[Sidenote: 1702-1713]
Although the narrative of the War of the Spanish Succession has
not infrequently been interrupted in order to give the reader an
occasional glimpse of the progress and difficulties of the military
administration at home, yet much has been of necessity omitted,
lest the strand, enwoven of too many and too distinct threads,
should snap with the burden of its own weight and unravel itself
into an inextricable tangle. I propose therefore at this point
to summarise the orders, regulations, and enactments of the War
Office and of the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Anne
to the Peace of Utrecht, so as, if possible, to convey some notion
of the legacies, other than those of glory and prestige, that were
bequeathed to the Army by this long and exhausting war.
The reader will, I think, have gathered at least that the extension
of operations and the consequent increase of the British forces
during the war was almost portentously rapid. A few figures will
make this more apparent. In 1702 and 1703 Flanders was practically
the only scene of active operations, the raid on Cadiz being of
too short duration and too little account to be worthy of serious
mention. In both of these years the British troops with Marlborough
were set down at eighteen thousand men. In 1704 to 1706 they
rose to twenty-two thousand, and in 1708 to 1709 to twenty-five
thousand men, reverting once again to twenty-two thousand from 1711
to 1712. Concurrently with the first increase of 1704 came the
first despatch of eight thousand troops to the Peninsula, rising
to nine thousand in 1705, ten thousand in 1706, and twenty-six
thousand[380] from 1707 to 1709, relapsing between 1710 and 1712
to rather over twenty thousand. The total number of forces borne
on the list of the British Army at its greatest was six troops of
Household Cavalry, eleven regiments of horse, sixteen of dragoons,
and seventy-five of foot, comprehending in all seventy-nine
battalions.[381] The nominal war strength of a battalion in
Flanders was, as a rule, in round numbers nine hundred and forty
of all ranks, in the Peninsula from seven hundred and fifty to
eight hundred and eighty, a diversity of establishments which gave
rise to much trouble and confusion. It would not be safe to reckon
the British infantry at any period during the war as exceeding
fifty thousand men. The regiments of dragoons again varied from a
normal strength of four hundred to four hundred and fifty, rising
in occasional instances to six hundred; but they cannot reasonably
be calculated at a higher figure than six thousand men. The
regiments of horse were subject to similar variations, but their
total strength, even including the six strong troops of Household
Cavalry, cannot be counted as more than seven thousand men. There
then remains the artillery, of which, from want of data as well
as from vagueness of organisation, it is impossible to make any
accurate calculation. Speaking generally, the highest strength
actually attained by British troops at home and abroad during the
war may be set down at seventy thousand men.[382]
The defect that will seem most flagrant, according to modern
ideas, in the scheme above sketched is the multiplicity of distinct
units that go to make up so small a force. The French had long
abandoned the system of single battalions, and indeed given to
their regiments the name of brigades. In the British Army the
Guards and the Royal Scots alone had two battalions; and though
we know by actual information that, in the case of the former,
the battalions at home were used to feed those abroad, yet it is
indubitable that both battalions of the Royal Scots took the field
and kept it from beginning to end of the war. For this, however,
the principles that then governed the conduct of a war and the
maintenance of an army sufficiently account. The year was divided
for military purposes into two parts--the campaigning season,
which lasted roughly from the 1st of April to the 1st of October,
and the recruiting season, which covered the months that remained
over. Directly the campaign was ended and the troops distributed
into winter quarters, a sufficient number of officers returned
home to raise for each regiment the recruits that were needed. In
strictness no officer enlisted a man except for his own corps; and
it was only occasionally that a regiment, having enlisted more
recruits than were required for its own wants, transferred its
superabundance to another.
But apart from this, we find throughout the reign of Queen Anne
a resolute and healthy opposition to the principle of completing
one regiment by drafts from another. At the beginning of the war
the ranks of the Army were, thanks to the wanton imbecility of
the House of Commons, so empty that it was impossible to send any
appreciable number of regiments abroad without depletion of those
that were left at home. As an exceptional favour therefore the
first troops sent to Spain and to the West Indies were completed
by drafts; but at that point the practice was checked.[383]
Marlborough had early set his face against so vicious a system, and
although once, under pressure of orders from the Queen herself, he
directed it to be enforced, yet it is sufficiently clear from his
language and from his ready deference to the protest of the officer
concerned, that he fully recognised the magnitude of its evil.[384]
After the disaster of Almanza the War Office appears to have been
urged in many quarters to resort to drafting, but St. John told the
House of Commons outright that the practice had been found ruinous
to the service, prejudicial alike to the corps that furnished and
that received the draft. As Marlborough's influence declined, the
mischievous system seems to have been revived, and although in
more than one case colonels flatly declined to part with their
men,[385] yet at the close of the war we find garrisons denuded by
drafts to an extent that was positively dangerous.[386] The same
objectionable practice, as is well known, is still rampant among
us; would that the authority of Marlborough could help to break it
down.
There remains the question why, instead of raising new regiments,
the authorities did not raise additional battalions to existing
regiments? The reply is that they doubtless knew their own
business, and adopted the best plan that lay open to them.
Englishmen have a passion for independent command. To this day, as
the history of the volunteers shows, there are many men who, though
unwilling to serve in any existing corps, would cheerfully expend
ten times the care, trouble, and expense on a regiment, or even on
a troop or company, of their own. It must be remembered, too, that
a regiment in those days was not only a command but a property,
that it afforded to officers opportunities for good and for evil
such as are now undreamed of, that, lastly, it was in the vast
majority of cases called by its colonel's name.
Let us now, before examining the measures taken for the supply
of recruits, glance briefly at the principal centres and causes
of consumption and of demand. The inquiry must not be considered
superfluous, for the primary force in the maintenance of a
voluntary army is attraction, and it is only after full knowledge
of the elements of repulsion which work counter to it that the
failure of the attractive force, and the necessity for substituting
coercion in its place, can be rightly understood. The theatres
of war claim first attention, and of these Flanders claims the
precedence. It is well known that sickness or fatigue are more
destructive in war than bullet and sword, and Marlborough's
campaigns can have been no exception to the rule. Yet it is
remarkable that the British were never so much thinned as after the
campaign of Blenheim, wherein they bore the brunt of two severe
actions. The march to the Danube was of course severe, but the men
stood it well; nor do we hear of extraordinary sickness on the
return march. All that we know is that when the British regiments
reached the Rhine they were too weak to be fit for further work.
We never hear the like in subsequent campaigns, in spite of severe
marching and sieges. Yet the capture of one of Vauban's fortresses
was always a long and murderous piece of work, while, if the
trenches were flooded by heavy rain or the natural oozing of marshy
ground, an epidemic of dysentery was sure to follow. We have no
returns of the losses from sickness in Flanders, but it is certain
that the operations in that field were by no means the most deadly
to the troops, nor the most exhausting to England. This must be
ascribed almost entirely to the care and forethought of the great
Duke. Marlborough knew the peculiar weaknesses as well as the
peculiar value of his own countrymen, and was careful to keep them
always well fed. In the second place, and this was most important,
the theatre of war was but a few hours distant from England, so
that a force once fairly set on foot could be maintained with
comparative ease. Recruits, too, did not feel that they were
going to another part of the world, and would never return home.
Moreover, a bounty had been granted for Blenheim, there was some
prospect of plunder,[387] and there was the glory of marching to
certain victory with Corporal John.
It was far otherwise in the Peninsula. There a campaign was broken
not only by winter-quarters, but also by summer-quarters in the
hot months of July and August. Again, the voyage to Lisbon, and
still more to Catalonia, to say nothing of the risk of storm and
shipwreck, occupied days and weeks, whereas the passage to Flanders
was reckoned by hours. The transport-service, too, had a bad name.
Although after 1702 the official complaints of bad and insufficient
food ceased, yet the mortality on board the troop-ships sent to
the Peninsula shows that the sickness and misery must have been
appalling. The reinforcements despatched to Lisbon in the summer
of 1706 with a total strength of eight thousand men were reduced
to little more than half of their numbers when they landed in
Valencia in February 1707. They had suffered from bad weather
and long confinement, it is true, but theirs was no exceptional
case.[388] In 1710, of a detachment of three hundred men that
were landed, only a hundred ever reached their regiments.[389]
In 1711 five weak regiments lost sixty men dead, and two hundred
disabled from sickness in a voyage of ten days.[390] A private of
the First Guards summed up his experience of a month in a transport
as "continual destruction in the foretop, the pox above board, the
plague between decks, hell in the forecastle, and the devil at the
helm."[391]
This was one great discouragement to recruits; and others became
quickly known to them. The Peninsula was ill-supplied, transport
was difficult, the quarters of the troops were very unhealthy,
and the Portuguese unfriendly even to brutality.[392] Altogether,
though steel and lead played their part in the destruction of the
British in the Peninsula, the havoc that they wrought was trifling
compared with that of privation and disease. Prisoners of course
were never lost for long, as Marlborough had always abundance
of French to give in exchange for them; but in spite of this,
the waste in Portugal and Spain was terrible, and the service
proportionately unpopular.
So much for the two theatres of war; but the sphere of foreign
service was not bounded by these. New York, Bermuda, and
Newfoundland each possessed a small garrison; and the West Indies,
as we have seen, claimed from four to six battalions. This colonial
service was undoubtedly the most unpopular of all. When the
single company that defended Newfoundland left England in 1701,
their destination was carefully concealed from the men lest they
should desert. The most hardened criminal could hope for pardon
if he enlisted for Jamaica. Once shipped off to the West Indies,
the men seem to have been totally forgotten. No proper provision
was made for paying them; colonels who cared for their men were
compelled to borrow money to save them from starvation; colonels
who did not, came home, together with many of their officers, and
left the men to shift for themselves.[393] Clothing, again, was
entirely overlooked. The troops in Jamaica were reduced almost
to nakedness; and when finally their clothing, already two years
overdue, was ready for them, it was delayed by a piece of bungling
such as could only have been perpetrated by the War Office.[394]
Another great difficulty was that, there being no regular system of
reliefs, colonels never knew whether to clothe their men for a hot
or a temperate climate. Recruits were consequently most difficult
to obtain, although owing to the unhealthiness of the climate
they were in great request. The result was that old men and boys
were sent across the Atlantic only to be at once discharged, at
great pecuniary loss, by the officers, who were ashamed to admit
creatures of such miserable appearance into their companies.[395]
Again, during the course of the war, two new acquisitions demanded
garrisons of three or four battalions apiece. Minorca appears to
have given no very serious trouble; but Gibraltar having been
reduced virtually to ruins by the siege was, owing to the lack of
proper habitations, a hot-bed of sickness. The authorities seem
in particular to have neglected the garrison of Gibraltar, though
they took considerable pains for the fortification of the Rock. In
1706 more than half of the garrison was disabled through disease
brought on by exposure,[396] yet it was not until four years later
that orders were given for the construction of barracks,[397]
while even in 1711 the men were obliged to burn their own miserable
quarters from want of fuel.[398]
These lapses in countries beyond sea might possibly find some
excuse in the plea of inexperience, though this should not
be admitted in a country which for nearly four centuries had
continually sent expeditions across the Channel, and for more than
two centuries across the Atlantic also. Yet there were similar
faults at home which show almost incredible thoughtlessness and
neglect. Thus in 1709 many soldiers at Portsmouth perished from
want of fire and candle,[399] while the garrison of Upnor Castle
was required to supply a detachment of guards in the marshes three
miles from any house or shelter, where the men on duty stood up to
their knees in water.[400] No one had thought that they might want
a guard-room or at least tents. Again, it was not until a ship's
load of men invalided from Portugal had been turned adrift in the
streets of Penrhyn, penniless and reduced to beg for charity, that
any provision was made for the sick and wounded. Then at last, in
the fourth campaign of the war, commissioners were appointed to
make them their special care. So far no one had been responsible
for them, the duty having been thrust provisionally upon the
commissioners of transport.[401] In a word, no forethought nor
care was to be found beyond the reach of Marlborough's own hand;
all administration on the side of the War Office, even under the
secretaryship of so able a man as Henry St. John, was marked by
blindness and incompetence.
The ground being now cleared, and the principal obstacles in the
way of recruiting being indicated, it is time to examine the means
employed by Parliament to overcome them. We may properly confine
ourselves to England, since she with her population of five and a
quarter millions was necessarily the main source for the supply
of men. Ireland was not yet the recruiting-ground that she became
at a later day, for the simple reason that none but Protestants
could be enlisted. She had, however, her five distinctly national
regiments,[402] a small proportion which enabled her to provide a
dozen or fifteen more in the course of the war. Protestant Ireland,
in fact, still under the spell of William of Orange, played her
part very fully and generously during these years. Scotland, as
became a country of great military traditions, maintained a larger
number of national regiments than her sister,[403] but being thinly
populated, inaccessible in many districts and already engaged to
furnish troops to the Dutch service, was unable to provide more
than three additional battalions. The greatest stress therefore
fell, and fell rightly, upon England.
Transporting ourselves therefore for a moment to the opening of the
war, when the Army was still smarting under its shameful treatment
by Parliament after the Peace of Ryswick, we find without surprise
that the strain of providing recruits made itself felt very early.
The Mutiny Act of 1703 shows this by a clause empowering the Queen
to order the delivery from gaol of capital offenders who had
been pardoned on condition of enlistment. This enactment was of
course something like a reversion to the methods of Elizabeth; but
although this class of recruit does not sound desirable, yet the
competition for it was so keen that a regular roster was kept to
ensure that every regiment should profit by the windfall in its
turn.[404] It must be remembered that many a man was then condemned
to death who would now be released under the First Offenders'
Act; but apart from this, criminals were welcome to the recruiting
officer, first, because they cost nothing, and secondly, because
they were often men of fine physique.[405] In the later years of
the war the sweepings of the gaols were in particular request, and
the multiplication of petitions from the condemned shows that the
fact was appreciated within the walls of Newgate.
In the session of 1703-4 an Act, for which there was a precedent in
the days of King William, was passed to provide for the discharge
of all insolvent debtors from prison, who should serve or procure
another to serve in the fleet or Army. This probably brought some
useful young recruits who enlisted to procure the release of their
fathers; and there is evidence that the bankrupt was as much sought
after by recruiting officers as the sheep-stealer. Another most
important Act of the same session was the first of a long series of
annual Recruiting Acts. Under this, a bounty of one pound[406] was
offered for volunteers; and justices of the peace were empowered to
levy as recruits all able-bodied men who had no visible employment
or means of subsistence, and to employ the officers of borough
and parish for the purpose. For each such recruit a bounty of
ten shillings[407] was allowed for himself as well as a fee of
ten shillings to the parish officer. To remove any temptation
to malpractice, no officer of the regular Army was permitted to
sit as a justice under the Act; and all voters were specially
exempted from its operation, the possession of the franchise being
apparently considered, as it probably was, a sufficiently visible
means of subsistence.
This latter measure brought with it a considerable crop of
abuses. In the very next session it was found necessary to give
special protection to harvest-labourers, many having been already
impressed, while many more had hidden themselves from fear of
impressment. But this was by no means all. Voters occasionally
shared the fate of their unenfranchised brethren, and required
hasty deliverance with many apologies to the member for their
borough.[408] The high bounty again gave a stimulus to wrongful
impressment, fraudulent enlistment, and desertion. It was found
necessary after a few months to restrain the zeal of parish
officers, who enlisted men that were already soldiers. Again, there
were recruiting-officers who would discharge the recruits brought
to them for a pecuniary consideration, an occurrence which though
not common was not unknown. Finally, recruits would occasionally
try to break away in a body, which led to desperate fighting and to
awkward complications. In one instance a large number of recruits
made so determined an attempt to overpower the guard and escape
that they were not quelled until two of them had been actually
slain. The guard, who thought with justice that they had done no
more than their duty, then found themselves threatened with an
indictment for murder; and the War Office was obliged to call in
the Attorney-General to advise how they should be protected.[409]
Turbulent scenes with the rural population over the arrest of
deserters and the impressment of idle fellows were by no means
infrequent. We have, for instance, accounts of the whole town of
Exminster turning out with flails and pitchforks against an officer
who claimed a deserter, and of the mob of Abergavenny, mad for the
rescue of an impressed recruit, driving the officers from house to
house, and compelling them to fire in self-defence.[410]
After the campaign of Blenheim, the heavy losses in the field,
and the resolution to send a large force to the Peninsula drove
the military authorities to desperate straits. Suggestions of
course came in from various quarters; among them a proposal from a
gentleman of Amsterdam that every one who had two or more lacqueys
should send one into the Army, the writer having observed that
members of Parliament "abounded in that sort of person."[411]
But the stress of the situation is shown by the fact that a Bill
was actually introduced to compel every parish and corporation
to furnish a certain number of recruits, though it was presently
dropped as being an imitation from the French and unfit for a free
country.[412] The authorities therefore contented themselves by
ordering stricter enforcement of the Recruiting Act, and apparently
with success.[413] During the next two years there was no change
in the Act, excepting the addition, in 1706, of a penalty of five
pounds against parochial officers who should neglect to execute
it. But in 1707 the measure showed signs of failing, and was
hastily patched up by increasing the bounty to two pounds[414]
for volunteers enlisting during the recruiting season, and to one
pound for such as enlisted after the campaign had been opened. Some
effort was also made to systematize the power granted by the Act by
convening regular meetings of justices at stated times and places.
The close of the year, however, found the Commons face to face with
the disaster of Almanza, and with urgent need for close upon twenty
thousand recruits. The Recruiting Act now assumed a new and drastic
form. The authority to impress men of no employment was transferred
from the justices to the commissioners of the land-tax, with full
powers to employ the parochial officers. The penalty on these
officers for neglect of duty was increased to ten pounds, while for
diligent execution of the same a reward of one pound was promised
them for every recruit, as well as sixpence a day for the expense
of keeping him until he should be made over to his regiment.
The parish likewise received three pounds for every man thus
recruited, in order to quicken its zeal against the idle. Finally,
as an entire novelty, borrowed be it noted from the French,[415]
volunteers were enlisted at the same high rate of bounty for a
term of three years, at the close of which they were entitled to
claim their discharge. Great results were evidently expected from
these provisions, for the standard of height for recruits was still
maintained at five feet five inches,[416] men below that stature
being accepted only for marines. So from this year until the close
of the war it is possible to study the first trial of short service
in England.
Unfortunately abuses seemed only to multiply under the new Act. The
campaign of Oudenarde, prolonged as it was into December, drained
Marlborough's army heavily, and the spring of 1709 found the forces
in want of yet another fifteen thousand recruits. Moreover, from
the moment when Marlborough's power began to decline the tone of
the Army at home began to sink. The justices again were jealous
of the commissioners of land-tax, and in some instances openly
abused and reproached them.[417] In at least one case they were
found conniving with officers to accept money for the discharge
of impressed men.[418] Officers on their side also began to
misbehave, withholding the bounty from recruits and subjecting
them to the gantlope if they complained, and in some instances not
only withholding the bounty but demanding large bribes for their
discharge.[419] As the war continued, matters grew worse and worse.
Sham press-gangs established themselves with the object of levying
blackmail;[420] and as a climax Army and Navy began to fight for
the possession of impressed men.
At the opening of 1711 the first batch of men enlisted for three
years completed their term, but found to their surprise that
their discharge did not come to them automatically, as they had
expected. The officers had no instructions. They were unwilling
too to part with the sixty best soldiers in each regiment, for
such these men of short service had proved to be, and could only
promise to let them go as soon as orders should arrive from home.
Harley's Secretary-at-War, with the characteristic ill faith
of the politician towards the soldier, boldly proposed to pass
an Act compelling them to serve for two years longer; but the
Attorney-General, to whom the matter was referred, decided that
the men were beyond all question entitled to their discharge.[421]
Thereupon, rather late in the day, the Secretary-at-War hurriedly
ordered the instant discharge of a man whose term had expired, in
order to encourage others to enlist.[422] Finally, in 1711 abuses
increased so rapidly under the new administration that the whole
system of recruiting broke down.[423] The evils of Harley's short
tenure of office were by no means bounded by the Peace of Utrecht.
There remains a further question still to be dealt with, that
namely of desertion, which directly and indirectly sapped the
strength of the Army as much as any campaign. Let it not be thought
that this evil was confined to England, for it was rampant in every
army in Europe, and nowhere a greater scourge than in France. Nor
let the deserter from the army in the field be too severely judged,
for his anxiety was not to serve against his own countrymen but
simply to get back to his own home. Some of the English deserters
in Flanders were even cunning enough to pass homeward as exchanged
prisoners belonging to the fleet.[424] But it was before starting
for the seat of war that deserters gave most trouble, particularly
if, as was often unavoidably the case, the regiments were kept
waiting long for their transports.[425] No punishment seemed to
deter others from abetting them.[426] If we may judge by the
records of the next reign a thousand to fifteen hundred lashes was
no uncommon sentence on a deserter, while not a few were actually
shot in Hyde Park.[427] The only resource, therefore, was to check
the evil as far as possible by prevention. Thus we constantly find
large bodies of troops under orders for foreign service quartered
in the Isle of Wight, from which they could not easily escape.
This remedy was at least in one case found worse than the disease,
for the numbers of the men being too great to be accommodated in
the public houses, very many of them perished from exposure to the
weather. Thereupon the Secretary-at-War made inquiry as to barns
and empty houses for them, according to the traditions of his
office, fatally too late.[428]
Another practice, which from ignorance of its origin has been
blindly followed till within the last few years, also took its
rise from the prevalence of desertion at this period, namely
that of shifting troops from quarter to quarter of England by
sea. On the same principle men were frequently cooped up in the
transport-vessels for weeks and even months before they sailed on
foreign service, occasionally with frightful consequences. Thus in
1705 certain troops bound for Jamaica were embarked on transports
on the 18th of May. They remained there for two months with fever
and small-pox on board, until at last, the medical supplies being
exhausted, the case was represented to the Secretary-at-War. The
reply was that they were to receive such relief as was possible;
but they remained in the same transports until October, when at
last they were drafted off in parties of sixty on the West Indian
packets to their destination. Forty-eight of them were lost
through a storm in port long before October, but the number that
perished from sickness is unknown, and was probably most sedulously
concealed.[429]
Let us now turn to the pleasanter theme of the changes that
were wrought for the benefit of the soldier. The first of these
appears in the Mutiny Act of 1703, and was doubtless due in part
to the scandals revealed in the office of the Paymaster-General.
The rates of pay to all ranks below the status of commissioned
officers are actually given in the Act, with express directions,
under sufficient penalties, that the subsistence money shall be
paid regularly every week, and the balance over and above it every
two months. Further, all stoppages by the Paymaster-General,
Secretary-at-War, commissaries, and muster-masters are definitely
forbidden, and the legitimate deductions strictly limited to the
clothing-money, one day's pay to Chelsea Hospital, and one shilling
in the pound to the Queen. The continuance of this last tax was
of course a crying injustice, but the abolition of the other
irregular claims was distinctly a gain to the British soldier, due,
as it is satisfactory to know, to the newly appointed Controllers
of Accounts. Altogether the condition of the soldier as regards
his pay seems decidedly to have improved, Marlborough's attention
to this most important matter having evidently borne good fruit.
It is true that in Spain and the colonies, to which he had not
leisure nor opportunity to give personal attention, the neglect of
the Secretary-at-War caused great grievances and much suffering;
it is true also that even in England, when his influence was gone,
there was a recurrence of the old scandals under the miserable
administration of Harley;[430] yet on the whole the improvements in
this province were at once distinct and permanent.
Another valuable reform in respect of clothing was due to the
direct interposition of Marlborough himself. In 1706 the abuses in
this department were, at his instance, made the subject of inquiry
by Secretary St. John and General Charles Churchill, with the
ultimate result that the pattern and allowance of clothing and the
deduction of off-reckonings were laid down by strict rule, while
the whole business of clothing, though still left to the colonels,
was subjected to the control of a board of six General officers,
whose sanction was essential to the validity of all contracts
and to the acceptance of all garments. Thus was established the
Board of General Officers,[431] whose minutes are still the great
authority for the uniforms of the eighteenth century.
Unfortunately these benefits could weigh but little against the
disadvantages already described. It is certain that despite the
standard laid down by Act of Parliament, vast numbers of boys were
enlisted as well as men of fifty and sixty years of age, who no
sooner entered the field than they were sent back into hospital.
Good regiments, however, then as now obtained good recruits,
sometimes through the offer of extra bounty from the officers,[432]
more often through the character of the officers themselves. The
presence of thieves, pirates, and other criminals in the ranks
must necessarily have introduced a certain leaven of ruffianism,
yet neither in Flanders nor in the Peninsula do we find anything
approaching to the outrageous bursts of indiscipline which were
witnessed a century later at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. There was,
it is true, the mutiny under the Duke of Ormonde, but it was of
short duration and easily suppressed; and altogether, for reasons
that shall presently be given, Marlborough's army seems to have
been better conducted than Wellington's. Unfortunately, although
two men who served in the ranks left us journals of a whole or
part of the war, we remain still without a picture of the typical
soldier of Marlborough. The one figure that emerges with any
distinctness from the ranks is that of Christian Ross, a woman who
served as a dragoon in several actions, was twice wounded before
her sex was discovered, and ended her career as virago, sutleress,
and out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital.[433] The rest, with the
exception of Sergeant Littler, Sergeant John Hall,[434] and Private
Deane remain buried in dark oblivion, leaving a lamentable gap that
can never be filled in our military history.
From the men I pass to the officers. Our information in regard to
them is curiously mixed. Certain of the abuses that dishonoured
them have already been revealed, nor can these be said to exhaust
the list. There were grave scandals in the Guards, which had the
misfortune to possess one colonel, of a distinguished Scottish
family, who revived the worst traditions of Elizabeth and Charles
the Second. Not only did he systematically enlist thieves and other
bad characters as "faggots,"[435] but he did not scruple to accept
recruits who offered themselves for the sake of defrauding their
creditors, to receive money from them for doing so, and to extort
more money by threatening to withhold his protection or to ship
them off to fight in Spain. These men did no duty,[436] wore no
uniform and drew no pay, to the great profit of the colonel and the
great disgrace of the regiment; and the evil grew to such a height
that when the House of Commons finally took the matter in hand, the
"faggots" were found to number one-fourth of the nominal strength
of the regiment.[437] Such cases, however, as this of the infamous
Colonel Chartres were rare; and the decrease of this particular
vice of officers in Queen Anne's time presents a pleasing contrast
to its prevalence in the time of King William.
Another habit, which sounds particularly objectionable in modern
ears, was the occasional unwillingness of officers to accompany
their regiments, and their readiness to leave them, when employed
on distasteful service. This was especially true of regiments
on colonial stations, particularly in the West Indies,[438] and
was by no means unknown of those actually on active service in
Flanders and the Peninsula. Sometimes the offenders had received
leave of absence, which the Secretary-at-War would willingly grant
as a matter of jobbery in the case of a friend,[439] but more
often they took leave without asking for it, occasionally for
as much as five years together,[440] without objection from the
colonel or rebuke from the War Office. One colonel took it as a
great grievance when Marlborough insisted that he should sell his
commission since he was unwilling to do duty;[441] and altogether
the general connivance at shirking of this kind rendered the
offence so little discreditable that it must not be judged by the
standard of to-day. Speaking generally, however, the officers had
far more grievances that command our pity than faults which provoke
our indignation.
One hardship that bore on officers with peculiar severity was the
expense of obtaining recruits. They received, of course, levy-money
for the purpose, but this was frequently insufficient, while no
allowance was made for recruits lost through desertion, sickness,
or other misfortunes over which they had no control. Marlborough
was most strict in discouraging, except in extreme cases, any
attempts of officers to transfer their burdens from themselves to
the State, though he freely admitted, not without compassion, that
officers had been ruined by sheer bad luck with their recruits. We
find bitter complaints from officers in the Peninsula that owing to
the heavy mortality in the transports, their recruits, by the time
that they reached them, cost them eight or nine pounds a head.[442]
Indeed, if one may judge from contemporary newspapers, which are
quite borne out by scattered evidence, the sufferings of officers
on account of recruiting were almost unendurable.[443]
Remounts again were a heavy tax upon the officer. An allowance of
levy-money at the rate of twelve pounds a horse[444] was granted to
officers for the purpose, but was complained of as quite inadequate
to the charge,[445] in consequence of heavy losses through the
epidemic of horse-sickness in Flanders. Carelessness in the hiring
and fitting of transports also caused much waste of life among the
horses,[446] until Marlborough, as his letters repeatedly show,
took the matter into his own hands. It is interesting to learn
that Irish horses, being obtainable for five pounds apiece,[447]
were much used in Spain, though less in Flanders, Marlborough
having a prejudice in favour of English horses as of English
men, as superior to all others. This cheapness, however, was of
little service to the officers. They were expected to pay for the
transport of their horses at a fixed rate, and though at length in
reply to their complaints free transport was granted for twenty-six
horses to a battalion, yet this privilege was again withdrawn as
soon as it was discovered that Irish animals were to be purchased
at a low price.[448]
Again, the officers were always subject to extortion from
civilians. Parish constables, to whom the law allowed sixpence
a day for the subsistence of recruits, declined to deliver them
unless they were paid eightpence a day.[449] But as usual the chief
delinquents were the regimental agents. The Controllers of Accounts
early made an attack on these gentry, but with little success, the
fellows pleading that they were not public officials but private
servants of the colonel, and therefore not bound to produce their
accounts. The complaints of the officers against them were endless,
and with good reason. Perhaps the most heartless instance of an
agent's rascality was that of one who stole the small allowance
made by a lieutenant on active service to his wife, and refused to
pay it until ordered by the Queen.[450] Officers clamoured that
the agents should be tried by court-martial, but this was not
permitted, and perhaps wisely, for a court-martial would probably
have sentenced a scoundrel to the gantlope, in which case the men
would not have let him escape alive.
Yet another tax fell upon officers in the shape of contribution
to pensions and regimental debts. In every regiment except those
serving in Flanders a fictitious man was allowed in the roll of
each troop or company, whose pay was taken to form a fund for
the support of officers' widows;[451] but in Marlborough's army
these widows were supported by a voluntary subscription from the
officers, without expense to the State. By some contrivance, which
seems utterly outrageous and was presumably the work of the War
Office or of the Treasury, this voluntary fund was saddled with the
maintenance of widows who had lost their husbands in the previous
war, so that in 1709 Marlborough was obliged to protest and to ask
for the extension of "widows' men" to some at least of his own
troops.[452] Again, some regiments appear to have been charged
with pensions to particular individuals, though by what right
or for what service it is impossible to say.[453] Yet again, by
misfortune, carelessness, or roguery of a colonel, or more commonly
of an agent, regiments found themselves burdened with debts
amounting to several thousand pounds, as, for instance, through
the loss of regimental funds by shipwreck or through mismanagement
of the clothing. In such cases the only possible relief was the
sale, by royal permission, of the next company or ensigncy for the
liquidation of the debt.[454]
Another form of pension which, though sometimes used for worthy
objects, was at least as often perverted to purposes of jobbery,
was the appointment of infant officers. In many instances children
received commissions in a regiment wherein their fathers had
commanded and done good service, either for the relief of the
widows, if those fathers had fallen in action, or for a reward if
they were still living. Sometimes these children actually took
the field, for there is record of one who went to active service
in Flanders at the age of twelve, "behaving with more courage and
conduct than could have been expected from one of his years," and
ruined his career at sixteen by killing his man in a duel.[455]
But beyond all doubt in many instances the favour was granted
without sufficient cause, while even at its best it was an abuse
of public money and a wrong done to the regiment. This abuse was
of course no new thing, and did not amount to an actual grievance;
but it had fostered a feeling, that was already too strong, of the
privileges conferred on colonels by their proprietary rights in
their regiments.
The grant of commissions to children was forbidden by the Royal
Regulations of 1st May 1711, a collection of orders which had at
any rate for their ostensible object a considerable measure of
reform, and therefore demands some notice here. Hereby the grant
of brevets, which had given considerable trouble to Marlborough,
and had already been forbidden in 1708, was again prohibited;
and finally an attempt was made to limit the sale and purchase
of commissions. To this end no sale of commissions whatever was
permitted except by royal approbation under the sign manual, and
then only to officers who had served for twenty years or had been
disabled by active service. The announcement appears to have
been treated as a joke;[456] and within six months the rule, in
consequence of representations from Marlborough, was considerably
modified.[457] If (so the Duke pointed out) subalterns who have
been unlucky with their recruits may not sell their commissions,
the debt will fall on the regiment: if, again, the successors to
officers who die on service do not contribute something towards
the dead man's wife and family, many widows and children must
starve; lastly, colonels often wish to promote officers from
other regiments to their own when they have no officer of their
own fit for advancement, which is for the good of the service
but must become impracticable unless the superseded officer
receive something in compensation.[458] His arguments were seen
to be irresistible unless the State were prepared to incur large
additional military expenditure, and the rules were shortly
afterwards amended in the spirit of his recommendations and for the
reasons that he had adduced.[459]
Thus almost the final administrative act of Marlborough as
Captain-General was to uphold the system of purchase then existing
against the hasty reforms of civilian counsellors. Enough has been
said to show that contemporary military policy in England, with
which he was chiefly identified, tended always to make the regiment
more and more self-contained and less dependent on the support
of the State: it will be seen before long how regiments met the
charge imposed on them by the institution of regimental funds in
the nature of insurance. The drawback of such a system is obvious.
Excess of independence in the members can hardly but entail
weakening of central control, with incoherence and consequent waste
of energy in the action of the entire body. Regimental traditions,
regimental pride, are priceless possessions well worthy the
sacrifice of ideal unity of design and perfect assimilation to a
single pattern. But regimental isolation, fostered and encouraged
on principle to the utmost, must inevitably bring with it a certain
division of command, a want of subordination to the supreme
authority, in a word that measure of indiscipline in high places
which distinguishes an aggregation of regiments from an army.
Yet who can doubt but that Marlborough acted with his usual strong
good sense as a soldier and his usual sagacity as a statesman?
He had risked his popularity in the Army by his avowed severity
towards officers in the matter of recruits,[460] because he knew
that the slightest attempt to shift this burden upon the State
would mean the refusal of Parliament to carry on the war, and
a wholesale disbandment of the Army. He favoured the sale of
commissions on precisely the same principle; for, as his letter
clearly shows, he foresaw the growth of what is now called a
non-effective vote, and doubted the willingness of Parliament to
endure it. That which he dreaded has now come to pass, for better
or worse; the country is saddled with a vast load of pensions,
and the Commons grow annually more impatient over increase of
military expenditure without corresponding increase of efficiency.
Marlborough's choice lay between an aggregation of regiments and no
army, and of two evils he chose the less. It still remains to be
proved that he was wrong.
From the regimental I pass to the general administration. Herein
the first noticeable feature is the amalgamation by the Act of
Union of the English and Scotch establishments into a single
establishment for Great Britain. Ireland of course still remained
with a separate establishment of her own, and all the paraphernalia
of Commander-in-Chief, Secretary-at-War, and Master-General of
Ordnance. There continued always in Ireland as heretofore a
different rate of pay for all ranks, which, owing to constant
transfer of regiments from Ireland to England or abroad gave
rise to great confusion in the accounts. The chief matter of
interest in Ireland is the very reasonable jealousy of the Irish
Commons for the retention within the kingdom of all regiments
on the Irish establishment, or at least for the substitution of
other regiments in their place if they should be withdrawn. Their
intention was that Irish revenue should be spent in Ireland, and it
is satisfactory to note that it was rigidly and conscientiously
respected by the authorities in England.[461]
Another important matter was a first attempt to settle the position
of the marines, who up to the middle of the reign were subject to
a curious and embarrassing division of control. St. John early
disclaimed all authority over them,[462] but they were evidently
subject to the regulations of the army and suffered not a little in
consequence. The rigid rule that regiments must be mustered before
they were paid inflicted great hardship on marines, for it could
not be carried out when a regiment was split up on half a dozen
different ships, and the result was that the men were not paid at
all. Even when ashore they were exposed to the same inconvenience
owing to the inefficiency of the commissaries,[463] so that some
regiments actually received no wages for eight years.[464] The
inevitable consequence was hatred of the service and mutiny, which
at one moment threatened to be serious.[465] Finally, on the 17th
of December 1708, the marines were definitely placed under the
jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral.[466]
I come now to the most fateful of all changes in the
administration, namely the rise to supreme importance of the
Secretary-at-War. Attention has already been drawn to the duties
and powers which silently accumulated in the hands of this
civilian official after the death of Monk, owing to the lack of
efficient control by the Sovereign. The reigns of King William
and Queen Anne, in consequence of the constant absence of the
Captain-General on active service, did nothing to restore this
lost control, and the almost unperceived change which released the
Secretary-at-War from personal attendance on the Commander-in-Chief
in the field virtually abolished it altogether. The terms of the
Secretary-at-War's commission remained the same, "to obey such
orders as he should from time to time receive from the Sovereign
or from the General of the forces for the time being, according
to the discipline of war;"[467] but the situation was in reality
reversed. Even in King William's time the Secretary-at-War had
countersigned the military estimates submitted to Parliament;
from the advent of St. John he assumes charge of all military
matters in the Commons, often taking the chair of the committee
while they are under discussion. Thus he becomes the mouthpiece
of the military administration in the House, and, since the
Commander-in-Chief is generally absent on service he ceases to take
his orders from him, but becomes, except in the vital matter of
responsibility, a Secretary-of-State, writing in the name of the
Queen or of her consort, or finally in his own name and by his own
authority without reference to a higher power. Lastly, his office,
thus exalted to importance, becomes the spoil of political party;
Secretaries-at-War follow each other in rapid succession,--St.
John, Walpole, Granville, Lord Lansdowne, Windham, Gwynne; and the
Army is definitely stamped as a counter in the eternal game of
faction.
The power of the Secretary-at-War in Queen Anne's time is
sufficiently shown by his letter-books. In the Queen's name he
gives orders for recruiting, for drafting, for armament, for
musters, for change of quarters, relief of garrisons, hire of
transports, embarkation of troops, patrolling of the coast, escort
of treasure, and in a word for all matters of routine. In the Duke
of Marlborough's name also he directs men to be embarked, money to
be advanced, and recruits to be furnished, and even criticises the
execution of the orders issued by him on behalf of the Queen.[468]
On his own authority he bids colonels to send him muster-rolls
and lists of recruiting staff and to provide their regiments with
quarters, regrets that he cannot strengthen weak garrisons, and
lays down the route for all marches within the kingdom.[469] He
corresponds direct with every rank of officer without the slightest
regard for discipline or dignity. We find Walpole threatening a
lieutenant with forfeiture of his commission for absence without
leave, bidding a captain be thankful that owing to his own clemency
he is not cashiered for fraud,[470] regretting that he cannot in
conscience excuse one subaltern from attending his regiment on
foreign service,[471] ordering another to pay for his quarters
immediately,[472] summoning a third person to the War Office to
account to him for wrongful detention of a recruit. Granville
promises an officer leave of absence from foreign service, but must
first, in common decency, apply to the General in command.[473]
Lord Lansdowne begs the Governor of Portsmouth not to be too
hard on a young regiment in the matter of guard-duties, orders
the discharge of a soldier when three years of his service have
expired, and writes to the Irish Secretary-at-War for leave of
absence for a friend.[474] Finally, all ask favours of colonels
on behalf of officers and men. One thing only they left for a time
untouched, namely the sentences of court-martial, which St. John
expressly abjured in favour of the Judge Advocate-General; but for
the rest they issued orders, approbations, and reprimands with all
the freedom of a Commander-in-Chief.
The Office of Ordnance remained as before independent of the War
Office, though of course liable to fulfil its requisitions for arms
and stores. It is remarkable that Marlborough, like Wellington
a century later, no sooner became Master-General[475] than he
restored the organisation of King James the Second. But the strain
imposed upon the Department by the multitude of forces in the
field was too severe for it. Two months before Blenheim was fought
the supply of firelocks and socket-bayonets was exhausted; and in
succeeding years, as disasters grew and multiplied in Spain, the
Office was obliged frequently, and to the great indignation of
English manufacturers, to purchase arms abroad.[476]
The subject of weapons leads us directly to the progress of the
Army in the matter of armament, equipment, and training. The first
point worthy of notice is the disappearance of the time-honoured
pike. Pikes were issued to a battalion in the proportion of one to
every five muskets as late as 1703, but were delivered back into
store in the following year;[477] and in 1706 a letter from St.
John announces that pikes are considered useless and that musket
and bayonet must be furnished to every man.[478] The bayonet was,
of course, the socket-bayonet; and the musket, being of a new
and improved model, was a weapon much superior to that issued in
the days of King William.[479] Partly, no doubt, owing to the
efficiency of this musket, which carried bullets of sixteen to the
pound, as against the French weapon, which was designed for bullets
of twenty-four to the pound, and still more owing to superiority of
discipline and tactics, the fire of the British was incomparably
more deadly than that of the French.[480] The secret, so far as
concerned tactics, lay in the fact that the British fired by
platoons according to the system of Gustavus Adolphus, whereas the
French fired by ranks; and the perfection of drill and discipline
was superbly manifested at Wynendale. For this, as well as for the
better weapon, the Army had their great chief to thank, for the
Duke knew better than any the value of fire-discipline, as it is
called, and would put the whole army through its platoon-exercise
by signal of flag and drum before his own eye.[481] Nevertheless,
the cool head and accurate aim for which the British have always
been famous played their part, and a leading part, in the victories
of Marlborough.
Of the drill proper there is little to be said, though some few
changes are significant of coming reforms. The number of ranks
was left unfixed, being increased or reduced according to the
frontage required, but probably seldom exceeded three and was
occasionally reduced to two. The old method of doubling ranks was
still preserved; but the men no longer fell in by files, and the
file may be said definitely to have lost its old position as a
tactical unit. A company now fell in in single rank, was sorted off
into three or more divisions and formed into ranks, by the wheel of
the divisions from line into column, which was a complete novelty.
The manual and firing exercise remained as minute and elaborate
as ever; and a single word of command shows that the old exercise
of the pike was soon to be adopted for the bayonet.[482] With
these exceptions there was little deviation from the old drill of
Gustavus Adolphus; but the real improvement, which made that drill
doubly efficient, was in the matter of discipline. That the lash
and the gantlope were unsparingly used in Marlborough's army there
can be no doubt, and that they were employed even more savagely
at home can be shown by direct evidence;[483] but the Duke, as
shall presently be shown, understood how to make the best of his
countrymen by other means besides cutting their backs to pieces.
For the cavalry, of which he was evidently very fond, Marlborough
did very signal service by committing it definitely to action
by shock. Again and again in the course of the war the French
squadrons are found firing from the saddle with little or no
effect, and the British crashing boldly into them and sweeping
them away. There are few actions, too, in which the Duke himself
is not found in personal command of the horse at one period or
another of the battle--at Blenheim in the great charge which won
the day, at Ramillies at the most critical moment, at Malplaquet
in support of the British infantry, and most brilliantly of all at
the passage of the lines at Landen. Yet he was too sensible not to
imitate an enemy where he could do so with advantage. The French
gendarmerie had received pistol-proof armour in 1703;[484] the
British horse in Flanders, at Marlborough's suggestion, received a
cuirass in 1707, a reform which was copied by the Dutch and urged
upon all the rest of the Allies.[485] It is characteristic of the
Duke's never-failing good sense that the cuirasses consisted of
breast-pieces only, so that men should find no protection unless
their faces were turned towards the enemy.
As to the artillery there is little to be said except that the
organisation by companies appears to have been thoroughly accepted,
and the efficiency of the arm thereby greatly increased. The Duke
was never greater than as an artillerist. Every gun at Blenheim
was laid under his own eye; and the concentration of the great
central battery at Malplaquet and its subsequent advance shows
his mastership in the handling of cannon. For the rest, the
artillery came out of the war with not less, perhaps with even
more, brilliancy than the other corps of the army; and, though no
mention is made of the fact by the historian of the regiment, it is
likely that no artillery officers ever worked more strenuously and
skilfully in the face of enormous difficulties than the devoted men
who brought their guns first down to the south side of the Danube
and then back across the river to the battlefield of Blenheim.[486]
It is impossible to quit this subject without a few words on the
great man who revived for England the ancient glory of Creçy,
Poictiers, and Agincourt, the greatest, in the Duke of Wellington's
words, who ever appeared at the head of a British Army. There are
certain passages in his life which make it difficult sometimes to
withhold from him hard names; but allowance should be made for one
who was born in revolution, nurtured in a court of corruption,
and matured in fresh revolution. Wellington himself admitted that
he never understood the characters of that period, nor exercised
due charity towards them, till he had observed the effects of
the French Revolution on the minds and consciences of French
statesmen and marshals. Marlborough's fall was brought about by a
faction, and his fame has remained ever since a prey to the tender
mercies of a faction. But the prejudices of a partisan are but a
sorry standard for the measure of one whose transcendent ability
as a general, a statesman, a diplomatist, and an administrator,
guided not only England but Europe through the War of the Spanish
Succession, and delivered them safe for a whole generation from the
craft and the ambition of France.
Regarding him as a general, his fame is assured as one of the great
captains of all time; and it would not become a civilian to add
a word to the eulogy of great soldiers who alone can comprehend
the full measure of his greatness. Yet one or two small points
are worthy of attention over and above the reforms, already
enumerated, which were introduced by him in all three arms of the
service. First, and perhaps most important, is the blow struck
by Marlborough against the whole system, so much favoured by the
French, of passive campaigns. It was not, thanks to Dutch deputies
and German princelets, as effective as it should have been, but it
still marked a step forward in the art of war. It must never be
forgotten that we possess only the wreck of many of Marlborough's
finest combinations, shattered, just as they were entering port,
against the rocks of Dutch stupidity and German conceit. Next,
there is a great deal said and written in these days about night
marches and the future that lies before them. It will be well
to glance also at the past that they have behind them, and to
mark with what frequency, with what consummate skill, and what
unvarying success they were employed under far greater than modern
difficulties by Marlborough.
Next let it be observed how thoroughly he understood the British
soldier. He took care to feed him well, to pay him regularly,
to give him plenty of work, and to keep him under the strictest
discipline; and with all this he cherished a genial feeling for
the men, which showed itself not only in strict injunctions to
watch over their comfort but in acts of personal kindness kindly
bestowed. The magic of his personality made itself felt among his
men far beyond the scope of mere military duty. His soldiers, as
the Recruiting Acts can testify, were for the most part the scum of
the nation. Yet they not only marched and fought with a steadiness
beyond all praise, but actually became reformed characters and
left the army sober, self-respecting men.[487] Marlborough,
despite his lapses into treachery as a politician, was a man of
peculiar sensitiveness and delicacy. He had a profound distaste for
licentiousness either in language or in action, and he contrived
to instil a like distaste into his army. His force did not swear
terribly in Flanders, as King William's had before it, and although
the annual supply of recruits brought with it necessarily an annual
infusion of crime, yet the moral tone of the army was singularly
high. Marlborough's nature was not of the hard, unbending temper of
Wellington's. The Iron Duke had a heart so steeled by strong sense,
duty, and discipline that it but rarely sought relief in a burst of
passionate emotion. Marlborough was cast in a very different mould.
He too, like Wellington, was endowed with a strong common sense
that in itself amounted to genius, and possessed in the most trying
moments a serenity and calm that was almost miraculous. But there
was no coldness in his serenity, nothing impassive in his calm.
He was sensitive to a fault; and though his temper might remain
unchangeably sweet and his speech unalterably placid and courteous,
his face would betray the anxiety and worry which his tongue had
power to conceal.[488] With such a temperament there was a bond of
humanity between him and his men that was lacking in Wellington.
Great as Wellington was, the Iron Duke's army could never have
nicknamed him the Old Corporal.
The epithet Corporal suggests comparison with the Little Corporal,
who performed such marvels with the French Army. Undoubtedly the
name was in both cases a mark of the boundless confidence and
devotion which the two men could evoke from their troops, and which
they could turn to such splendid account in their operations.
Marlborough could make believe that he was meant to throw away his
entire army and yet be sure of its loyalty; Napoleon could throw
away whole hosts, desert them, and command the unaltered trust of
a new army. In both the personal fascination was an extraordinary
power; but here the resemblance ends. Napoleon, for all his
theatrical tricks, had no heart nor tenderness in him, and could
not bear the intoxication of success. Marlborough never suffered
triumph to turn his head, to diminish his generosity towards
enemies, to tempt him from the path of sound military practice, or
to obscure his unerring insight into the heart of things. Twice
his plans were opposed as too adventurous by Eugene, first when
he wished to hasten the battle of Malplaquet, and secondly when
he would have masked Lille and advanced straight into France; but
even assuming, as is by no means certain, that in both instances
Eugene was right, there is no parallel here to the gambling spirit
which pervaded the latter enterprises of Napoleon. "Marlborough,"
said Wellington, "was remarkable for his clear, cool, steady
understanding," and this quality was one which never deserted him.
Nevertheless, if there be one attribute which should be chosen
as supremely characteristic of the man, it is that which William
Pitt selected as the first requisite of a statesman--patience;
"patience," as the Duke himself once wrote to Godolphin, "which
can overcome all things";[489] patience which, as may be seen in
a hundred passages during the war, was possessed by him in such
measure that it appears almost godlike. These are the qualities
which mark the sanity of perfect genius, that distinguish a Milton
from a Shelley, a Nelson from a Dundonald, and a Marlborough from a
Peterborough; and it is in virtue of these, indicating as they do
the perfect balance of transcendent ability, that Marlborough takes
rank with the mightiest of England's sons, with Shakespeare, with
Bacon, and with Newton, as "the greatest statesman and the greatest
general that this country or any other country has produced."[490]
END OF VOL. I
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH ISLES
AND
NORTHERN FRANCE.
MAP I.
_End of Vol. I._
]
[Illustration: THE NETHERLANDS
In the 18^{th} Century
MAP II.
_End of Vol. I._
]
[Illustration: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
MAP III.
_End of Vol. I._
]
[Illustration: GERMANY
1600-1765
MAP IV.
_End of Vol. I._
]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I must mention here that where reference is made to Mr. Oman's
_Art of War_, the volume alluded to is the short essay, published
in 1885, not the larger and far more important work of the same
author, which, to my great misfortune, appeared too late for me to
avail myself of it.
[2] An alien captain of the garrison of Hereford tried in 1055 to
break through this custom. "Anglos _contra morem_ in equis pugnare
jussit" (see Hewitt, vol. i. p. 17).
[3] This seems to be the simplest and likeliest solution of the
problem of the palisade, which has provoked such acrimonious
controversy (see Köhler, vol. i. p. 8).
[4] Oman.
[5] A single line of course must not be understood as a single
rank. It was a line of wedges or, as we should now say, a line of
columns.
[6] The coat of mail was made of rings or scales of iron sewn on to
leather.
[7] The habergeon was a similar but smaller coat without sleeves.
[8] The chaplet was an iron scull-cap without vizor.
[9] The wambais was a doublet padded with cotton, wool or hair, and
generally covered with leather.
[10] The mortality among horses and the difficulty of obtaining
remounts frequently forced the crusading knights to fight afoot.
[11] The hauberk was a complete suit of mail, a hood joined to a
jacket with sleeves, breeches, stockings, shoes and gauntlets of
double chain-mail.
[12] A bill was a broad curved blade mounted at the end of a
seven-foot shaft, sometimes with a point and a hook added.
[13] Mr. Oman (_Art of War in the Middle Ages_, p. 104) holds the
opinion that to force a line of long-bowmen by a mere front attack
was a task almost as hopeless for cavalry as the breaking of a
modern square, and would have it that archers needed support on
their flanks only. With all respect I must reject this view, as
opposed alike to history and common sense.
[14] Barnes.
[15] William of Ypres, who came to England in the pay of Stephen in
1138, is reckoned the first of the _condottièri_.
[16] Whence the French word _destrier_.
[17] From the German _panzer_, a coat of mail.
[18] A sleeveless coat of chain-mail.
[19] The earliest instance of uniform in modern Europe is found in
the militia of the Flemish towns at the battle of Courtrai, 1302
(Köhler).
[20] The contract price of a bow in 1341 was, unpainted 1s.,
painted 1s. 6d.; of a sheaf of twenty-four arrows 1s. 2d. An
archer's pay was 3d. a day.
[21] See 1 Samuel xx. 40.
[22] As the historian of the Royal Artillery has ignored this
gentleman we may give his name, Thomas de Roldeston (see Hewitt,
vol. ii. p. 289).
[23] What since the Zulu war we have called a _laager_, forgetting
the English word that lay ready to our hand.
[24] The only authority for this is the rhymed chronicle of the
Chandos herald, but, as Köhler observes, the proceeding was
so natural, and, I may add, the invention of such a story so
improbable, that it is difficult not to accept it.
[25] The sword is gone, but the scabbard remains.
[26] See for the whole scene Dean Stanley's _Memorials of
Canterbury_.
[27] Sir Arthur Wellesley occupied the Spanish position on his
march to Roliça (_Conversations of the Duke of Wellington_, p. 3).
[28] These had been recognised by a statute of 5 Henry IV., the
enactment relied on later by Charles I.
[29] More correctly Azincourt.
[30] Monstrelet.
[31] See Philippe de Commines, bk. i. chap. iii. "[At the battle of
Montlhéry, 1464] the most honourable persons fought on foot among
the archers ... which order they learned of the English, who are
the best shot in the world."
[32] The reader will observe how early cavalry fell into the fault
which caused the loss of Naseby.
[33] "The same difficulty of a Lenten campaign cropped up at
the siege of Orleans a century later. It was surmounted by the
general's insisting that the papal legate, who was in the camp,
should grant a dispensation, which he very unwillingly did;
whereupon every man in the army 'pria Dieu fort pour M. le legat'"
(Brantôme, ed. Elzev. vol. i. p. 225).
[34] He remains gibbeted, however, in the pages of Shakespeare,
which is perhaps the worst fate that could have befallen him.
[35] 18 Henry VI. cap. 18.
[36] Robert Patillock.
[37] Oman's _Warwick_.
[38] Yet they were not all ruffians. In the _Paston Letters_ some
professional soldiers hired for private defence are described as
gentlemanly comfortable fellows, and their employer is warned that
they must not be put to sleep more than two in a bed (vol. ii. p.
327).
[39] The same thing has been seen at our autumn manœuvres.
[40] Allusion has already been made to the supplanting of the
sheriff's authority by the barons in raising troops, and the
consequent fashion of issuing liveries to the corps so formed. It
is perhaps worth while to note and dismiss the minute point that
the garrison of Calais, the only truly national force belonging at
that moment to England, was clothed in scarlet jackets, and were
the first English soldiers thus distinguished.
[41] Readers of _Kenilworth_ will remember the ballad quoted by
Giles Gosling--
"He was the flower of Stoke's red field
Where Martin Swart on ground lay slain."
[42] He has left us two words, howitzer and pistol, both of which
are derived from the Czech.
[43] John of Winterthur. If the reader has ever plied a long
bill-hook to cut down overhanging branches he will appreciate the
power of the halberd.
[44] "The earliest mention of the long pike occurs in an order
addressed to the burghers of Turin by Count Philip of Savoy in
1327; but whether Swiss borrowed it from Savoyards or Savoyards
from Swiss is uncertain" (Köhler).
[45] Compare the French equivalent, _enfans perdus_. _Hauf_ was
the regular German word for any mass of soldiers, from a company
to a battalion. The English word _hope_ therefore is a corruption,
_hauf_ having more to do with heap than hope.
[46] _Feld obrist_, now _oberst_.
[47] _Hauptmann._ The Germans wisely cling to these old titles, and
preserve them.
[48] _Laufgeld._
[49] This seems to have been a reminiscence of the Roman _jugum_.
[50] _Fähnlein_, flag or ensign.
[51] Muster is a corruption of the French _monstre_, Latin
_monstrare_. So to pass muster is to pass inspection.
[52] _Fähnlein._
[53] _Stellvertreter._ The Germans have since abandoned the word
for "_leutnant_."
[54] _Feldwebel._ We may call him the colour-sergeant.
[55] _Gemeinwebel._
[56] _Fourier._
[57] _Rot._
[58] _Rottmeister._ Sir Walter Scott in the _Legend of Montrose_
has inexplicably confounded the word with _Rittmeister_, which is a
very different thing; a rare mistake with him.
[59] It is a curious sign of the combination of his functions,
that in every standing camp the Provost erected a gallows, which
served to mark both the extent of his authority and the site of the
market-place, or as we should call it, canteen.
[60] _Vergleicher._
[61] _Recht der langen Spiesse._
[62] A roll on the two first beats of the bar, a single note on the
third, and silence on the fourth.
[63] See the account in Paul Jove.
[64] We need not enter into the controversy whether the word was
derived from _columna_ or _corona_ or from neither. For a century
or more it was written indifferently colonel or coronel, to which
last the modern English pronunciation is doubtless to be traced.
Brantôme writes always _couronnel_; Milton in his famous sonnet
gives the word the dignity of the three syllables. Some say that it
was borrowed from the landsknechts, but this is a palpable error.
(See a paper by Mr. Julian Corbett, _American Hist. Review_, Oct.
1896, "The Colonel and his Command").
[65] _French_ enseigne; _Lat._ insigne, signum.
[66] But not until after the Seven Years' War, when Lord George
Sackville applied for a "furrier."
[67] We even find the word incarnated by French writers as the
strumpet Madame Picorée.
[68] As a matter of fact these abuses do seem to have been
more flagrant in France than elsewhere, owing no doubt to the
demoralisation caused by the religious wars. See for instance
Brantôme, and the Memoirs of Sully.
[69] See the remarkable conversation in Brantôme, ed. Elzev. vol.
i. pp. 376-382.
[70] The Marquis del Vasto, of the same family as Pescayra.
[71] For instance Roger Williams and Tavannes.
[72] In Spanish called _alferez_.
[73] Brantôme.
[74] Tercio, like colonel, is a riddle which defies solution. It
means a third, but a third of what is unknown (see Mr. Julian
Corbett's paper, quoted above, p. 94).
[75] In a MS. treatise in the Record Office, of date 1570, the bore
recommended is 28 ballets to the pound. This remained the standard
bore in the French army all through the wars of Louis XIV.
[76] Musket is simply the word mosquito. Larger weapons were called
drakes, falcons, and the like, and the smaller therefore after the
lesser flying creatures.
[77] Mem. de Vieilleville.
[78] This again is a word which defies the skill of the etymologist.
[79] _Poitrinal_, so called because it was held against the chest.
[80] Mem. de La Noue.
[81] Tavannes, ed. Petitot, vol. i. p. 304.
[82] Tavannes, La Noue.
[83] It is curious to compare the parallel contest of armoured
ships and artillery at the present time.
[84] _Rittmeister._
[85] _Fähnrich._
[86] _Fourier._
[87] _Wachtmeister._
[88] The particulars of the reiters' organisation are taken from
the Kriegsbuch of Leonard Fronsberger, 1566.
[89] It is just possible that Xenophon's example may have favoured
the abandonment of shock for missile tactics in cavalry.
[90] There were two kinds of soldiers, the gentleman soldier and
the yeoman soldier. Hence the name points to the enlistment of men
below the status of gentleman. The Navy still has "Yeomen of the
Signals."
[91] I must confess that this should be put forward rather
as a conjecture than an assertion; but it is remarkable that
Henry VIII. should have permitted the use of any colours to the
Artillery Company except purple and scarlet. Green and white were
the favourite Tudor colours, being used even in ribbons for the
attachment of the Great Seal.
[92] _Cal. S. P._ 20th November 1509.
[93] _Ibid._ 5th July 1511.
[94] _Ibid._ 3rd November 1509, 20th June, 1st July 1511, 8th April
1512. Rymer, vol. xiii. p. 329.
[95] _Cal. S. P._ 5th August 1512.
[96] Stow.
[97] Such at least is my impression. The commander-in-chief of a
force not commanded by the King in person is styled the lieutenant
or King's lieutenant. So also the commander of the body-guard is
styled lieutenant, the King himself being captain. Compare the
title, which we shall presently see introduced, of lord-lieutenant.
But we meet also with the phrase lieutenant (_i.e._ commanding
officer) of the rearguard or other of the three divisions in the
army. The word is always used of a high office.
[98] In 1542, however, Wallop constantly speaks of ensigns (see
_State Papers_, Henry VIII. (ed. 1830, 1849), vol. ix. _anno_ 1542).
[99] _Cal. S. P._ 1513. 4460.
[100] _Ibid._ 4441.
[101] _Cal. S. P._ vol ii. part i., 6 Henry VIII. caps. 2, 11, 13.
[102] _Ibid._ vol. iii. part i. p. 402.
[103] At the meeting with Francis and Charles V. Henry took for his
device an English archer in a green coat drawing an arrow to the
head (Camden).
[104] _Cal. S. P._, Henry VIII., vol. iii. part i. 869.
[105] _Ibid._ vol. iii. part ii. 2012, 2013.
[106] _Ibid._ 2995.
[107] In the original _lontes_. Lunt was the Scotch name for a
musket-match to the end (_Cal. S. P._, Henry VIII., vol. iii. part
i. 3494).
[108] See the armed strength of England in 1524. _Ibid._ vol. iv.
part i. 972.
[109] _Ibid._ 2086.
[110] Six feet. A horse's length was reckoned at the same figure a
hundred years later.
[111] _State Papers_ (ed. 1830-1849), vol. ix. pp. 523, 524.
[112] Henry in 1519 tried to procure horses from Italy, but was
informed by Alfonso of Ferrara that there, too, the breed was
decayed (_Cal. S. P._ vol. iii. part i. 171). Henry gave as much as
£35, a great sum, for his own horses.
[113] _Cal. S. P._ 1514. 4902.
[114] _Ibid._ 1513. 4375.
[115] _Stow._ Mortar is the German _meerthier_, sea-beast.
So other pieces were called after reptiles and monsters and
birds,--serpentines, dragons, basilisks, falcons, culverins
(couleuvrines), etc.
[116] See _Cal. S. P._, Dom., Addenda (1561-1579), pp. 78-84.
[117] _Cal. S. P._, Dom., Addenda (1566-1579), pp. 111-113,
115-116, 121-123, 126-127, 129.
[118] One sentence gives a clue to Henry VIII.'s long
discouragement of firearms. "Is not the safety of the country worth
more than the saving of a few wild-fowl?"
[119] Stow.
[120] The word was borrowed from the French _casaque_, the regular
term for a livery-coat. Facings were soon added. _Cal. S. P._, Dom.
(1595), p. 22.
[121] _Cal. S, P._, Dom. (1581-1590), p. 16.
[122] _Cal. S. P._, Dom. (1581-1590), p. 255.
[123] One bitter critic avers that the expression was due to the
number of low-born captains, who, having no arms to bear on their
ensigns, were obliged to trust to distinctions of colour only.
[124] Collins.
[125] _Tercio Viejo._
[126] The press-gangs were not very scrupulous. On one occasion
they took advantage of Easter Sunday to close all the church
doors in London and take a thousand men from the various
congregations.--Stow.
[127] The grandson of the victor of Pavia.
[128] Stow says that they fired two volleys only, which I hope is
incorrect. The passage, however, shows that the reason for the
three volleys was already unknown to many.
[129] That is to say a fort or intrenchment. German _schanze_. It
seems a pity that we should have allowed so useful a term to become
obsolete.
[130] Stow.
[131] _Cal. S. P._, Dom. (1588), p. 513.
[132] Born 14th November 1567.
[133] See the English translation of the _Tactics_, by Captain John
Bingham, 1619.
[134] Hear, for instance, Tavannes, whom his writings prove to have
been in many respects an excellent soldier: "Cette grande invention
d'exercice pratiquée en Flandre avec leurs demi-tours à gauche
et à droit--les anciens qui n'en usaient pas (!) ne laissaient
de combattre aussi bien ou mieux que maintenant" (_Mémoires_).
Tavannes began to write in 1599-1600, and died in 1629.
[135] Perhaps the following explanation will make this
clearer:--Where an English officer would now give the word "Form
fours" (to convert two ranks into four), the Dutch officer would
have given, "To the right hand double your files." Where the
Englishman would give the word "Front" (to reconvert four ranks
into two), the Dutchman would have said, "To the left hand double
your ranks."
[136] 1599.
[137] Its bore was of thirty bullets to the pound.
[138] These stoppages were known even then by the name of
"off-reckonings."
[139] Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, Frieland,
Groningen.
[140] I have followed the narrative of Sir Clements Markham (_The
Fighting Veres_) in preference to that of Motley in the description
of the battle, being satisfied after careful consultation of the
authorities that his account is the more accurate.
[141] Hexham. This is the first instance that I have encountered of
the word parade, which is evidently of Spanish origin.