A History of the British Army, Vol. 2 / First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

The difficulties of the whole situation became so pressing that the Board of General Officers advised the King to make transportation to service abroad an alternative penalty for desertion, and to show no mercy in inflicting it.[107] The King declined, nor can it be denied that there was wisdom in his decision; but it is none the less certain that abundance of deserters received pardon on condition of enlisting in corps that were quartered in the colonies, and particularly in Carolina.[108] The principle of sending off bad characters to wear their red coats on the other side of the Atlantic received final sanction in 1742, when over a hundred mutinous deserters from a Highland regiment were divided between the Mediterranean garrisons, the West Indies, and Carolina.[109] Such a windfall did not come every day.

It is now easy to see why foreign service should have been no less unpopular with officers than with men. Their soldiers were discontented and miserable through evils which they had no power to remedy; their regiments were filled with the worst characters, for whom they were obliged to pay an extravagant price; no better provision was made for their comfort than for that of the men: and the life was insufferably dull and monotonous. Nothing, however, can excuse the systematic evasion of duty which was so common among them, still less the hopeless indiscipline which nullified the King's repeated orders for their attendance. Altogether it is clear that England was not yet the least awake to the fact that she had entered upon possession of an Empire, and that an Empire must be defended by the sword. There was no definite scheme of defence, no attempt to realise the extent of the country's military resources, no effort to discover how they might be turned to most effective account. To live from hand to mouth, from budget to budget, was sufficient for Robert Walpole, while the King, if ever he looked beyond the sea, gazed eastward and not westward, and then not at India, but at Hanover.

It remains for me to mention such improvements as were effected in the Army during the period under review, which, though they were few, were none the less far-reaching. The first was the permanent organisation of the Artillery. As has been seen, the Commonwealth latterly maintained a field-train ready and equipped for the field, while William the Third improved upon this by distributing the train into two companies. In the chaos which followed upon the Peace of Utrecht this organisation was suffered to collapse, and the Board of Ordnance, when ordered to fit out a train in 1715, was absolutely unable to do so. It was therefore determined to revert to the system of King William by the establishment of four permanent companies of Artillery, which was duly ordained by Royal Warrant of 26th May 1716. Two companies only were created at first, with a total strength of nine officers and ninety-two men, but the number was increased to four companies in 1727, with the title of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, a designation which still covers about a hundred companies and over a hundred batteries of garrison, field, and horse artillery. The first colonel was a foreigner, Albert Borgard by name, who had entered the British service in time to fight at Steenkirk, and had afterwards served through the War of the Succession in Spain, distinguished more than once by grievous wounds and always by excellent and honourable service. We shall see that the career of the corps has been like unto that of its first colonel.[110]

A second novelty in the Army during this period has enwoven itself even more closely into its traditions. In 1725 General Wade was sent up to Scotland armed with instructions for the disarmament of the Highland clans, and with statutory powers to send all clansmen that did not surrender their arms to serve the King in a red coat beyond sea. Whether any recruits were obtained by those means is uncertain, for Wade exercised his authority in a judicious and tactful spirit, and earned immortality by employing his troops in the construction of roads, whereby he not only kept them from the idleness which begets indiscipline, but endowed the country with a lasting benefit. To enforce the disarmament, overawe the disaffected, and preserve order among the clans, there were raised in that same year four companies of Highlanders, under Captains Lord Lovat, Sir Duncan Campbell, John Campbell, and George Grant.[111] There had been independent companies for service in the Highlands since 1710, but these had been disbanded in 1717, though the officers were subsequently reappointed. The new companies wore their national dress, which, as it consisted principally of black, blue, and green tartan, presented a sombre appearance, and gained for its wearers the name of the Black Watch.[112]

The ranks were filled with a number of young men of respectable families who had joined the corps to gain the Highlanders' beloved privilege of bearing arms, and many were wealthy enough to keep their gillies to attend them in their quarters and to carry their arms and kits on the march. The privates were taken indiscriminately from all the clans, but the officers from the Whig clans only. The service seems to have been popular, for the companies, though increased almost immediately from four to six, were within eighteen months raised to a strength of one hundred and ten men each. The fact that within the same period they had worn out their arms by sheer hard work proves sufficiently that their life was no easy one. At length, on the 7th of November 1739, orders were issued for the raising of four additional companies, and for the formation of a Highland regiment, seven hundred and eighty strong. The colonel appointed to command them, John, Earl of Crawford, was suffering at the time from a wound received in battle against the Turks five months before at Krotzka,[113] and was therefore unable to take immediate charge of them. Finally, a few weeks later, a sergeant and a private[114] were brought down to London, the first kilted soldiers ever seen in the capital, and were duly exhibited to the King, presumably with satisfaction to his sartorial mind. Thus came into being the famous regiment which, ranking originally as the Forty-third of the Line, is still with us as the Forty-second Highlanders.[115]

For the rest, it must be noted that with the accession of a foreign dynasty the Army began early to show signs of subjection to foreign influence. In not a few directions the strict German precision of George the First worked decidedly for good. Before he had been on the throne two years he instituted a regular system of inspection of all regiments by General Officers,[116] and shortly after, observing that every corps used such methods of drill as happened to be preferred by the colonel, he ordered an uniform exercise to be drawn up for all.[117] More curious, however, was his interference with the arming of the infantry, for while on the one hand he insisted that every man should carry a sword as well as a bayonet, a curious old-fashioned prejudice,[118] yet within two years he introduced the steel ramrod, which was the newest of new improvements.[119] This steel ramrod is emblematic of much, since it was the invention of a veteran who had fought among the Prussian troops throughout Marlborough's campaigns, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, famous in Prussian history as the "Old Dessauer."

Perforce we must turn our eyes for a moment towards the military reforms which were going forward in Prussia under that half-demented, half-inspired monarch, King Frederick William. Of the really important lessons which the British learned from him and from his far greater son, it is not yet time to speak: for our present purpose it must be remarked, and remarked not wholly with a light heart, that he was the first great military tailor that sat on a throne. He was also, unfortunately, an admirable soldier into the bargain, and thus has led many monarchs into the delusion that the most important military manual is the book of patterns, and that a soldier is made not by training and discipline but by tape, goose, and shears. His influence soon made itself felt in England, for as early as 1718 we find Colonel Cosby of the Eighteenth Royal Irish insisting that every man of his regiment should wear ruffles at the sleeves and bosom of his shirt;[120] and three years later, when Frederick William visited England in person, the grenadiers of the Guards were bidden to let their whiskers grow, to do him honour on his arrival.[121] Thus dawned the era of powder, pigtail, and tight clothing.

With the accession of King George the Second the reign of the military tailor in England began in good earnest. George did not love his brother-in-law, Frederick William, but he envied him not a little the reputation of his army. He had little capacity for military duties beyond the sphere of a sergeant-major, though he had won his spurs gallantly enough at the head of a squadron at Oudenarde, but being ambitious of military distinction he threw himself with all the enthusiasm of a narrow nature into the pleasing excitement of dressing his army. Before he had been on the throne four months he announced his desire that every regiment should have "fixed clothing," and by a single edict swept away all lace from the buff belts of the cavalry.[122] In the following year the headdress of the Horse-Grenadiers was altered,[123] and in the next year again the Foot Guards were prohibited from wearing perukes except in case of sickness.[124] And so the process went on, barely interrupted even by war, until finally it culminated in an elaborate table of regulations as to colours, clothing, facings, and lace,[125] and, to the great good fortune of posterity, in the depiction of a private of almost every regiment in the Army.