BEING EXTRACTS FROM “A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY ” BY The Hon. J. W. FORTESCUE MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1918 COPYRIGHT...

This volume consists simply of extracts reprinted from my History of the British Army. It is published in order that the troops at the front may, if they wish it, study the experiences of their forerunners in the Low Countries in a book which is fairly portable and fairly inexpensive, though neither so cheap nor so compendious as The British Soldiers’ Guide to Northern France and Flanders . J. W. F....

I pass now to Flanders, which is about to become for the second time the training ground of the British Army. The judicious help sent by Lewis the Fourteenth to Ireland had practically diverted the entire strength of William to that quarter for two whole campaigns; and though, as has been seen, there were English in Flanders in 1689 and 1690, the contingents which they furnished were too small and the operations too trifling to warrant description in detail. After the battle of the Boyne the cas

In November the English Parliament met, heartened indeed by the naval victory of La Hogue, but not a little grieved over the failure of Steenkirk. Again, the financial aspect was extremely discouraging; and Sir Stephen Fox announced that there was not another day’s subsistence for the Army in the treasury. The prevailing discontent found vent in furious denunciations of Count Solmes, and a cry that English soldiers ought to be commanded by English officers. The debate waxed hot. The hardest of h

A European quarrel over the succession to the Spanish throne, [12] on the death of the imbecile King Charles the Second, had long been foreseen by William, and had been provided against, as he hoped, by a Partition Treaty in the year 1698. The arrangement then made had been upset by the death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, and had been superseded by a second Partition Treaty in March 1700. In November of the same year King Charles the Second died, leaving a will wherein Philip, Duke of Anjo

Meanwhile Parliament had met on the 29th of the previous October, full of congratulations to the Queen on the triumphs of the past campaign. There were not wanting, of course, men who, in the madness of faction, doubted whether Blenheim were really a victory, for the very remarkable reason that Marlborough had won it, but they were soon silenced by the retort that the King of France at any rate had no doubts on the point. [21] The plans for the next campaign were designed on a large scale, and w

It is now time to revert to England and to the preparations for the campaign of 1706. Marlborough, as usual, directly that the military operations were concluded, had been deputed to visit the courts of Vienna and of sundry German states in order to keep the Allies up to the necessary pitch of unity and energy. These duties detained him in Germany and at the Hague until January 1706, when he was at last able to return to England. There he encountered far less obstruction than in former years, bu

Almanza was a bad opening for the new year, but worse was to follow. Throughout the winter Marlborough had, as usual, been employed in diplomatic negotiations, which nothing but his skill and fascination could have carried to a successful issue. But on one most important point the Duke was foiled by the treachery of the Emperor, who, to further his own selfish designs on Naples, secretly concluded a treaty with France for the neutrality of Italy, and thus enabled the whole of the French garrison

The successes of the past campaign were sufficient to put the British Parliament in good humour, and to prompt it to vote a further increase of ten thousand German mercenaries for the following year. Nevertheless political troubles were increasing, and there were already signs that the rule of Godolphin and Marlborough was in danger. The death of the Prince Consort had been a heavy blow to the Duke. Prince George may have deserved Lord Macaulay’s character for impenetrable stupidity, but there c

The French, fully aware of the political changes in England, had during the winter made extraordinary exertions to prolong the war for yet one more campaign, and to that end had covered the northern frontier with a fortified barrier on a gigantic scale. Starting from the coast of Picardy the lines followed the course of the river Canche almost to its source. From thence across to the Gy, or southern fork of the Upper Scarpe, ran a line of earthworks, extending from Oppy to Montenancourt. From th

However fortunate might be the issue of Dettingen, it served at least its purpose in preventing the despatch of French reinforcements to the Danube and to Bohemia; and the campaign of 1743 closed with the utter collapse of Belleisle’s great schemes and with the expulsion of the French from Germany. It was now clear that the war would be carried on in the familiar cockpit of the Austrian Netherlands. Such a theatre was convenient for France, since it lay close to her own borders, and convenient f

The virtual evacuation of the Low Countries by the British, in consequence of the Jacobite Rebellion, was an advantage too obvious to be overlooked by the French. At the end of January, though winter-quarters were not yet broken up, they severed the communication between Antwerp and Brussels, and a week later took the town of Brussels itself by escalade. The citadel, after defending itself for a fortnight, went the way of the town, and the capital of the Spanish Netherlands was turned into a Fre

War was declared by the French Convention on the 1st of February 1793, and Dumouriez was ordered to invade Holland forthwith. The Convention, thirsting for the wealth of the Bank of Amsterdam, was anxious to make sure of it before the Allies could put their strength into the field. Two months earlier, when his troops were heartened by the victory of Jemappe, no order could have been more welcome to Dumouriez than this; and even now, though he had few men upon whom he could depend, he resolved if

On the 5th of March it was resolved to send the Fourteenth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-third Foot, March 5. completed by drafts from the new independent companies, to join the Duke as a brigade under Major-general Ralph Abercromby. These regiments, however, were subject to the same instructions as the Guards, namely, to remain within immediate reach of their transports in case their services should be required elsewhere. Their quality was such that the Adjutant-general felt constrained to apologi

The effect of Carnot’s arrival at Dunkirk in overthrowing Pitt’s original plan has already been told. There can be no doubt that the French had full information of the Minister’s designs, for it became a proverb that the most secret projects of the British War Office were always well known to the enemy and to everybody in England. [128] Nevertheless, if the British Cabinet had thereupon frankly abandoned any attempt upon Dunkirk, Carnot’s labours might have been turned to naught. The French army

During August and the first week of September the results of the Government’s incoherent enterprises began to crowd one upon another with rapidity enough to bewilder a clearer head than that of Dundas. The forces that he had set in motion in the Colonies seemed at first to promise great results at small cost. On the April 12. 12th of April General Cuyler, obedient to his instructions, embarked a force of about five hundred men [160] at Barbados, and sailed under convoy of Vice-admiral Sir John L

It is now necessary to sum up the relative conditions of France and the Allies at the close of 1793. The British enterprises against the French at Dunkirk, in La Vendée, and at Toulon had one and all failed; but the tale of disaster was even then not fully told. Upon arrogating to itself the appointment of Generals in the field, the Committee of Public Safety had appointed Oct.-Nov. Pichegru and Hoche to command respectively the armies of the Rhine and Moselle. Pichegru had been a non-commission

On the 16th of April, as had been arranged, the whole of the main army was inspected by the Emperor on April 16. the heights of Cateau. The British infantry was represented, as in the last campaign, by three battalions of Guards, with a fourth battalion formed out of their flank-companies, and by Abercromby’s brigade of the Fourteenth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-third. These last had at length received their first instalment of recruits to make good their losses during 1793, in the shape of a dra

The entire army of the Allies, with the exception of Clerfaye’s corps, was gathered into camp about Tournai May 19. in the course of the 19th, the Emperor being received in silence when he rode into the town, while the Duke of York was loudly cheered by the inhabitants. [243] The condition of the army was very far from satisfactory. The troops themselves, or at any rate the British, were not seriously shaken by the rout of the previous day; but the Emperor and the Austrian commanders were much d

While the Allies in the Netherlands were thus giving way on all sides during the months of June and July, the British Government naturally bethought itself of the sixty thousand men which it had agreed to hire from Prussia for operations in that quarter. The Ministers had reckoned that these troops would be ready by the end of May; and accordingly, as has been told, Lord Cornwallis was sent from England to arrange with Marshal Möllendorf as to the part to be taken by the Prussians in the campaig