During the eighteenth century, as during the centuries which preceded it, wealth was not sufficient to enable kings to raise large national armies, neither would it have been their policy to do so, even if it had been, for their authority, autocratic enough in many ways, was still sufficiently limited to render a small, highly-paid and professional army a necessary buttress to their kingship. A national one would have been a danger, for national armies frequently tend towards republican government. So it happens that, prior to the eighteenth century, we find in most countries a small standing army of highly trained heavy infantry, and that when war broke out this nucleus was usually supplemented by a rabble of militias, volunteers and free-booters.
By the date of the accession of Frederick the Great, standing armies had become not only formidable in size, but so highly drilled that in some countries, such as Prussia, it was not considered worth while raising free corps to support them; further, in these days, free corps were a very grave anxiety. Philosophical ideas of humanity were permeating civilised nations, and politics frequently demanded bloodless victories or victories devoid of rapine and plunder. Again, the behaviour, or want of it, on the part of irregular light troops, had a most demoralising effect on the army to which they belonged.
When wars lasted for many years, some of these free corps, at first but a rabble of pillagers, little by little, began to imitate their brothers of the line. They would dress like them, pick up their drill, abandon light infantry tactics to assume with their regulation uniforms the propensities of heavy infantry. When peace was declared, they were, however, generally disbanded; yet on occasions a few corps remained on as troops of the line to augment the regular army so that next time war was declared fresh bands of irregulars had to be raised in their stead. Thus we find, that, though at the beginning of a war, light troops are nonexistent, by the end of it they are plentiful, and frequently, trained as they were, in the rough and ready school of experience, are very efficient fighters.
In the British Army of the eighteenth century this was certainly the case, for no sooner was war declared than irregular troops were hastily improvised, and as hastily were they disbanded when peace was concluded. . . . "The Army was modelled on the system of medieval companies of soldier adventurers"; and the Standing Army "was formed by the negative process of omission to disband" (The British Army, 1783-1802." Hon. J. W. Fortescue.)
In 1748, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle having put an end to the War of the Austrian Succession, the usual reductions took place in the British Army. The troops came home with the glories of war and were at once disbanded by an ungrateful nation to swell the ranks of cut-throats and thieves, and so, having for years cheated the musket, they at length fell victims to the gallows, which were ever ready to receive them. However, I have noted that a spirit of humanity was abroad, and the same spirit, the spirit which gave the eighteenth century a brighter hue than those which preceded it, now compelled the government to establish settlements in Nova Scotia for these disbanded men. This system of military colonisation was copied from the French, who had sent out many old soldiers to Canada; the French in their turn had copied it from the Romans. Shortly after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, four thousand British soldiers with their wives and families sailed for Nova Scotia and founded Halifax. To protect these families, three companies of Rangers were raised; these Rangers, a type of provincial militia, were frequently recruited from huntsmen, and closely resembled the Jaegers and Chasseurs of Europe. From these we shall eventually see rising, through much adversity, buffeted by ignorance and impeded by stupidity, a new military force which was eventually to develop into the unsurpassed light infantry of the Peninsula War in Spain.
The French speedily resented this British settlement and fomented an Indian war against the settlers, who suffered very considerable damage. In 1754, the French in Canada attempted to secure the Mississippi valley as an outlet for their trade, and began erecting forts on the Ohio river, the natural waterway which links up the Great Lakes with the Mississippi and eventually with the Caribbean Sea. The most important of these forts was Fort Duquesne. This exasperated the British who, at this time, though they were only in possession of the coast line, had their eyes on the hinterland; further, any insult or aggression on the part of the French against the British was, in those days, resented by arms and not by words. The Indian War grew into a Colonial War, in which Washington's name for the first time is mentioned. To support and bring this Colonial War to a successful issue, the Duke of Cumberland, in 1755, dispatched General Braddock and a force of British Regulars from England to capture Fort Duquesne.
The Duke of Cumberland was a disciple of Frederick the Great; his conception of the ideal soldier was based on the German model of drill, more drill and still more drill, never one ounce of initiative, and in the carrying out to a nicety the rules and regulations of the academical tactics now the military fashion in all the armies of Europe. "He was as angry," wrote Walpole," at an officer's infringing the minutest precept of the military rubric as at his deserting his post, and was as intent on establishing the form of spatter dashes and cockades as on taking a town or securing an advantageous situation."
At the time of Braddock's landing in America, there existed in the colonies a class of men from whom, had he grasped what Indian warfare meant, he could, in a few weeks, have raised a force which would have defied defeat.
The early French colonists, Fortescue tells us, lived the free and fascinating life of an Indian in the forest. Every man, therefore, was a skilful woodsman, a good marksman, a handy canoeman, And, in a word, admirably trained for forest fighting ("History of the British Army," Vol. II, p. 255. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.) Washington, who was present with Braddock on his ill-fated expedition, must have explained the dangers he would run in trusting almost entirely to heavy infantry, but apparently with no avail. At this time, though the English colonists were principally husbandmen and depended for their protection on their local militias and Rangers, some of them, especially those under the famous Robert Rogers, were highly skilled irregulars. Even as far back as 1637, under Miles Standish and John Underhill, "seventy-seven colonists had boldly attacked an encampment of four hundred Indian warriors and had virtually annihilated them, giving, in fact, as fine an exposition of the principles of savage warfare as is to be found in our history . . ." ("History of the British Army," Vol. II, p. 255. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.)
In spite of the lessons of history, of which Braddock, in common with the officers of his age, had no knowledge; in spite of local experience and the numerous colonists who could have and must have warned him of the craft of both Indian and French, Braddock, we find, only took with him some fifty Indian scouts, and determined to defeat the most agile and skilful of irregulars - the Redskin of the American forests - by means of the triple line and the broadside volleys of Frederick the Great!
His advance, in 1755, to the Monongahela River, though of no great importance in the history of war, is exceptionally interesting from the point of view of light and heavy infantry tactics; and the battle which was fought shows how utterly useless it was for even the bravest of men to hope to advance successfully, in dense and heavy formations, against agile and skilful sharpshooters, who depended on themselves as well as on each other, and who were as skilful with their rifles as they were dexterous in using cover.
During their pioneer work in Canada, the French constantly allied themselves with the various Indian tribes, the braves of which were natural adepts in the art of ambuscades and concealment. But their best fighters were their half-breed settlers who combined the courage and determination of the white man with the cunning and agility of the Redskin.
The battle of Monongahela River was fought on June 9th, 1755, between a French force of thirty-six French officers, seventy-two Regular soldiers, one hundred and forty-six Canadians, and six hundred and forty-seven Indians, in all, nine hundred and one officers and men under Captain Beaujeu on the one side, and fourteen hundred and ninety-five officers, non-commissioned officers and men, Regulars and Provincials, under General Braddock on the other.
Beaujeu's tactics were essentially offensive, but he took no care to throw out scouts to protect his advance. General Braddock was more careful; he carried out all the rules of the books to the letter. As an advanced point he sent forward his guides and the Virginian Light Horse; these were followed by a hundred soldiers, under Lieut.-Colonel Gage, as vanguard, and a large body of axemen, for the country through which he marched was virgin forest; behind these came two cannon with tumbrils and tool waggons, and lastly a rear party. Flanking parties were thrown out on both sides of the track. The main body followed in rear observing similar precautions against surprise.
Gage had just passed a small ravine, which the head of the vanguard was about to enter, when he saw a man dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget of an officer, bounding forward along the path. The horseman suddenly stopped and waved his hat. In a minute the forest began to swarm with French and savages. They yelled a war whoop, and, spreading themselves to right and left, opened a sharp fire under cover of the trees. Gage wheeled his column into line, and fired several volleys against his now invisible assailants. Few of them were hurt - the trees caught the shot - but the noise was deafening under the dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the Canadians, to borrow the words of Dumas (Beaujeu's second in command), fled shamefully, crying, "Sauve qui peut!" Volley followed volley, and at the third Beaujeu dropped dead.
The English moved forward shouting, "God Save the King," and Dumas, now in command, thought that all was lost; but the French officers rallied their men, and while Dumas and the few Regulars left held the track, his savage allies, shrieking their war cries, swarmed through the forest along both flanks of the English, and hiding behind trees, bushes, and fallen trunks, or crouching in gullies and ravines, opened a deadly fire on the helpless soldiery who, themselves completely visible, could see no enemy, and wasted volley after volley on the impassive trees. An invisible death was everywhere - in front, flank, and rear. The British cheer was heard no more. The troops broke their ranks and, huddled together in a bewildered mass, were cut down by scores.
Braddock now arrived with four hundred men from the main body, but the troops of Gage, falling back on him, caused terrible confusion. Meanwhile the pelting hail of lead continued, the smoke hung in clouds among the branches, but no foe could be seen. Both men and officers were new to this blind and frightful warfare of the savage in his native woods.
The Virginians alone were equal to the emergency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians themselves, they might have held the enemy in check till order could be restored, had not Braddock, furious at a proceeding that shocked all his ideas of courage and discipline, ordered them with oaths to form into line. Some of the Regulars had also tried, in their clumsy way, to fight behind the trees; but Braddock beat them with his sword, and compelled them to stand with the rest - an open mark for the Indians to aim at. The panic increased. So it got worse and worse, the artillery doing great damage to the trees, and little to the enemy; the soldiers loading and firing mechanically into the air at times, and often into their comrades, many of whom were killed. The roar of the cannon and muskets, added to the yells from the throats of six hundred unseen savages, combined to form a "chaos of anguish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian warfare." Braddock was everywhere, storming and cheering like one demented. He had four horses shot under him. Eventually he ordered a retreat; the soldiers broke and fled helter-skelter, leaving everything - wounded comrades, baggage, cannon - to the Indians. Braddock himself was now shot down and carried off by a few devoted followers. The Indians scalped and looted and burnt their prisoners alive; the French had had enough and retired.
The losses of the contending armies are instructive: the English lost sixty-three officers out of eighty-six, and nine hundred and fourteen men out of thirteen hundred and seventy-three. The French had three officers killed and four wounded. The Canadians suffered five casualties and the Indians twenty-seven. A French force of nine hundred irregulars, using Indian tactics, had beaten an English column fourteen hundred and fifty strong, using the tactics of Frederick the Great. The French, who made use of every cover, lost less than five per cent of their force, whilst the English, who did not, lost seventy-three per cent of their officers and sixty-six per cent of their men.
Braddock was not an incapable officer as most historians paint him. He had taken every precaution against surprise; his only fault was that he attempted to carry out a system of tactics which ninety-nine out of every hundred officers in Europe considered the ne plus ultra of perfection. If Frederick the Great himself had been in command of this British column, he could not have done more than Braddock did, and he would have suffered a similar fate. Braddock seems to have realised his mistake, for on July 11th, just before he died, he pathetically murmured: "Another time we shall know better how to deal with them." His words were prophetic, for a few years later saw the arrival of Howe and Wolfe, who, abandoning much that was useless, replaced the heavy line formations by active skirmishers, and these very soon learnt to beat the French at their own game (Condensed from the accounts given by Lieut.-Colonel Heneker in "Bush Warfare," pp. 47-53, and "History of the British Army," Vol. II., p. 280-285; by Fortescue. See also Malleson's "Ambushes and Surprises," Chapter VI.)
Braddock's disaster on the wild banks of the Monongahela, due entirely to a lack of light infantiy and light infantry tactics, was the first nail driven into the Frederician system of war as applied to the British Army. Notwithstanding the severity of the lesson, from the point of view of tactical principles, fifty years of almost continuous warfare in America, the West Indies, South America, Africa, Europe, and India were required before the truth was once again appreciated; and then this appreciation was only destined to flare up for some fifteen years, to be lost again in the general decline in warfare which eclipsed all things military after the victory of Waterloo, and which continued dismal and opaque until the introduction of the breechloading rifle. it was, however, also the birthday of a new system, new to the eighteenth century, but as old as war itself.
Christmas Day, 1755, saw the birth of the 60th Royal Americans, under that incomparable light infantry leader Colonel Bouquet, of whom more anon. The magic of the Redskin was abroad, it was casting its solvent spells over the coagulated minds of British generals hypnotised by the gyratings of the Potsdam Grenadiers, and deafened to all common sense by the resounding thud of ten thousand men in line as they charged over the Tiergarten at the goose-step!
In 1757, Lord Howe arrived in America with his Regiment, the 55th. Being a practical man, he at once set himself to learn the art of forest warfare at first hand, and to do so he chose as his instructor Robert Rogers, the famous leader of the Provincial Irregulars, or Rangers. Robert Rogers had a very eventful career; he fought throughout the French and Indian wars in America, and during the Seven Years War, he commanded and raised various bands of Rangers. He fought under Bouquet throughout the Pontiac War, and later through the American War of Independence. Whilst in England he was much lionised. Later he fought in Africa, and during the Revolutionary Wars raised both the Queen's and King's Rangers. He died in England. His brother, James Rogers, was also well known as a partisan ("The Making of Canada," p. 50. A. G. Bradley.)
Howe, Fortescue tells us, threw off all the training of the barrack-square, joined the irregulars in their scouting parties, and shared their hardships, adopted their dress, and became one of themselves. Having thoroughly schooled himself, he then proceeded to teach his men. He cut the skirts off their coats and the hair off their heads, browned the barrels of their muskets, gave them leggings, emptied their knapsacks of pomatums, greases and powders, and filled them with thirty pounds of meal. In a word, he headed a reaction against the stiff, impractical school of Prussia, so much favoured by Cumberland, and set up in its place a training based on experience. Such ideas were not patent to Lord Howe, for others had thought of them before, and were thinking of them at this very time. Colonel Bouquet, of the 60th Royal Americans, wished to dress his men like Indians, Washington wished to do the same, and Brigadier Forbes emphatically asserted: "We must learn the art of war from the Indians!" There was, in fact, a general revolt on the part of all practical-minded men against powder and pipeclay for bush fighting, and Lord Howe and others were fortunately in a position to turn it to account (Condensed from "History of the British Army," Vol. II., p. 329. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.)
In 1758, probably due to Lord Howe's influence, the 80th Regiment was raised (The 80th, or Gage's "Regiment of light-armed foot," and the 85th were disbanded in 1763, re-raised in 1778, disbanded again in 1784, and again raised in 1794. See "History and Campaigns of the Rifle Brigade," p. 11. Colonel W. Verner.) It was known as Gage's Light Infantry, and was designed for the purpose of scouting and skirmishing. In the following year, 1759, Colonel Morgan raised a battalion of Irish Light Infantry in Ireland known as the 90th Regiment, which was at once sent to America. (Colonel Morgan's Light Infantry, raised in 1759, saw service at the Siege of Belle Isle, 1761, and at the capture of Martinique and Havana. It was disbanded in 1763, raised again in 1778, disbanded in 1784, and re-raised in 1794 under the name of 90th Perthshire Volunteers, when it was trained as a light infantry battalion. The Perthshire Volunteers eventually became the 2nd Battalion of the Scottish Rifles. See "Records and Badges of the British Army," p. 234. H. M. Chichester and G. Burges Short.) The 85th Regiment was also styled light infantry.
Braddock's defeat called for immediate action on the part of the home government, and Abercromby was, in 1757, sent out to prosecute the war in place of Loudon; he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in America. His plan comprised three definite objectives:
(1) To, besiege Louisburg with fourteen thousand regular troops under Amherst.
(2) To take Fort Duquesne. For this work Brigadier-General Forbes was chosen, and he was given nineteen hundred Regulars and five thousand Provincials.
(3) To operate against Montreal and Quebec. These operations Abercromby reserved to himself and Brigadier-General Lord Howe. The force was to consist of ten thousand Regulars and twenty thousand Provincials.
For the seige of Louisburg, there being no light infantry regiments or companies at hand, it was found necessary to improvise them, and five hundred and fifty marksmen were drawn from the different regiments including some seventy or eighty men of the 60th Royal Americans. These were called "The Light Infantry," and were placed under the command of a certain Major Scott. From a work entitled "An Authentic Account of the Reduction of Louisbourg," London, 1758, we learn that these marksmen were chosen "out of the most active, resolute men from all the battalions of Regulars; dressed some in blue, some in green jackets and drawers for the easier brushing through the woods. . . Their arms were a fusil, cartouche-box and a powder-horn" ("The Annals of the King's Royal Rifle Corps," p. 47. Capt. Lewis Butler. Also "History of the British Army," Vol. II, p. 323. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.)
At the capture of Louisburg on June 8th, 1758, Wolfe's column consisted of five companies of grenadiers, "The Light Infantry," a body of American Rangers, Fraser's Highlanders, and eight companies of grenadiers in support. This mixing of grenadiers and light infantry, soldiers possessing shock and missile power, strongly reminds us of Loudon's system adopted in Austria this very year.
Brigadier-General Forbes, who was in command of the operations against Fort Duquesne, was a remarkable man and a very capable light infantry leader. He began life as a medical student, but tiring of messing pills he entered the Scots Greys and was trained in the old school of Prussia. In spite of this, he at once recognised the necessities of the new art of war. He carefully studied Braddock's failure, and based his light infantry tactics on the principles laid down in Turpin's "Essai sur la Guerre."
He carried out his advance on Fort Duquesne in short stages, establishing along the road, every forty miles, fortified magazines. The capture of Fort Frontenac decided the fate of Fort Duquesne, for, on November 25th, the French blew up the latter. Fort Duquesne once gained, Forbes planted a stockade round the few remaining huts and rechristened the place "Pittsburg" in honour of the minister.
Abercromby's operations against Quebec resulted in his advance up lakes St. George and Champlain, and terminated in his disastrous Ticonderoga campaign. This campaign, from the point of view of this book, is only interesting in so far that light infantry took a considerable part in it, and that, on July 6th, 1758, Lord Howe was killed. This was a most serious loss, as Abercromby was a less competent general, Howe being described by Wolfe as "the best soldier in the British Army." During the advance up lake St. George, Robert Rogers and his Rangers acted as advanced guard, Howe and his light infantry leading the way, Gage following with part of his newly raised light infantry. In the attack which followed on the French stockade, the Rangers and the light infantry formed a skirmishing screen behind which the assaulting columns advanced; as these approached, the skirmishers cleared the front. After the disastrous failure the columns withdrew, again covered by their admirable skirmishers.
In 1759, Amherst raised further light infantry from the marksmen of his battalions, and on occasions he formed his men into two ranks in place of three. Fortescue asserts that it was Amherst and not Wolfe who was the true conqueror of Canada. As a light infantry leader he grasped the principle understood by both Marshal de Saxe and Marshal Loudon, that sharpshooters were not true light infantry, but that they were the very best material out of which light infantry might be fashioned. Further, that a thorough training was just as necessary for them as it was for the heavy infantry of the line. By Amherst's order, "Special corps of light troops and of marksmen were organised, and the drill of the whole army was modified to suit new conditions. It was, in fact, Amherst who showed the way to the reform of reducing the depth of the ranks to two men only. . ." ("History of the British Army," Vol. II, p. 409. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.) This was a most important reform, and until it had been authorised no speedy training of light infantry was possible. Later on we shall see that the light infantry drill of the period pivoted on the two-deep formation; file movements and skirmishing movements alike depended on it, as well as extensions and closings.
Wolfe, who was just as much alive to the necessity of a light infantry force as Amherst, raised and organised a considerable number of these troops. Wolfe was an officer of the new school - he was a humanitarian as well as a disciplinarian. Further, Wolfe, like so many other great generals, was a student of history. James, in his "Military Dictionary," Second Edition, under article, "Regimental Library," gives the following anecdote: "Having shown some general officers how expert his men were at a new mode of attacking and retreating upon hills, he stepped up to one of them and asked what he thought of it. "I think," said he, "I see something here of the history of the Carduchi, who harassed Xenophon, and hung upon his rear in his retreat over the mountains." "You are right," said Wolfe, "I had it thence; but our friends, here, are surprised at what I have shown them, because they have read nothing."
Though it would be a platitude now to state that no man can instil true discipline without understanding human nature, it was far from being so a hundred and sixty-six years ago. To discipline is to control, to control is to understand. An engineer who understands his machine can control it, not so a man who does not understand it, in spite of the fact that he may set the machine in motion. Wolfe, Fortescue writes, was one of the founders of the new school, the school which was beginning to realise that true discipline consisted in cultivating the natural virtues of the man and not of brutalising them by attempting to suppress his vices in a brutal manner. He contrived to turn even the work of road-making in Scotland to excellent disciplinary account; and, indeed, I am disposed to think that this same road-making, first begun under the direction of the mild and gentle Wade, had much to do with the foundation of the new school. The officers were brought very much more into contact with their men off parade, being obliged to supervise them while at work and to enjoin on them conciliatory bearing and behaviour towards the inhabitants; and the men, on their side, were happy and well-conducted, for they were kept constantly employed and received a welcome addition to their pay." ("History of the British Army," Vol. II, p. 578. Hon. J. W. Fortescue.)
The following corps composed the army of Major-General James Wolfe in his famous and daring attack on Quebec:
"Three companies of Royal Artillery, and the following Regiments of Foot: 15th, 28th, 35th, 43rd, 47th, 48th, 2nd/60th, 3rd/60th, 78th, Louisburg Grenadiers; a company of Light Infantry from (each regiment in) the Army; a company of Light Infantry from the garrison of Louisburg; six companies of New England Rangers; one company of New England Carpenters; the Grenadiers of the army under Colonel Carleton; the Light Infantry under the Hon. Colonel Howe." ("The Annals of the King's Royal Rifle Corps," Vol. I., p. 291. Capt. Lewis Butler.)
On September 13th, 1759, the attack on Quebec took place. A party of twenty-four light infantry men under their leader, Colonel William Howe, brother of Lord Howe, were the first to land from the boats. This party formed the advanced-point, and crept up the two hundred feet of cliff which separates the St. Lawrence from the Plains of Abraham. It was only when the cheers of Howe's "forlorn hope" were heard, that Wolfe gave the signal for his men to swarm up the narrow track and join their comrades, in what was destined to be one of the most far-reaching victories in British history.
The next year, 1760, a small mixed force, under Colonel Montgomery, was attacked whilst in a wooded valley by a much superior force of Red Indians. It was just five years since Braddock's force had been attacked in a similar manner and position, and all but destroyed. Montgomery and his men, however, did not form a triple line; he and his light infantry and grenadiers at once plunged into the forest and attacked his assailants, whilst his Highlanders, hastening round their flanks, attacked them in rear, and threatened their line of retreat. The result was a signal victory and the Indians were put to flight with great slaughter.
Five years in the rough school of war had taught Englishmen how to fight, besides how to parade for fighting. The peace-trained schools at home repudiated these ideas for nearly half a century. The moral of this is that one experience in war is worth a decade of arguments during peace, and that if we wish to build up theories of war we should build them on these war experiences, for they are of rock, in place of trusting to the sandy foundations of flatulent pedants which are blown from under our feet by the first cannonade of war.