History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery Vol. 2 / Compiled from the Original Records

by Francis Duncan

MS. Records of 4th Battalion.

No. 1 Company, 4th Battalion—now No. 4 Battery, 7th Brigade—attracted the admiration of the Duke of York to such an extent by its gallantry and skill, that he made the whole army form up on the field of battle while this company marched past him. He also published a General Order, saying: “His Royal Highness desires that Captain Boag and Lieutenant Fead of the Royal Artillery (the officers with the company) will accept his thanks for the very spirited and able manner in which they conducted the battery entrusted to their care.” If history is not utterly powerless, the story of the 17th April ought to stir the hearts of this battery, and make every man in its ranks strive to be not unworthy of those, who proved themselves worthy of so rare and honourable a distinction. To be singled out for bravery on a day when all were brave, and to display a spirit and an ability which, amid all the confusion of battle, attracted the observation of a preoccupied commander, surely these are traditions which should fire the most generous emotions, and awaken the most noble resolves. It is in such a belief, and with such a hope as this, that men have been found to record such tales in Regimental records, and that others have been found to transcribe them fondly from faded pages, and give to them a new life and a wider circulation.

Encouraged by the success at Vaux, Landrecies was besieged by the Allies, the English troops covering the operations towards Cambray. Twice between the 23rd and 26th April did the Duke of York’s force defeat the French; and on the 26th it was mainly owing to the well-directed fire of the Royal Artillery, under Colonel Congreve, that the French were dislodged from their position in the village of Troisvilles, with a loss of 35 guns and 300 prisoners. Landrecies surrendered on the 29th April; but this advantage, even when combined with the Duke of York’s successes, did not atone for the severe defeat, which had been experienced on the 26th April by the Allied Army under General Clairfayt at the hands of a French army under General Pichegru. There seems from this time to have been a want of harmony among the Allies. Their armies melted away into more isolated columns every day; and the system of incessant attack, irrespective and regardless of frequent defeat, which was pursued by the French forces, seems to have produced a nervous effect upon their opponents, under which each commander seemed to play, so to speak, for his own hand. The representatives of the old school of war were bewildered by the activity of those of the new. They found themselves fighting, confined by strict and wooden rules, by which their adversaries refused to be bound; and the consequences proved fatal.

The English army continued to achieve minor successes at Lannoy, Roubaix, and Monveaux; but met with a serious reverse on the 18th May, 1794, when Major Wright’s Battery was nearly cut to pieces. The French succeeded in completely surrounding the English, who had actually to effect a retreat through the enemy’s troops, in doing which Major Wright’s battery, now B Battery, 1st Brigade, Royal Artillery, was charged by the French cavalry, and suffered the loss of its commander, 5 men and 31 horses killed, and 2 subalterns, Lieutenants Boger and Downman, 45 men, and 70 horses wounded. In fact, the battery was placed completely hors de combat, as might have been expected when guns were so hampered as to allow a charge of cavalry to be possible. Surrounded as they were on all sides by mingled friends and foes, it was impossible to come into action on the advancing hussars; and the many acts of individual bravery failed to save them from virtual annihilation.

Fortune was more favourable a few days later—on the 22nd May—when the English successfully resisted a general attack of the French under General Pichegru; and their obstinacy on this occasion was the origin of the barbarous order issued by the ruffians who held the reins of government in Paris, forbidding any quarter to be given “to the slaves of King George.” This was nobly answered by the Duke of York, who in a General Order, dated 7th June, 1794, urged his troops to “suspend their indignation, and to remember that mercy to the vanquished is the brightest Gen. Order. gem in a soldier’s character.” In the repulse of the enemy on the 22nd May the conduct of the Artillery was such that “His Royal Highness the commander-in-chief begged to thank Captain Trotter, with the Artillery under his command, for their great display of intrepidity and good conduct, which reflected the greatest honour on themselves, and at the same time was highly instrumental in deciding the important victories of the 22nd.”

From this time, however, the Allies experienced nothing but disaster. The capture of Charleroi and the battle of Fleurus proved the increasing merits of the French army, while the welcome from the Belgian cities, which one after another, including Brussels itself, fell into the hands of the French, proved that the sympathy of the people was much more with them than with the Allies. It is difficult to overrate the value of such sympathy in war.

In the course of these disasters the Duke of York’s communications with Ostend were interrupted, and the English Government, becoming seriously alarmed, fitted out the expedition already referred to, which left Southampton for the Continent, under the command of Lord Moira. After many vicissitudes this second army succeeded in effecting a junction with the Duke of York, after defeating the French at Alost and Malines. The continued advance and repeated attacks made by the French army, compelled the Duke to retire across the Meuse into Holland. The surrender of the frontier fortresses followed; and then, while other French armies were detailed to pursue the Continental part of the Allied forces, Pichegru himself, with a much larger force than that under the command of the Duke of York, resolved to invade Holland, and exterminate the English. From this moment the Duke, being completely outnumbered, was compelled steadily to retire. An action took place on the 15th September, between his advanced guard and the French troops, at Boxtel, the result of which was a further retreat, and the abandonment to their own resources of Bois-le-duc, Breda, and Bergen-op-Zoom. The first-named of these places was invested by the French on the 23rd September, 1794, and surrendered on the 10th October. Without waiting to take the other two, and leaving them in his rear, Pichegru, with the energy which characterised the French armies of the Revolution, and with a contempt for the laws of war which paralyzed his opponents, pushed on in pursuit of the English, whose retreat in face of superior numbers was—it must be confessed by every one—very skilfully managed. The Duke of York was in position at Pufflech when the French came up, and on the 19th October, 1794, a severe engagement took place, which ended in the English army being compelled to retire behind the Waal, while the French undertook the siege of various garrisons. On the 28th October, Venloo was taken; followed, on the 5th November, by the capture of Maestricht; and on the same day the siege of Nimeguen was commenced. Here gallant service was rendered by the English, and, among others, General Abercromby was wounded; but the impetuosity of the French was such that the Duke of York, finding his intercourse with the garrison cut off, retired a little farther to take up a fresh position, and, on the 8th November, Nimeguen surrendered. The Duke of York was, for many reasons, anxious to escape an engagement, and he intrenched himself strongly in the lines of Nimeguen. The French commander, however, having received peremptory orders from his Government not to desist hostilities, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, prepared to cross the Waal, but was prevented by the fire of the Allied Artillery. He gave up the idea for the time, and confined himself to making the necessary dispositions for invading Holland in the spring;—no easy task, when one reflects on the facilities with which the whole country could have been flooded. Most fortunately for him an exceptionally severe frost set in, freezing the rivers and canals so that they could support troops and artillery. Hostilities were at once recommenced by the French, and, after taking several strong places in the end of December, fighting in a temperature lower than it had been for thirty years, on the 11th January, 1795, Pichegru, with his whole army, crossed the Waal. In the attempt made by the British to prevent this, considerable loss was met with, and, among others, two subalterns of Artillery, Lieutenants Walker and Legg, were wounded.

From this time commenced a retreat which, for misery, discomfort, and losses, has been compared with the French retreat from Moscow, although on a much smaller scale. The English Government, having resolved on the withdrawal of the army, directed it to retire on Bremen, there to embark for home. This order rendered it necessary for the troops to traverse the district called the Weluwe, a perfect Cust. desert, over which the wind was drifting the snow into almost impassable ridges—where the few scattered villages had been rendered hostile by French emissaries, and where Ibid. “numbers of English soldiers perished through want and weakness, and many were frozen to death.” The hardships borne by the army did not interfere with their discipline; and they were soothed by the sympathy of all classes in England, and ultimately by a hearty welcome home. With the exception of a small force under General Dundas, which remained on the Continent until the following year, the whole army reached England in May 1795. It was on the 8th of that month, that the six companies of Artillery disembarked at Woolwich, from which station they were speedily removed to Chatham and Portsmouth.

The barbarous order given by the French Government with reference to the English soldiers, which has been mentioned above, was almost atoned for by an act of chivalry on the part of the French troops at the end of the campaign. During the retreat of the English, the 87th Regiment had been left as part of the garrison of Bergen-op-Zoom. The Dutch Government, dismayed by the continued successes of the French, and urged on by a party in the country, by no means inconsiderable, which sympathised with the Republican cause, came to terms with the French Commander, and consented to the surrender of the various garrisons. Considerable anxiety naturally existed as to the Cust. fate of the 87th Regiment; “but, compromised by the defection of an ally, it was generously permitted by the conquerors to separate itself from the garrison, and to be sent back to England.”

One or two facts remain to be mentioned. It was during this campaign, at the affair at Boxtel, that the Duke of Wellington, then in command of the 33rd Regiment, first was under fire, and displayed the same coolness and intrepidity which afterwards characterised him. It was also during the concluding months of the war—after the resignation of the Stadtholder—that the singular military episode occurred—more singular even than that mentioned in the Vol. i. p. 372. annals of the American War, when a fleet was defeated by a field battery—the capture of a fleet by a charge of cavalry. The Dutch fleet was lying ice-bound at the Helder—the harbour frozen over,—and was in this position captured by a body of Dragoons who had penetrated to that place in relentless pursuit of the French Royalist emigrants, who had fled thither for refuge.