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

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

Thus it is sufficiently evident that the Army, notwithstanding the wild ravings in Parliament, did far more for itself than the country did for it; though there are signs that as an institution it was gradually finding acceptance with the nation. In 1740 the nickname of "lobster" for a soldier, which thirty or forty years ago was common enough, first made its appearance, curiously enough with the Christian name of Thomas prefixed to it.[443] Then in the same year Parliament called for and printed a return of the officers of the Army, which was continued yearly and ripened into the annual Army List.[444] Another change also helped to give regiments a surer identity in the popular mind, namely the substitution of a number for the colonel's name for the distinction of corps from corps. This reform crept in during July 1753;[445] but it was many years before the colonel's name was altogether discarded, while the numbers did not find a place on the buttons until 1767. Then, to pass to minuter matters, sufficient deference was paid to the popular love of military music to relieve the colonels in part of the burden of hiring bandsmen, who, in some regiments at any rate, were after 1749 enlisted as soldiers and placed under military discipline.[446] In the cavalry, where the trumpeters supplied six or eight men more or less skilled in the playing of a wind-instrument, the issue of horns and bassoons to these sufficed more cheaply to form a band of music;[447] but the main burden of supporting a band has always lain, as it still lies, upon the officers. Private enterprise, which thus forced military musicians upon the country, strove also to impose another modern fashion, but without success. After his march to Fort Duquêsne General Forbes caused a medal to be struck, of extremely florid design, and authorised such of his officers as might desire it to wear the same in gold suspended from their necks by a blue ribbon.[448] The hint, however, was not taken at home,—possibly the fame of it never reached official ears,—and though a medal might have increased the flow of recruits and reconciled men to service beyond sea, not one was issued. Ferdinand of Brunswick received the Garter, and Amherst the red ribbon of the Bath, but nothing was done to commemorate for lesser men the share that they had taken in the conquest of an empire.

I turn now to consideration of the military progress in the three combatant branches of the Army. In the Cavalry an early change, which has been perpetuated by certain regimental titles to the present day, was the conversion of the three senior regiments of Horse into Dragoons, with the names which they still retain of the First, Second, and Third Dragoon Guards. This was done in December 1746 and was apparently part of a general scheme of economy; for at precisely the same time the Third and Fourth troops of the Life Guards were disbanded, and two troops only reserved, together with two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards.[449] But there seems also to have been somewhat of a craze for dragoons at the moment,[450] first because their pay was small, and secondly, because Frederick the Great, in imitation of the Austrians, had made greater mobility the rule for all cavalry. In truth the old distinctions between Horse and Dragoons were disappearing fast and becoming very much a question of names. The French indeed still made it a rule not to place dragoons in the line of battle; but the horse in their army was distinguished by being heavily clad in defensive armour. Ligonier, who loved the cavalry above all arms, boldly advised the disregard of all fanciful differences, and the issue of defensive armour to the British dragoons; but his recommendation remained unnoticed for twelve years, when, in a true spirit of pedantry, cuirasses and iron skull-caps were given in 1758 to the Blues and in 1760 to the Third and Fourth Horse, or to give them their present names, the Sixth and Seventh Dragoon Guards.[451] Another defect noted by Ligonier in the organisation of the cavalry was the extreme weakness of the British squadrons as compared with the French; for remedy of which he purposed to raise the strength of troops of horse to fifty and of dragoons to seventy-five troopers. Such a reform would have been valuable as a return to Cromwell's system of making the units strong enough to provide full employment for the officers; but the authorities settled the question in a far more simple fashion by ordaining that three troops, instead of two as heretofore, should be the strength of a squadron on service.[452] The country has waited long for Ligonier's suggestion to be adopted, and it is only within very recent years, if now, that it has at last grasped the soundness of the principle.

More important as a step forward was the institution of Light Dragoons, begun, as has been told, by the establishment first of light troops and later of complete light regiments. The example in this case came from a corps formed during the Scottish rebellion of 1745, the Duke of Kingston's Light Dragoons, which did so good service that, though disbanded after Culloden, it was at once reformed as the Duke of Cumberland's own. As such it distinguished itself greatly at Lauffeld, and Cumberland pleaded hard that it might be spared after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; but with the usual blindness it was disbanded, and thus a regiment of quite unusual value and promise was sacrificed.[453] Happily the Fifteenth Light Dragoons made a most brilliant beginning for the new branch of the cavalry, and assured its success. The light dragoons were distinguished by wearing a helmet of lacquered copper or leather, and were armed with carbine, bayonet, pistol, and sword, carrying also entrenching tools in their holsters. Their horses are described as of the nag or hunter kind, standing from fourteen hands three inches to fifteen hands one inch; and their saddlery was lighter than that of the ordinary dragoon. Being intended for employment as irregular troops they were known from the first in England as hussars;[454] but though they received special training in horsemanship and in firing, even at a gallop, from the saddle, they had little or no instruction in the duties of reconnaissance, which were the peculiar function of the hussar. Nothing could be more characteristic of the difference between the true and the false light cavalry than the behaviour of the Fifteenth at Emsdorff, who charged through and through the French infantry without hesitation, while the Prussian hussars, never coming to close quarters, lost not a man nor a horse. Fortunately it was not the true hussar that was most sorely needed on that day.

For the rest, before the opening of the war the old system of manœuvre by turning every horse in his own ground had given place to that by wheeling of small divisions, although the ranks were still formed three deep. It does not appear that the drill introduced by Frederick the Great for field-movements was adopted either in whole or in part, though possibly it may have been practised by individual colonels. Shock-action our cavalry did not need to learn from Frederick, having learned it already of Marlborough; but our squadrons seem as usual to have been prone to their besetting sin of unwillingness to rally after a successful charge. It was this wild galloping forward that wrecked Ligonier's heroic regiments at Lauffeld. On the other hand, Granby's squadrons, for all their leader's impetuosity, seem to have been well in hand at Warburg, and to have done their work with spirit and yet subject to control. But a trot of two hours before coming into action had probably rubbed the keen edge off both horses and men.

Passing next to the Artillery we approach the most remarkable development observable during this period in the whole Army. Notwithstanding the early disgraces at Carthagena and the shortcomings of the Office of Ordnance, the gunners after 1741 are found to raise the reputation of their corps steadily in all parts of the world. Their place as yet was still on the left of the line, yielding precedence to the whole of the rest of the Army, but they were entitling themselves to a higher station. This sudden change is doubtless in great measure attributable to the foundation of the Academy at Woolwich, with an allowance at first of two hundred pounds, which after a few months was increased to a thousand pounds, a year.[455] In 1744 the forty gentlemen cadets were formed into a single company, and their pay was raised from one shilling to sixteenpence a day; their number also was increased to forty-eight, and from thenceforth the cadet-company stood as the senior company of the corps.[456] The growth of the Royal Regiment in numbers in itself is remarkable. In 1741 it possessed but three marching companies, but from that year onwards it was constantly increased by one, two, or four companies, until in 1757 it consisted of twenty-four companies in two battalions and in 1761 of thirty-one companies in three battalions, or close on thirty-two hundred of all ranks. Finally, in 1760, a warrant was issued for the formation of a distinct regiment of Royal Irish Artillery.

At first the gunners are seen at work principally with the battalion guns, light three-pounders or six-pounders, which though attached to the infantry were served by artillerymen;[457] but they are always distinguished, whether at Fontenoy or before Trichinopoly, by the rapidity and accuracy of their fire. In Germany, however, we find the guns before Minden scientifically concentrated and handled in large masses by the skill of the Count of Lippe-Bückeburg; and there the British batteries win the admiration of the most critical artillerists in Europe, and their officers the special praise of Ferdinand of Brunswick himself. The influence of the Academy had told early; but it is a still more significant fact that British Artillery officers, not obtaining their commissions by purchase, did not rise to command without knowledge of their work. The variety of guns issued for the field was very great, and though three-pounders seem to have given place in the Seven Years' War to light six-pounders as the lightest ordnance employed,[458] yet there were also heavy six-pounders, light and heavy twelve-pounders, howitzers and twenty-four pounders. It was probably the light six-pounders that amazed the whole army at Warburg by advancing at the gallop, a feat which was the more remarkable since drivers and horses were still hired, and not part and parcel of the corps as at present.[459] Finally, Mauvillon bears witness that the British guns were kept far the cleanest and in the most perfect order of any in the whole Allied army.

Of the Engineers it is impossible to speak as favourably; indeed it is almost an extreme assumption to assert their existence except in name. A school of engineering was founded in 1741; and the small establishment of engineers as fixed in 1717 having been largely increased in 1756 was finally reorganised with a strength of sixty-one officers in 1759.[460] There seem to have been no men, except a strong company of miners, which, however, was borne on the strength of the Royal Artillery.[461] The results of the school were singularly small compared with those of the Academy at Woolwich. Wentworth possessed one efficient engineer at Carthagena, but Stair had not even one in the Low Countries, and was obliged to engage Dutch and Austrian officers;[462] while the engineers employed with Boscawen at Pondicherry, Abercromby at Ticonderoga, and Hodgson at Belleisle were all alike inefficient. The fact is less remarkable when it is remembered that the sea obviates the necessity for the fortification of inland towns in England. In truth the French engineers, in respect both of the skill of the officers and the organisation of the men, seem to have stood far above the rest of Europe,[463] while the British probably stood lowest of all.

Lastly we come to the Infantry. Attention has already been called to the reforms initiated by Howe, Washington, Forbes, Bouquet, and Amherst, which, though still too much advanced to receive welcome at home, were to be realised by Sir John Moore forty years later. The great characteristic of the British infantry throughout the war is the excellence of their fire-discipline and the deadly accuracy of their fire. It is curious, therefore, to read in the most popular military handbook of the time[464] that it was precisely in the matter of fire-discipline that the British were reckoned defective, so defective that they were accounted inferior to the Dutch and were obliged to comfort themselves with the reflection that the Dutch were naturally more phlegmatic of temperament. The author is careful to point out that Dutch superiority lay in discipline only, so it is reasonable to infer that the British improved rapidly in this respect during the war. And such indeed is the conclusion to be drawn from the study of the various actions. At Dettingen the fire though deadly was unsteady; at Fontenoy it was nearly perfect; at Minden, where the British stood motionless until the French cavalry was within ten paces, it was quite admirable; at Quebec it was simply superlative. It is commonly supposed that this improvement was due to the adoption of Prussian methods, but I can find no ground for the assumption. The Prussian manual and firing exercise did indeed find its way to the First Guards in 1756;[465] and there still exists record of a petition from some aged pensioners against the cruelty of an ensign who drilled them every day through the winter in the Prussian exercise, though they had hardly clothes to cover their nakedness;[466] but this has no bearing on the action of Fontenoy in 1745. The truth is that in the matter of attack the British had nothing to learn from the Prussians, either in the cavalry or the infantry. Marlborough had taught them the superiority of shock-action and platoon-fire long before Frederick the Great was born; and all that the Prussian school had to teach, apart from this and from the discipline which went to its perfect execution, was the precision of march learned from pendulum and pace-stick, and certain undeniable improvements in the manœuvre of a regiment or battalion. It has been suggested, indeed,[467] that a Prussian column at Fontenoy might have manœuvred its way to victory by sheer perfection of drill and discipline; but this begs the question whether they would have preserved their order as admirably as the British during the advance. Certainly it is hardly conceivable that even Prussian regiments could have behaved more perfectly under very heavy fire and in the presence of an overwhelming force of cavalry than the six British battalions at Minden.

But the most important changes in the infantry were akin to those in the cavalry. The first was the practice of massing the grenadiers of the army into battalions, which though forbidden by the King as an Austrian innovation when first proposed by Stair,[468] was ultimately adopted both in America and in Germany. The next was the introduction of light troops for the work of skirmishing and for such rapid movements and special duties as were committed in the cavalry to hussars. In the British Army the first representatives of this class of infantry were the Highlanders, who for this reason were armed with short muskets or carbines and were drawn up outside the line in the formal order of battle. Stair[469] had begged for Highlanders in their native dress as early as in 1742, and to his influence probably was due their presence at Fontenoy. During the Seven Years' War, as has been seen, they were employed in every quarter of the globe and did excellent service. Amherst, however, and Wolfe after him, were not content with Highlanders only, but formed those bodies of marksmen, often armed with rifles, which prepared the way for the Light Companies and the complete corps of Light Infantry and Riflemen that were to follow at a later day. Indeed, there was actually a regiment (which during its short life took precedence as ninetieth of the Line) that was called Morgan's Light Infantry. This was probably an imitation from some continental model; but the British had found a far better model for their own purposes in America.

In truth, though there were lessons which the British might learn with profit from foreign nations, both as to what they should imitate and what they should avoid, the best of their instruction was that which they gained from their own hard experience in lands remote from Europe. The influence of King Frederick the Great was perverted in great measure for ill to the Army. The King and Cumberland had both of them a passion for minute details of dress, facings, lace, buttons, cockades, and the like, and were dear lovers of the tight clothing and inelasticity of movement which characterised the Prussian school. There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that strict insistence on cleanliness and smartness is indispensable, and that correctness and uniformity of dress are valuable aids to discipline and to esprit de corps. Such little distinctions as that the coats of Horse should be lapelled to the skirt and of Dragoons to the waist, while those of Light Dragoons should be without lapels of any kind, are harmless in themselves, and give men a pride and an interest in their branch of the service; but the powdering of hair, the docking of the old-fashioned serviceable coats, and the straitening of every article of raiment were no gain to efficiency, no improvement to health, and in the eyes of Englishmen, at first, no embellishment as to appearance.[470] Had the King turned his thoughts to diminishing the weight on a soldier's back,[471] or devising suitable equipment for tropical climates, he might have saved lives untold; but many years were still to elapse before such simple matters as these were to receive due notice. The beautiful accuracy of drill enjoined by Frederick was turned to good account by the British on many fields in Europe and in India; but his excellent discipline on active service both on and off duty was by no means so faithfully copied, as Ferdinand of Brunswick found out to his cost.[472] Yet at any rate the British had an example of the worst that they must eschew in the armies of the French. Therein "there was no discipline, no subordination, no order on the march, in the camp or even in the battlefield. The very subalterns had their mistresses with them, and officers often left their men to accompany them on the march in their carriages. Everything that could contribute to the luxury of the officers was found in the French camp.... At one time there were twelve thousand waggons accompanying Soubise's army which belonged to sutlers and shopkeepers, though the army was not fifty thousand strong.... Balls were given in camp and officers often left their posts to dance a minuet. They laughed at the orders of their leaders and only obeyed when it suited them."[473] From such folly and disgrace as this Cumberland's attachment to the stricter models of Germany delivered the Army; but its best lessons came not from Germany but from America, not from Frederick the Great but from Howe, Washington, Wolfe, Bouquet, and Amherst.