THE EMBERS OF THE CIVIL WAR--TO 1755
The method of raising the army from the early part of the eighteenth
century until nearly its end had been by a curious system of contract.
Recruiting at first was mainly voluntary; but paupers or prisoners for
civil offences were given the option of serving in the ranks. Hence was
it that the armies that “swore so horribly in Flanders” got the bad
name that clung to the profession of arms in Great Britain until recent
years. The class of recruits, the severity of punishment, and the
degradation of the lash were the three main reasons why, in the opinion
of many worthy country people, to become a soldier was to be lost!
“Sergeant Kite’s” statement in the _Recruiting Officer_[21] is, though
coarse, a not much exaggerated picture of what was _thought_ of the
soldier, though it can never assuredly be applied to all who wore the
uniform. He says: “I was born a gipsy, and bred among that crew till I
was ten years of age; there I learned canting and lying. I was bought
from my mother Cleopatra by a certain nobleman for three pistoles,
who, liking my beauty, made me his page; there I learned impudence and
pimping. I was turned off for wearing my lord’s linen and drinking my
lady’s ratafia, and then became bailiff’s follower; there I learned
bullying and swearing. I at last got into the army, and there I learned
wenching and drinking, so that if your worship pleases to cast up the
old sum, viz.--canting, lying, impudence, bullying, swearing, drinking,
and a halberd, you will find the sum total amounting to a recruiting
sergeant.”
This, then, is reputed to be the material; the following was the method
of capturing it.[22] The crown contracted with gentlemen of position or
known soldiers to raise a certain body of troops, and bounty money per
head was granted for the purpose. Regiments, therefore, long bore the
names of the colonels who had raised or those who had recruited them.
Sometimes in lieu of money the contractor sold the commissions, which
was called “raising men for rank”; and hence arose a further extension
of the purchase system which seems to have originated with Charles II.
For the maintenance of this force the colonel received an annual sum to
defray the cost of clothing, pay, and recruiting; thus it is related
that a British Fusilier Regiment had four years’ pay owing to officers
and men, who, in spite of repeated memorials, could not obtain any
portion of it. After the lapse of some time, it transpired that Lord
Tyrawley, the colonel, had appropriated the arrears to his own use; an
act which he attempted to justify by pleading the custom of the army,
and by the fact of the king being cognisant of his proceedings.[23]
Recruits were raised by “a beating order,” without which recruiting was
illegal, and the regiment was kept up to full strength. Field officers,
to increase their rate of pay, received, say, colonel _as_ colonel,
12s. a day, and in addition, as captain of company 8s. a day.
The term of enlistment of the recruit was a matter of arrangement, and
was often for life. The troops were long disposed in billets in Great
Britain, but in the early part of the eighteenth century barracks for
about 5000 men had been created, and the evils of billeting were fully
recognised. The barrack accommodation had not increased to more than
sufficient for 20,000 men by 1792.
The Jacobite risings form a curious link in the conduct of European
politics, and not only led to active interference in them because of
the support given by France and Spain to the Stuart cause, but they
are also domestically interesting as being the last cases in which
armed bodies have met in civil war in England. They also emphasise the
curious personal and sentimental attraction which long hung round the
dynasty of the Stuarts, and for which there is no sufficient reason
to be advanced. They were neither great nor noble, neither good nor
trustworthy. Their reigns were either years of disturbance at home or
ineptitude abroad. Their attraction was only that of romance, coupled
with that odd personal reverence for the divinity of kingship, which
James I. brought prominently forward as a political creed, and which no
previous sovereign had been successful in establishing. Men of repute
and renown often changed sides when the “Roses” reigned; but this was
rare when the Stuarts ruled, or tried to rule.
It is this romantic feeling that makes the efforts on the part of
the Jacobites to restore King James seem sorrowful. One cannot but
sympathise with those who sacrificed all for the most ungrateful
group of kings that have ever occupied the English throne, and at
the same time wonder why they did so. The Winchester motto of “Aimez
loyauté,” meant in the abstract but obedience or love for law, the
ordinances of the realm. It was for the enthusiastic Cavalier to
translate loyalty into personal regard for an indifferent, to say
the very least of it, group of kings, who had as a race scarcely one
attribute of true kingship. One’s sympathy, therefore, goes out more
fully towards the adherents than the leaders of the hopeless cause;
and it is well that the strong common sense of the nation saw that
the restoration of either of the Pretenders was hopeless. The peace
of Ryswick was the first blow to the faint hopes of James II.’s
restoration. His no longer receiving the active sympathy of France
reduced, for the time being, his “party” to a “faction.” The mistakes
of the Governments which followed were by no means the least of the
causes that re-formed it again into a “party” dangerous to the reigning
dynasty of Great Britain. There is no doubt that the injudicious
conduct of the statesmen of the early Georges, and even of the kings
themselves, did little to smooth matters. To have let small bickerings
and insurrections severely alone, by treating them as of no great
importance, might have rendered serious troubles less probable. Making
martyrs strengthened, rather than weakened the Jacobite cause; while,
on the other hand, the judicious conduct of the sovereign, later in the
century, destroyed for ever the hopes of seeing a Catholic James on the
British throne.
But one great result, as far as the growth of the army is concerned,
arose from these dynastic troubles. They led by degrees to a closer
union between the fighting materials of North and South Britain, and to
the formation of those Highland regiments whose glorious record must be
the pride of all sections of the army, whose colours they have so often
led to victory. The death of James II., and the recognition by France
of his son, the “Old Pretender,” as King of England, re-aroused the
enthusiasm of the followers of the Stuarts. They ceased to be a faction
once more, and hopes rose high when Queen Anne died. The accession of
George I. was marked by increasing discontent, and it is possible,
though hardly probable, that the Young Pretender may have been in
England at the time. But there was no open opposition to the Hanoverian
succession at first, though, owing to the severe measures taken against
the Jacobites in the north, measures which were looked on as contrary
to the Act of Union, many disturbances occurred there and elsewhere,
notably in Edinburgh, Oxfordshire, and Staffordshire. Little was
known, strange to say, of the Highland people. They were regarded in
many quarters as semi-savages, much as the Irish recruits for English
regiments were deemed when James II. was king. In 1705 the Lowland
Scottish Militia was assessed at 22,000 infantry and 2000 horse, while
the fighting strength of the Highlands was regarded as 40,000 men.
The Government hastily prepared for the outbreak of hostilities.
Regiments were raised and assembled, and the trained bands warned.
The standard of rebellion was soon raised, in Scotland by the Earl of
Mar, in Northumberland by the Earl of Derwentwater and others; and
some 10,000 men drew the sword for King James VIII., “our rightfull
and naturall King ... who is now coming to relieve us from all our
oppressions.” Notwithstanding Mar’s slowness, the revolt rapidly spread
in Scotland, where only some 2000 English troops under General Wightman
were assembled at Stirling, but the eastern counties of England were
watched by the newly-embodied battalions in dread of a descent by
France. Finally, the Duke of Argyll was appointed to the command of
the northern forces, which were to be reinforced, if required, by 6000
men from Holland; and among the troops assembled at Stirling were now
the ancestors of the Scots Greys, the 3rd, 4th, and 7th Hussars, the
6th Inniskilling Dragoons, and the 8th, 14th, and 21st battalions of
the line. There were also some volunteers from Glasgow, Paisley, and
Kilmarnock.
On the 13th November the opposing forces met at Sheriffmuir, near
Dunblane. The battle is only instructive as showing the Highlanders’
method of attack; in fact, they had at that time, like cavalry always
have, no real defensive. To defend was to take the offensive.
The formation of the Highland host long remained the same. Clans could
not be mixed. They fought side by side, each under its chieftain, who
stood in the centre, surrounded by his personal kinsmen, much as Harold
fought at Hastings with his housecarles. Then, often after silent
prayer, the plaids were thrown aside, and the charge was made. To this
there were five motions. First, to set the bonnet firmly on the head;
secondly, covered by the brass-studded target, to rush up to within
fifty yards; next, to fire the long-barrelled Spanish gun and drop it;
fourthly, to fire the steel pistol; and, lastly, to charge home with
dirk or claymore. The men were often arranged ten or twelve ranks deep.
The march and deployment of the troops on either side in this battle
was such as to place the left wings of both armies outflanking the
other. This gave Mar his chance, and he quickly took it. Ordering
the charge, he led the clan Maclean in person; and they, throwing
aside their plaids, fired a volley, dropped their muskets, and rushed
with cheers and yells on their opponents, claymore and target in
hand. Skilled in the use of these weapons, such a rush was for the
time irresistible. The bayonet thrust was met by the shield, and the
sword or dirk did the rest. The loss in such a case was terrible, the
wounded generally injured beyond recovery. And so the Jacobites swept
the enemy’s left clean off the field, but, like the Royalists sixty
years before, they did not know when to check pursuit, and turn the
defeat of one wing of an army into the rout of the whole. Yet there was
more discipline than usual in these irregulars, for they were little
more. Their first volley had been most steadily delivered, and they
were not “in the least discomposed by the musketry which the British
regiments opened on them in turn.” Meanwhile, on the other wing, Mar’s
troops had been defeated and routed by the combined attack of Argyll’s
cavalry on the flank and his infantry in front, and though the Macraes,
especially, fought with desperate obstinacy, the result here was
practically as decisive as had been the attack of the Earl of Mar. So
he fell back after the battle, leaving Argyll master of the field and
of the situation, and who remarked to an officer before the day closed
that--
“If it was na weel bobbit,
We’ll bob it again.”
But Mar was not the man to lead continuously a Highland host. Success
increased their fighting power--delay but weakened it; so that when
Argyll with some military wisdom at once took a simple defensive, Mar
feared to push the battle further, and his army fell back with the
prayer of at least one Scot, “Oh for one hour of Dundee!” The battle,
which is only noteworthy for the hard fighting of the Cameronians
against their fellow-countrymen, was theoretically “a draw,” but
the possession of the field and the spoil thereof rested with the
Hanoverian side. Soon the army of James began to melt away. The
Chevalier came to Scotland, but the affair of Preston in Lancashire
gave little encouragement for him to stay, and he returned to France.
The first attempt to restore James had signally failed, and while
Mar, attainted, died in exile at Aix la Chapelle, Lords Derwentwater
and Kenmure were beheaded, and the rest of the prisoners, from both
fields, were treated with the greatest barbarity. Still, this rather
inflamed than cowed the martial spirit of the north, for four years
later, the sentiment of revenge for cruelties unworthy even of the
days of the first Georges, led to reprisals. Spain had interested
herself in the Stuart cause, and treated the Chevalier as King of
Great Britain; while, oddly enough, France, being at war with Spain,
sided with King George. The Duke of Ormond headed the somewhat puerile
effort at invasion, which commenced with but 1500 Spaniards and Scots,
who, landing at Loch Alsh, encamped at Glenshiel; but these were to be
reinforced by a larger body under Ormond, which was, however, scattered
by a storm off Cape Finisterre. The isolated invaders received some
small reinforcement, including 400 Macgregors under Rob Roy, and took
up a strong position at the pass of Strachells. Against them marched
General Wightman once more, with some detachments of Dutch troops,
as well as companies of the 11th, 14th, and 15th line regiments; and
although the British force was repulsed, the Spaniards surrendered the
following day, and the Scots dispersed to their homes.
This second failure resulted in the departure of James from Madrid,
and the loss of Spanish help. But the two efforts had taught the
British Government a lesson. Two things were necessary to subdue these
turbulent Highlands, of whose inhabitants so little was known that
they were generally believed by many English people to be savages
and by some even cannibals. Roads were necessary to open the country
up to organised military movements, and the disarmament of the clans
was requisite to lessen the offensive power of their members. General
Wade, in 1724, was entrusted with this duty, and about this time
independent paid companies of Highlanders were formed, which, from the
sombre colour of their tartans, were called the “Black Watch,” and were
eventually formed into a regiment, numbered finally the 42nd.
To carry out his instructions, General Wade’s command (the 10th, 12th,
19th, and 21st Regiments) was reviewed by George I. on Salisbury Plain
in 1722, and marched to Inverness, where they joined the camp formed
by the 2nd Queen’s, commanded by Piercy Kirke. The 21st were quartered
in Aberdeenshire, but the remainder marched to Brahan Castle to disarm
the Mackenzies. No resistance was offered, but the whole thing was a
transparent fraud; for but 784 old weapons were given up, and even
then only with the stipulation that the companies of the Black Watch
should not be present. Finally, in all 2685 weapons were collected,
for which Wade calculated some £13,000 had been paid, “for broken
and useless arms which were hardly worth the expense of carriage.”
Meanwhile, the six Black Watch companies were detailed “to prevent the
Highlanders from returning to the use of arms, as well as to hinder
their committing depredations in the low country,” and for this purpose
were stationed as follows:--Lord Lovat, the passes between Loch Alsh
and Inverness; Colonel Grant, those from Ballindalloch to Dunkeld;
Sir Duncan Campbell, from Dunkeld to the Lorn Mountains; while the
remaining three companies were at Fort William, Kilcummin, and Ruthven.
Of course the best of the arms had been concealed and buried, to
reappear twenty years later, when the Young Pretender came. Probably
Wade guessed this, and was wise enough to close his eyes to what he
was not strong enough to prevent or enforce. But he improved the
communications of the country in an unostentatious way, so that a poem
of the time in rather Hibernian style says--
“If you’d seen those roads before they were made,
You’d lift up your hands and bless General Wade.”
One curious thing happened between 1725 and 1745. Two years short of
the last date, the newly formed regiment of the Black Watch mutinied.
The year 1745 saw the most serious as well as the last of the Jacobite
efforts, and on this occasion France had returned to her first love,
and posed for the last time as the friend of the Catholic dynasty of
Stuarts. The tinge of romance about “the ’45” would have had little
foundation if the Pretender of ’15 had taken part in the rising. He had
got old, and, what was worse, fat. Only his divine right could have
helped him through. But with his son it was different. He was young,
good-looking, and engaging; he was always most affable and accessible;
he was a brave if unfortunate princelet seeking to regain a throne.
He does not seem to have had any real strength of character, and
his end was pitiful; but he was in himself--and his cause was still
more--romantic, and he possessed both dash and courage.
So, taking advantage of the absence of the bulk of the British army
on the Continent, preparations were begun in 1743, when a French
expedition of 15,000 was assembled at Boulogne to make a diversion on
the south coast, while a landing of Stuart adherents was effected in
the north. But the attempt failed, and the fleet was driven back by a
storm.
In 1745 the attempt was repeated, and this time successfully; for
though the _Elizabeth_ frigate, convoying the _Doutelle_, in which the
prince was embarked, was driven back by the _Lion_ frigate of sixty
guns, after a most determined battle, he was enabled to debark at
Moidart, and establish a camp at Inverness. The loss of his convoy,
however, had deprived him, so wrote Marchant in his _History of the
Present Rebellion_, published two years later, of £400,000 sterling,
besides arms, ammunition, and twenty field guns, all of which would
have been of infinite value to him later, even if it had not materially
influenced, or at the least prolonged, the insurrection itself.
Sir John Cope, who commanded in Scotland, was not a man of much
quickness or resource; and the Jacobite song, “Hey, Johnny Cope, are
ye waukin’ yet,” alludes sarcastically to that fact. Stirling and
Edinburgh were garrisoned, it is true, and he had marched north to meet
the insurgent levies, but when the latter outflanked him and reached
Edinburgh, which surrendered at once (except the Castle garrison of
two companies of the 47th), he embarked at Aberdeen and landed again
near Dunbar. His total strength did not amount to more than 3000
men, all told, and among these were the 13th and 14th Light Dragoons,
two companies of the 6th Foot, five of the 44th, eight of the 47th,
the 46th, and Loudon’s Highlanders, with six guns manned by sailors
and volunteers. His position, near Prestonpans or Gladsmuir, when the
enemy came in sight, faced west and then south, and was fairly strong.
The right rested on Colonel Gardiner’s house--he commanded the 13th,
and fell in the battle--and the left on the Seton Manor House, while
in front was a marsh traversed by a ditch. Against this small and not
too confident army the prince had a heterogeneous half armed force
of some 5000 men, chiefly Highlanders,[24] without artillery and but
a few very irregular cavalry; and, hearing of the general’s landing,
he moved out at once from Edinburgh, where the Castle still held out,
to engage him. The first day was spent in mere manœuvring, but after
nightfall the prince decided on attacking at daybreak, and, guided by a
Mr. Robert Anderson, who knew the country, he marched in two columns in
sections of threes by obscure paths across the marsh, and finally over
an unguarded foot-bridge crossing the ditch already referred to, and
formed line of battle across Cope’s left flank. That general seemed in
no wise dismayed, and again changed front, while in his address to his
troops he referred to his opponents as being “a parcel of brutes,” and
“a despicable pack,” from whom “you can expect no booty.” He had not
experienced the nature of a Highland charge.
The Scottish army was formed in two lines, and it is not clear in this
instance that any firing was resorted to, as was often the case; but
the fury of the onslaught was such as at once to destroy the morale
of both the artillery and cavalry, who were on the flanks and fled in
disorder from the field, leaving the infantry isolated. But though
they held their ground for a while, they were assailed after their
first volley before they could reload, and were taken prisoners,
slain, or dispersed. All the colours, the guns, the military chest,
1500 prisoners, besides officers, and baggage, were the prizes of the
victors, and while 400 were slain, only 175 infantry soldiers escaped;
and this with a total loss of 110 killed and wounded on the opposite
side. Practically, the victory gave the whole of Scotland into Jacobite
hands, and the prince returned to Edinburgh, and wasted his time in
continuing the siege of the Castle.
The delay was turned to full account by the English Government. Ill
luck had followed the Stuart cause from its outset, and was to continue
till the end; even success in battle seemed to bear but little fruit.
Regiments were recalled from Flanders, though many were reduced to
mere skeletons. Thus, when the king asked where the rest of the 3rd
Dragoons were, he was told by their colonel, “I believe the residue is
at Dettingen.” But an army was formed by Marshal Stair, and reviewed by
the king on Finchley Common; another, under Wade, was in Yorkshire; and
a third, under Cumberland, lay at Lichfield.
Thus, when in November the Jacobite force moved into England, and
received no adherents as they had hoped to, and might have had if they
had started earlier before the Government could prepare for defence, it
had only taken Carlisle and reached Derby when the above armies were
ready to co-operate and check it.
So the prince turned back, to find that in Scotland the Whig clans had
risen, the west was in arms, and Edinburgh had assembled a force of
which Cope’s refugees were the nucleus.
The command of the sea in this as in all other cases was of the highest
value to one of the combatants. Especially in those days when sea
travel was quicker and more certain than land.
The retreat was only molested by the English dragoons at Penrith, for
the infantry could advance but slowly owing to the execrable nature of
the roads and the inclement season of the year, and the prince moved
to Stirling. The discipline of the small army there was excellent,
its behaviour to the people was at all times better and more gentle
than that of their adversaries, while the “orders” are concise and
soldierlike. Hawley, from Edinburgh, with the 1st Royals, 3rd Buffs,
4th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 27th, 34th, 37th, 48th,[25] and 52nd Regiments,
the 7th, 10th, and 14th Dragoons, and some local volunteers, was the
first to attack it. This he did at Falkirk, but, making the common
mistake of undervaluing the enemy, he was defeated, and retired in some
disorder to Edinburgh, with the loss of his guns, five colours, tents,
stores, and camp equipage. Thus a second English general had failed to
defeat the Scottish Jacobites.
The Duke of Cumberland was therefore despatched to Scotland, with
Major James Wolfe, of the 20th, as aide-de-camp, and met the prince at
Culloden, where he accepted battle with a weak and ill-provided army
against one strong in cavalry and artillery, the two arms in which
he was notoriously deficient. The story of that dismal battle is one
of 10,000 against 4000, of well-fed against fasting men, of cruelty
after the fight so revolting that the very names of all concerned
in it should be held in execration by every honest man. Wholesale,
cold-blooded butchery of wounded and prisoners, the vilest treatment
of women, who were then turned naked into the snow to die; these are
stories that stain the name of a general who well merited the name
he earned. To his credit be it said, however, Wolfe refused to take
part in these barbarities, and he must have felt with pride afterwards
that because of his conduct “it was remarked that the recusant officer
declined visibly in the favour and confidence of his commander.” It
was the last real battle that was fought on British land, and the only
point worthy of remembrance is the gallantry of the 4th Foot, in whose
ranks “there was not a bayonet that was not either bloody or bent.”
It pointed out for the last time the curious clannish pride which
characterised the Highland people, for the three Macdonald regiments,
who had been placed on the left rather than the right, a post of honour
they claimed as theirs since the days of Bruce, for the gallantry of
their forefathers at Bannockburn, refused to fight, or even to follow
their chieftain Keppoch, who fell, pierced with musket balls.
With Culloden the last hopes of the Jacobite “faction”--for it had
again become one now--died. Whatever hold, up to 1745, the Stuart
“idea” may have had on a section of the people, the wisest of them
saw that it was hopeless, and only the hopeful enthusiasts still had
dreams. It is difficult to know in these days whether there ever really
was a Jacobite party after “the ’45.” The idea seems to have died
in despair. Of course there were feeble and hysterical conspiracies
like the, possibly legendary, one of the young Scot who plotted the
assassination of the royal family; and the studied ignorance of Sir
Robert Walpole, who kept his eyes shut to these last faint flashes of
the fire of the cause, may have deepened the hopefulness of those who
still dreamed of “another opportunity,” as an old rebel of the name of
Scott did. There was one exception, in the cruel treatment and death
of Dr. Cameron about 1750 or 1751; but there may be some justification
for his execution, as he was no doubt a “go-between” the Pretender
in France and the few left faithful to him in the north. The Young
Pretender, too, seems to have been as blind as his adherents. Dr. King,
in his _Anecdotes of His Own Time_, states that in 1750 the prince
was in London; but he gives prominence to the undoubted fact that the
real destruction of the party was due to the decadence, physically and
morally, of the last real aspirant to the throne, and to the dread
that his mistress--Walkinshaw--was a paid spy of the house of Hanover,
her sister being housekeeper at Leicester House. Well might one of the
party ask this hopeless scion of a hopeless house, when endeavouring
to separate him from this woman, “What has your family done, sir, thus
to draw down the vengeance of Heaven on every branch of it for so many
ages?” The answer is simple enough. They had done little but bad. Their
kingship was only honourable with those who believed that any sovereign
was divinely appointed. The last of the Stuarts more than proved the
worthlessness of the whole race as far as the English throne was
concerned. Whether, as Scott romantically suggests in _Redgauntlet_,
the Young Pretender ever returned to Great Britain about 1765, is
improbable. Even if he did, his cause was lost, and that by his own
fault. What scion of the house of Stuart but so fell? It is not that
the early members of the house of Hanover were really great or good,
but it was because the last of the house of Stuart were irretrievably
mean and bad that the embers of the Civil War remained such, and never
after 1745 burst into a serious flame.
But while the house of Stuart was declining from mere corruption and
decay, the almost alien house of Hanover was slowly and securely
winning its way into English sympathies. This was natural enough as
the successive sovereigns became more English in their feelings and
their speech. Until the early Guelphs could speak freely and fully
the language of the nation over which they were called to rule, until
they were English born and had English ideas, there was, no doubt,
ground for a certain amount of antagonism. Thackeray’s _Four Georges_
proves up to the hilt how slow these sovereigns were in learning the
very patent fact that they must become English and cease to be German
to get a firm hold on our insular mind. And this they did eventually.
But, up to the ’45, their rule, which was still very foreign for years
after that date, was rather endured as a necessity than loved, their
personality regarded as alien rather than English. The one thing that
made the nation, up to the first half of the eighteenth century, accept
with little complaint, or hostility, princes who still were far too
German to please the tastes of English-speaking peoples, was their own
honesty of purpose and their personal courage and bravery. The house
of Guelph lost nothing by actual want of success in the foreign wars
about the time of the really serious Jacobite rising. Englishmen like
pluck, and don’t mind a beating, provided good men do their best. This,
then, is the story, as far as the army is concerned, of Dettingen and
Fontenoy. They were not successes, certainly, but neither king nor
soldier had shown want of the good old fighting spirit of Blenheim and
Malplaquet. At the worst it was a healthy time, and showed that our
mere bull-dog courage was not by itself the only thing by which battles
are won.
The causes of the war in which an English reigning sovereign led an
army in the field were the guarantee of Great Britain, France, and
other States, of the succession of Maria Theresa to the throne of the
German Empire, known as the “Pragmatic Sanction,” and the attack upon
Silesia by Frederick of Prussia. From this action France and Bavaria
were drawn into the struggle against the Empress, and George II.,
possibly fearing the preponderating growth of his neighbour Prussia
as a menace to his Hanoverian dominions, assembled a force of Danes,
Hessians, Hanoverians, and British, under the Earl of Stair, numbering
forty-four battalions, twenty of which were British, with fifty-three
squadrons. This army, about 35,000 strong, met the French, some
25,000 in number, and composed of twenty-four battalions, and thirty
squadrons, in position on the left bank of the Maine. The Allies were
at Aschaffenburg and Klein Ostheim, and prepared to march through
Dettingen on the right bank to join with a Hessian force at Hanau.
Noailles, who commanded the French army, forming a _tête du pont_ at
Selegenstadt on his left, and massing the centre and right opposite
Aschaffenburg, crossed by his left to head the allies off. Thus when
the battle began, both held positions at right angles to the Maine,
the British left and the French right respectively resting on the
stream. The offensive was continued by the French, and led to a wild
and injudicious advance of the right wing through and beyond Dettingen,
a movement contrary to what the general commanding, who now wished to
assume the defensive, intended, so that finally the French were beaten
and driven across the stream. Except for incidents in the battle it has
few points of interest.
The regiments engaged were the Life Guards and Blues; the 1st and 7th
Dragoons Guards; the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Dragoons; and the 3rd, 4th, and
7th Light Dragoons, now classed as Hussars. Of the infantry the 3rd,
8th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 20th, 21st, 23rd, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, and 37th
Regiments were engaged. The present Devonshire Regiment, from their
heavy losses here, at Ostend, and later on at Salamanca, was long
known, it is said, as the “Bloody Eleventh”; and the old 30th acquired
the name of the “Young Buffs,” from their facings in this battle,
which caused the king to exclaim, “Well done, old Buffs,” and on being
reminded of his mistake, and told it was the 31st, and not the 3rd,
replied, “Well done, then, _Young_ Buffs.” Of the 37th it is related
that a trooper of the 7th Dragoon Guards, who was charged afterwards
with being a deserter during the battle, proved that he had fought
on foot with the regiment, applying to Lieutenant Izzard for arms,
and, behaving with great gallantry, was afterwards rewarded with a
commission in the “Royal Welsh.”
The Greys had captured the white standard of the French Household
troops, and the 1st Royals took the colours of the Black Musketeers.
The king behaved with the greatest courage and coolness. His coolness
under fire attracted the notice of the Duke d’Arenberg, who thought
him “the bravest man he ever saw.” He headed the second line in
person. Thackeray, no great admirer of the Georges, thus writes of
him: “Whenever we hear of dapper George at war, it is certain that he
demeaned himself like a little man of valour. At Dettingen his horse
ran away with him, and with difficulty was stopped from carrying him
into the enemy’s lines. The king, dismounting from his fiery quadruped,
said bravely, ‘Now I know I shall not run away,’ and placed himself
at the head of the foot, drew his sword, brandishing it at the whole
of the French army, and calling out to his own men to come on, in bad
English, but with the most famous pluck and spirit.” He was very far
from a coward, therefore, this last British king who personally took
part in battle; and he exposed himself so freely that he was nearly
taken prisoner, and was rescued by the 22nd Regiment of the line, which
ever after wear oak-leaves on their headdress on Dettingen Day. Such
courage is contagious, and one is not surprised to find Lord Crawford
of the Life Guards shouting with battle enthusiasm, when attacked
in front and flank, “Never mind, my boys, this is fine diversion.”
The loss, however, was heavy, and few practical results followed the
victory. The junction with the Hessians was formed at Hanau, and there,
as the king refused to turn and attack the French again, the Earl of
Stair resigned his command and returned to England, partly because of
this refusal, and partly perhaps (as officers in William III.’s army
had felt as regards the Dutch) because he resented the favour too often
shown to German over English commanders.
By 1745 the British contingent had been further strengthened by the
addition of the 34th and 42nd Regiments up to about 53,000 men, or
forty-six battalions, ninety squadrons and ninety guns, and then the
Duke of Cumberland decided on attempting to raise the siege of Tournay,
which was being conducted by Marshal Saxe, and suffered a severe defeat.
The French position was extremely strong, and Barri wood on the left,
Fontenoy in the centre, and St. Antoine on the river on the right
were most carefully fortified and entrenched and defended by 260
guns. Here it was, as the attack developed, the story is told of the
meeting of the British and French Guards, when the former, saluting
with raised hats, called to their opponents, “Gentlemen of the French
Guards, fire!” The Highlanders behaved with extraordinary courage in
this their first great foreign battle, and one man, who had killed
nine Frenchmen, was in the act of cutting down the tenth when a shot
carried his sword-arm off. The carnage was extreme, yet the stubborn
soldiery would not give way even with the cross fire of musketry and
case-shot at short range; and at one moment, when St. Antoine was
carried, matters looked serious for Marshal Saxe. But that terrible
Irish Brigade, seven battalions strong, were now brought into the
fight. The fierce battle-cry of “Remember Limerick and Saxon faith”
showed that past evils were not forgotten, and added racial antipathy
to natural courage. The broken, wearied troops were too much shaken to
meet so fierce a charge of quite fresh men; and hence the Irish counter
attack fully succeeded, and the British retired sullenly, beaten. The
Allies had lost 21,000 men, killed and wounded, against 8000 of their
adversaries; but, outnumbered and exhausted as the British were, they
accounted for one-third of the men and one-fourth of the officers of
the Irish Brigade.
Naturally King George was disturbed by so serious a defeat; and
naturally, perhaps, he might have felt and said, in thinking of the
Irish at Fontenoy, “Cursed be the laws which deprive me of such
subjects!” On the other hand, the exultation felt by the exiled Irish
can equally well be understood, as well as the spirit that induced the
following lines of the time:--
“The English strove with desperate strength; they rallied, staggered,
fled:
The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead.
Across the plain, and far away, passed on that hideous wreck,
While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes the Irish stand--the field is lost and won!”
Little occurred after the battle until the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
brought hostilities to a conclusion.
Few changes had taken place in the armament of the troops in these
days. The hand grenade was still in use, as a picture of a grenadier of
the Foot Guards, dated 1745, shows; and officers, up to 1759, carried
either the spontoon or a “light fusil” as part of their equipment, with
the sash worn over the left shoulder as at present. Non-commissioned
officers still carried the halberd.
The three-cornered hat was largely replaced by the sugar-loaf-shaped
“Kevenhuller” hat; and, in addition to the bright-barrelled musket
and bayonet, the privates carried a short sword. Wigs were abolished,
and long gaiters covered the leg to the knee, while the coats were
shortened to a sort of turned-back swallow-tail, in imitation of the
Prussian uniform.
[Illustration: _Private 24^{th} Reg^{t}. 1751._]
Body armour had been reduced to a mere relic of defence in the
“duty gorget”--a small plate of brass with the Royal Arms, which
was suspended by a piece of black ribbon from the neck by officers
“on duty”; a custom that obtained up to 1830. There had been no
material change in tactics; but the Royal Artillery had become more
fully organised in four companies, the uniform being a loose, long,
heavily-cuffed blue cloth coat with red facings. The Royal Military
Academy, for the education of artillery officers, was also established
about 1741, and the “Horse Guards” as an institution about 1750.
The Black Watch, however, the first of the new Highland regiments, was
permitted, for some time, to carry a dirk, pistols, and round target.
Medals were issued after Culloden, and regimental numbers appeared on
the coat buttons about 1767.
Tactics and the “order of battle” were slow in changing, but the
growing preponderance of infantry, now organised in three ranks only,
was becoming more evident after Dettingen and Fontenoy. Battles were
fought on more modern lines, and infantry bore the brunt; while the
cavalry at Dettingen had at last discovered its proper rôle, and
behaved with the greatest gallantry, in _not_ leading the main attack
as at Blenheim, but in meeting its own opposing arm and keeping it in
check, and finally in converting the French retreat across the river
into very nearly a rout.
The artillery still lacked mobility, and were not vigorously handled,
with the exception of some Hanoverian batteries, which pushed up to
support the final advance of the infantry, and opened fire on the
French flank. So at Fontenoy the infantry had most to do. This was the
beginnings of the tactics of the future.
Thus by 1755, or thereabout, the army had been steadily increasing.
After the death of Marlborough, the 9th and 10th Dragoons and the 40th
and 41st Regiments of infantry came on the permanent establishment,
chiefly because of the Jacobite rising of 1715; the 10th, 11th, 12th,
13th, and 14th Regiments of cavalry also date from the same period;
the 42nd had been formed from the separate Highland companies into the
“Black Watch,” so called from the sombre colour of their tartans; and
soon followed the 43rd, 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th of the line.
The 49th, at first known as the 63rd Americans, dates from 1743.
But still the old jealousy of, and objection to, a large standing army
was always recrudescing. On the accession of George II., the cadres
only amounted to 17,760 men; and even this small body Mr. Pulteney,
M.P., and “downright” Shippen in the House of Commons wished to be
reduced to 12,000! The threat of war in 1739 stopped this; but the
army was still at the mercy of political partisans, as the Duke of
Argyll in his masterly attack on Sir Robert Walpole in the House of
Lords conclusively proves. Another hundred years, too, had to pass by
before “political services ceased to form the foundation of a claim for
military preferment.”
Flogging, long recognised, and rattan punishment, copied, like the
absurd uniform and rigid drill, from much-admired Prussia, now became a
permanently recognised institution, and so remained until 1878. It is
always a wonder that a free country, such as England, ever permitted
the correctional system of the crudest of all military despotisms, that
of the so-called Frederick the Great, to live so long. But in this, as
in uniform and drill, our army has always been more of a copyist of
foreign methods than an originator.