline in Europe. But there had been a class-room opened in the East, to which the Regiment sent some pupils. Admiral Boscawen had been ordered to the East Indies, in command of a mixed naval and military force, including a company of the Royal Artillery, under Major Goodyear. The force of the enemy, and the strength of his defences, had been underrated; and it cannot be said that the expedition was very successful. The ordnance which accompanied the Artillery consisted of twelve 6-pounders, six 3-pounders, two 10-inch, three 8-inch, fifteen 5½ inch, and twenty-five 4⅖-inch mortars, all of brass. It was at the siege of Pondicherry that these guns were used, a siege which lasted from the 11th of August to the 6th of October, 1748, when Admiral Boscawen was compelled to raise it after a loss of over 1000 men. The Royal Artillery lost, out of a total of 148 of all ranks, no less than forty-three, including Major Goodyear, who fell, mortally wounded, during the siege, his leg being carried away by a round-shot.
A stop was put to the hostilities by the declaration of peace, but the presence of Admiral Boscawen enabled him to ratify, in a prompt manner, that part of the treaty which restored Madras to the English. Many men of Major Goodyear's company were allowed, in 1749, to volunteer for the East India Company's service.
But this expedition has an interest to the Artilleryman beyond the military operations. Before sailing, Admiral Boscawen asserted his intention, in spite of Major Goodyear's remonstrances, of filling up, as Commander-in-Chief, any vacancies which might occur in the company of Artillery.