British Army commitments, 1842

In 1842 the United Service Magazine of London published a list of the Distribution and Stations of the British Army (available free as a Google ebook). This gives an intriguing snapshot of British military priorities and resources at the time.

British Isles

One thing that's immediately obvious is the worldwide commitment of the army, with only 52 of the 148 regiments listed based in the British Isles. Given the relatively small size of the army compared to her European rivals, this presumably reflects the absence of a clear threat to the homeland, and confidence in the Royal Navy, the “Senior Service” which received more resources, and prestige.
The home forces included all the Guards units, and the bulk of the cavalry.

A Royal Horse Guard in parade dress outside Windsor castle (New York Library digital archive)

Mainland Britain

1st & 2nd Life Guards (Hyde Park & Windsor)
Royal Horse Guards (Regent's Park)
2nd , 3rd and 6th Dragoon Guards (Nottingham, Birmingham & Glasgow)
1st , 2nd, 4th and 6th Dragoons (Manchester, Exeter, Brighton and Piershill)
8th and 11th Hussars (Hounslow & York)
13th Light Dragoons (Ipswich)
17th Lancers (Leeds)

Grenadier Guards (1st ,2nd & 3rd Battalions) (Windsor, Wellington Barracks, London & Winchester)
Coldstream Guards (1st & 2nd Battalions) (St John's Wood & St George's Barracks, London)
Scots Fusilier Guards (1st & 2nd Battalions) (Portman St., and The Tower, London)

6th , 11th, 15th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 34th, 53rd, 58th, 60th, 61st, 65th, 66th, 67th, 72nd, & 73rd  Regiments of Foot (Gosport, Weedon, Chester, Portsmouth, Devonport, Leeds, Northampton, Edinburgh, Chatham, Manchester, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow, Plymouth, Bolton, Newport respectively)

Ireland

4th , 5th & 7th Dragoon Guards (Dublin, Dublin & Cahir)
10th Hussars (Ballincollig)
12th Lancers (Dundalk)

8th , 36th, 37th, 45th (& Reserve Battalion), 54th, 56th, 64th, 69th, & 76th Regiments of Foot

Given Britain's clear dominance of the seas, the Army was deployed either where an invader could come by land, or to protect naval ports. In the first category the two dominant commitments were India and Canada. 

India

The last stand of the 44th (East Essex) on the retreat from Kabul

Twenty nine regiments are based in India, backed up by the massive army of the East India Company. Or rather the three armies of the Presidencies of Bombay, Bengal and Madras. These units comprised mainly local troops with British officers, and were, technically, separate from the British Army as such. Since 1839 the British/ British Indian armies had been locked in the disastrous Afghan War, with in 1842 the massacre on the retreat from Kabul. In total, 4,500 British and Indian soldiers, and 12,000 allied civilians had been killed. In 1845, the British forces would be in action again, this time against the Sikh empire, although this time they emerged (just) victorious.

Bengal

3rd  Dragoons
9th & 16th Lancers

3rd , 9th, 10th, 13th, 21st, 29th, 31st, 44th, 50th, 62nd Regiments of Foot

Bombay

14th Light Dragoons

2nd , 22nd, 28th, 40th, 78th, 86th Regiments of Foot

Madras

15th Hussars

4th , 25th, 39th, 41st, 57th, 63rd, 84th, & 94th  Regiments of Foot

Ceylon

90th & 95th  Regiments of Foot
Ceylon Rifle Regiment

The Americas

After India, the biggest commitment was Canada. War with the United States was regarded as a distinct possibility in 1842, and referred to several times in articles in the magazine. The previous war had ended only 27 years before and there had been several incidents since. In 1837, insurgents had smuggled arms into Canada from the US, only for Canadian militia to cross the border and burn their ship. As recently as 1839 there had been a dispute over the Maine/ New Brunswick border. Whether the force would have been sufficient is debatable, as in the war against Mexico only 6 years later the United States was able to field 32,000 soldiers and 50,000 militia, although of course Britain could have reinforced from the homeland. Having said that, British contingency plans never depended purely on a static defence of Canada and the Royal Navy would have been deployed from it's bases in the Caribbean, especially Bermuda. Hence the deployments throughout the area.

The Canadian deployment had a much lower proportion of cavalry compared to that in India, presumably related to the terrain.

Canada

1st Dragoon Guards
7th Hussars

1st (2nd Battalion), 14th, 23rd, 23rd (Reserve Battalion), 43rd, 68th, 70th, 71st, 71st (Reserve Battalion), 74th, 81st, 83rd, 85th, 89th and 93rd Regiments of Foot

New Brunswick

30th & 52nd Regiments of Foot

Newfoundland

Royal Newfoundland Companies

Nova Scotia

82nd  Regiment of Foot
Rifle Brigade (Reserve Battalion) 
Rifle Brigade (2nd Battalion) 

Bermuda

20th  Regiment of Foot

St Vincent

33rd  Regiment of Foot

Barbados

46th  & 92nd Regiments of Foot

British Guiana

47th  Regiment of Foot (Berbice)
1st West Indian Regiment

Trinidad

59th  Regiment of Foot

Jamaica

60th  Regiment of Foot (2nd Battalion)
2nd West Indian Regiment

The Mediterranean
 

British interests in the Mediterranean centred on her island bases, with the obvious exception of Gibraltar. As well as being a crucial naval base, this had a land border with a Spain that had already coveted Gibraltar for over a hundred years. For much of the 1830s Spain had been racked with civil war (the Carlist Wars) and as recently as 1842 there had been a coup attempt in Madrid. In the circumstances it is hardly surprising that Gibraltar was strongly garrisoned.

The forces in Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante and the Ionian Islands perhaps require some explaining. These had been Venetian possessions before conquered by France during the Napoleonic Wars, Several rapid changes of ownership followed before they became a British protectorate at the Congress of Vienna. British rule was certainly hugely better than French or Venetian, but after Greek independence in 1830 a movement developed to join the mainland, which they eventually did in 1864. A this time Corfu, especially, was a very useful British naval base in the eastern Mediterranean, especially for British intervention in the short Egyptian/ Ottoman war in 1839-41.

Gibraltar

1st (1st Battalion), 5th, 7th, 48th & 79th Regiments of Foot

Malta

19th and 88th Regiments of Foot
Rifle Brigade (1st Battalion)
Royal Malta Regiment

Corfu

38th, 77th and 97th  Regiments of Foot ( 97th Reserve Battalion)

Cephalonia

42nd  Regiment of Foot

Ionian islands

42nd  Regiment of Foot (Reserve Battalion)

Zante

97th  Regiment of Foot

Africa

Mauritius

12th , 35th and 87th Regiments of Foot

Sierra Leone

3rd West Indian Regiment

South Africa (Cape of Good Hope)

27th , 75th, 91st (& Reserve Battalion) Regiments of Foot
Cape Mounted Riflemen (Cape of Good Hope)

St Helena

St Helena Regiment

The Far East

The 18th (Royal Irish) at the Battle of Amoy in China, 1841

The large garrison in China was a result of the Opium war, which had started in 1839, and only ended in 1842. Since the 1750s a massive amount of tea and other goods had been imported to Britain from China, but access to Chinese markets in return was extremely restricted, creating a huge trade imbalance (sound familiar?). The unfortunate British response was to export opium, for which there was a huge Chinese market. Initially this was actually welcomed by the Chinese government (as long as they got their cut via taxes), but the massive increase in opium production and importation led to increased tensions and eventually war, which the British won easily, gaining Hong Kong as a colony. All this, of course, required British troops.

Otherwise, the largest British deployment was in New South Wales. This does not necessarily mean Australia, and in fact probably doesn't. In 1840, New Zealand had controversially become a British territory, initially assigned to New South Wales and in 1841 becoming a separate colony, but possibly that change is not reflected in this list. Certainly annexation had been far from popular with some of the Maori chieftains, though others had argued that too many European settlers had been let in previously, and New Zealand was inevitably going to be  British or French. Anyway, small scale revolts and skirmishes started almost immediately, and resulted in two major British-Maori wars in the 1860s.

Aden

17th  Regiment of Foot

China

18th , 26th, 49th, 55th and 98th Regiments of Foot

New South Wales

51st , 80th, 96th & 99th Regiments of Foot

From Waterloo to Dorking - the military career of Pvt Jame Cutting, Part 3

In the early years of the 19th century  the British army could sit back and bask in the glory of Waterloo, so the mid 1850s and 60s came as a rude shock. The brutal debacle at the Crimea and the shocking victories of the Prussians over Denmark, Austria and France showed that Britain was hopelessly unprepared to fight a modern European war.

After the French army was crushed in 1871 this concern was taken up by the press, especially after the publication of The Battle of Dorking by George Chesney. This was one of the most influential "what if" stories ever written, and narrates the Prussian invasion of southern England, with a final last stand in front of London, and the hills above Dorking. The British forces are destroyed and England falls. What gave the book credibility was not only the apparently invincople successes of the Prussians in Europe, but that the author was a serving officer in the Royal Engineers, and clearly knew what he was talking about.

In real life steps were being taken to redress the balance. By far the most important was the adoption of a breech loading rifle. When James had joined in 1864 he had trained on muzzle loading Enfield rifles, each shot laboriously pushed down the muzzle of the gun. But in December 1866 the regiment started to adopt the Snider Enfield breech loading rifle, in which the cartridge is inserted in a chamber near the rear. Some idea of the difference this makes can be seen from the fact that the rate of fire of trained troops went from 3 shots per minute to 10! The operative word is "trained" - the action is completely different to a musket and took a lot of getting used to, but with war apparently a real possibility,  it must have given a lot of confidence to the troops when they saw the difference it was making.

Even better was the Martini Henry. To remove each cartridge from the Snider Enfield each soldier had to take it out by hand, or even turn the rifle upside down and shake vigourously! The Martini Henry, which started to appear in 1871,  had a partial expulsion mechanism making it easier to discard spent cartridges.

The heavier fire power available on the battlefield encouraged new thinking on tactics. Initially the French concept of Elan was popular, one write claiming that it was "a very ugly thing to attack against breech loaders, but it has to be done, it is moral force which will prevail". And the concept of a thin red line was still ingrained, most troops were expected to fire standing up on the battlefield, in line. But the 1859 Field Exercises and Evaluations manual recommended troops be trained to attack in column or line, and that all troops receive some training as skirmishers. These would form up in three parts in front of the main firing line, screening it, and could use a looser formation, cover and even lie down prone to fire. The initial skirmish line would have supports 200 yds behind, and a reserve 300yds behind this. As the enemy advances the skirmishers fall back, trying to disrupt the enemy formations before decisive contact with the main body of troops.

Lacking (fortunately!) the chance to test these tactics on a battlefield, the British relied on thought experiments and exercises. The Coldstream aren't mentioned directly in the Battle of Dorking, but three battalions of generic "Guards" are. They travel by train down to Guildford and then march with band playing to the front line. A detachment of skirmishers are sent to hold the railway embankment whilst the bulk line up along the hillside with skirmishers in front. With bearskins and red coats and a mounted officer urging them on they beat back the first Prussian wave, and counter attack, advancing slowly "and firing as they went, but as steady as if on parade" but there are too many Prussians, too much artillery, and they are swept away.

More realistically (possibly?), in 1871 large scale manoeuvres were started at Aldershot, lasting 7 weeks and attempting to actually recreate wartime conditions. The 2nd Coldstream took part as part of a Brigade of Guards. This novel idea (for the British army) was so successful that it was repeated next year on Salisbury plain with the the 1st Coldstream, and then in in 1873 with the 2nd Coldstream at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. This last was the most realistic yet, exercising transport and medical services as well, but after this large scale manoeuvres were abandoned, as too expensive. Memories were fading.

If you would like to recreate the Battle of Dorking yousrelf I can recommend the boardgame produced by Draken Games at http://swww.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?currency=JPY&products_id=63471&filters=0_0_40007

James & Emma - the military career of Pvt James Cutting Part 4

James Cutting joined the Coldstream Guards in Bury St Edmunds on the 16th of November 1864. It all seemed to start so well, despite difficult and trying assignments in Dublin and London he was awarded Good Conduct pay for meretricious conduct on 1867, and then again in 1870. Then things started to go wrong. He forfeited his Good conduct pay on 11 th November 1871, and in fact was imprisoned for 3 days on November 18th. He again forfeited pay in 1872. It´s hard to know at this distance in time what went wrong. It wasn´t stress under fire  - although Britain fought several wars in this period, in New Zealand, Canada, and against the Ashanti in Africa, the Coldstream weren't involved. Maybe that was the problem, maybe he wasn't suited to a life of endless drills and parades, and smartly polished uniforms? Maybe he just ran up against the wrong officer, or mixed with the wrong crowd? And why always November? His birthday was in February, but it's quite possible that his initial enlistment perhaps coincided with the end of the harvest period, and a shortage of work on the land, but what was the connection later?

Anyway, on the 16th of November 1874, James left the Guards, with, it has to be said, a "good" character reference from the regiment. Five months later, in March, he married Emma Wilkin who was 6 months pregnant with their daughter Sarah Maud. James was 29, Emma 22. She came from Bardwell, about 8 miles from James´s home village in Suffolk, which is surely no coincidence, but they married in London, both giving a home address as 6 Connaught Square in Paddington. James was now a labourer in a gas works,  By the time Sarah was born in July they were all living back in Bury St Edmunds, at 3 New Street, Ipswich Rd.

Bury St Edmunds gas works

More children followed, in all 5 daughters and one son, Henry. James spent many years as a gas stoker in Bury, then a carpenter and later a brick layer. He died in Culford, Suffolk in 1919 aged 72. Emma lived rather longer, she and her twin sister Sarah recieving a telgram from King George VI in the 1940s congratulating them on being the oldest twins in England.

Trouble & Strife - the military career of Pvt. James Cutting Part 2

The Fenians were what we would now call a terrorist group, founded in the United States in 1858 with the aim of  driving Ireland out of the British Empire. An Irish American organisation, they even staged a few raids into Canada with veterans of the civil war. Opponents of the Fenians in Canada and Ireland were murdered and there was an assassination attempt on Prince Alfred in Sydney in 1868. But agitation in Ireland, and amongst Irish migrants to Britain, was the main aim.

In 1865 Fenians tried to organise a revolt in Ireland, collecting up to 6,000 firearms, but they were hopelessly infiltrated by the British and in September most of the leadership was arrested. Nonetheless, in early 1867 there were a series of failed uprisings in Kerry, Limerick, Cork and Dublin. In the largest engagement at Tallaght south of Dublin, on the 5th of March, several hundred armed Fenians were driven off and dispersed by the local Irish Constabulary.

There were also plans for England using Irish emigrants, including an ambitious attempt to take over the armoury at Chester castle, again foiled by good intelligence. In September 1867 a group attempting to rescue one of their leaders from a prison van attacked it with revolvers, and were later captured and executed for murdering one of the prison guards. In December an attempt to dynamite the wall of Clerkenwell prison in London caused the demolition of several tenement buildings in the street opposite, killing 12 people and injuring over 50. Again the organiser was quickly caught and hanged.

The Coldtream Guards were in the thick of these events. On 20th February 1866 the 1st battalion were rushed to Dublin at 24 hours notice, leaving behind any men unfit for active service, and they remained there until March 1867. It can hardly have been a pleasant tour of duty, not least as they had to police other regiments suspected of infiltration. For example, a party of the 1st battalion and Dublin police raided Pilsworth's public house in James St and arrested three soldiers of the 86th regiment, including a corporal who was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment and 50 lashes. Prisoners from Tallaght were escorted into Dublin by two companies of the Coldstream, and a troop of Scots Greys. The Illustrated London News of the time describes the Fenians as mostly youths or rabble, but with men "of more soldierly aspect and carriage who had served in the late civil war in America".

Illustrated London News March 16 1867.  Coldstream Guards escorting prisoners through Dublin.

On returning to London the 1st battalion were commended on their discipline, zeal and cheerfulness. They were relieved by the 2nd, who likewise served in Dublin for a year, at the end being commended for their good conduct "during trying times, and when the men were exposed to mischievous temptations".

Whilst the battalion in Dublin certainly had a trying time during these years, it was not a bed of roses for those in London. During 1866 and 67 a Reform Bill was passing through Parliament which, eventually, gave the vote to all male householders. However, this was not the original intention of the bill, and it was only after many public demonstrations, and a "bidding war"between Disraeli and Gladstone that the bill was passed. Towards the end of July 1867 all leave of the 2nd battalion was cancelled and officers were recalled, and magistrates were attached to all the London barracks should the army be required to aid the civil power.

Disturbances continued into 1867, with on several occasions the public guards at Buckingham  and Kensington palaces and other sites being doubled. Things reached a head with the terrorist attack on Clerkenwell in Dec 1867. All leave, drills and exercises were cancelled, and a party of the 1st battalion was immediately sent to Clerkenwell consisting of 3 officers and 100 men with loaded rifles. A piquet of 100 men under  a captain guarded the barracks and guards were posted on Millbank prison and small arm factories throughout London. At the the Tower of London, where the 1st battalion was stationed, patrols were mounted all night around the outer ditches and surrounding wharfs. Leave continued to be suspended over Christmas and things only started to return to normal in January.

So James had a busy couple of years, not with wars but police actions in Ireland and London, as well as having to learn to use the new Snider-Enfield breech loading rifle, introduced following the success of the Prussian version in wars against Denmark and Austria. It should be noted however that James was awarded Good Conduct pay at 1d/ day, on 16th November 1867, a reward for men after "meritorious conduct".

Suffolk Punch - the military career of Pvt James Cutting. Part 1

We normally think of military history in terms of an event, a battle or campaign, and all the forces associated with it. But there is perhaps another way, chose a soldier and follow his progress through time. This is the story of Private James Cutting of the Coldstream Guards.

James was born on February 27th, 1846, the youngest of 8 children of James and Mary Ann. James Sr was an agricultural labourer and the Cuttings lived in the small hamlet of Timworth, about 2 miles from Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk. 

It's not clear why James enlisted, there was no particular national emergency at the time, with the French invasion scares of the 50s receding and the recent crisis with the United States resolved. Perhaps financial pressure from a poor family with 5 daughters, perhaps just a desire for adventure, but anyway on Saturday 12th of November, 1864, he presented himself at Bury St Edmunds and enlisted in the Coldstream Guards. The Coldstream had a recruiting sergeant in Bury, one of 15 around the country. From James's enlistment papers we can get some idea of the man himself. Eighteen years old, 5ft 9" tall with a fresh complexion, grey eyes and brown hair, and a distinctive scar on his face. 

From the memoirs of another Bury St Edmonds recruit to the Coldstream we can get some idea of the procedure. WH Ranson (http://whranson.blogspot.com/search/label/Coldstream%20Guards) enlisted on Saturday 7th January 1860, but then went home, to family recriminations. It was only the following Saturday that he and other recruits went down to the Portman St barracks in London, and then the following Monday again when they had their final medical inspection. Ranson was discharged by mistake and started home via Shoreditch Railway station, but James of course continued at the Guards.

New recruits were taken to a barracks at St Johns Wood where they were technically under a Resident Officer, but as these rotated weekly, in fact they were trained by a Regimental Drill Sergeant. Here James received, amongst other things, gymnastic training, a recent innovation which was part of a raft of measures attempting to modernise the army introduced by the Duke of Cambridge in the late 1850s and early 1860s. If he liked a smoke then he arrived just in time, as it was only in October 1864 that soldiers were allowed to smoke in the barrack room. James was private 1366, and he was to remain so for the next ten years.

The Coldstream Guards had two battalions, and it's unfortunate that we don't know which one he was part of, as they were frequently deployed apart. One duty they both had however was ceremonial - it was a Guards Regiment after all. In July 1866 the contribution of the regiment to this was....

                                      Capt             Subaltan       Sergeant   Corporal            Drums           Privates
Queens Guard                    1                    2                  2               2                     3                    36
Buckingham Palace                                 1                  2              2                      1                    27
Tylt Guard                                                1                  2               2                      1                    18
Kensington Guard                                                      1               1                      0                    15
Magazine Guard                                                          1               1                      0                     9
Total                                    1                    4                 8               8                      5                   105                  
So, doubtless James spent a lot of his military career standing in his red uniform and highly polished boots outside various palaces. One suspects thts might have sometimes been a touch boring, but it was more congenial than his duties were to be elsewhere in 66 and 67.


The Coldstream details are from "A History of the Coldstream Guards" by Lt. Col. Ross of Bradensburg.