Western Warfare, 1775-1882

Jeremy Black

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317489917
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This is a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of warfare from the outbreak of the American War of Independence to the British conquest of Egypt. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources this book offers an unrivalled account of civil and international conflicts involving Western powers, integrating both naval and land warfare. This book covers military capability as well as conflict, social and political contexts as well as weaponry, tactics and strategy. As well as examining such major conflicts as the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the Wars of German Unification, this book redresses the imbalance of previous treatments by examining other important conflicts, for example, those in Latin America, as well as insurgency and counter-insurgency in Europe. This book's global perspective provides for a more reliable assessment of what constitutes military capability. In so doing, the author challenges the technological determinism and linear conceptions of developments in military science that continue to characterise much of military history. Instead the author reveals a much more complex dynamic, indeed going so far as to question the idea of 'modernity' itself. Bold in scope, and cutting-edge in its interpretations, this book offers much for the student, general reader and professional historian alike.

Chapter One
Western Warfare in its Global Context, 1775–1815

In the 40 years before 1775, much extra-European military activity by the Western powers had been at the expense of other Western powers, rather than of non-Western powers. This was particularly so in North America and West Africa, but also true to a considerable extent in India, although the important British conquest of Bengal had been against the Indians and dated from 1757 to 1765. In one part of the world, in this period, there had even been an important defeat for the Europeans. The Austrians had been unsuccessful in their war with Turkey in 1737–39 and had had to cede back to Turkey, Belgrade, northern Serbia and Little (Western) Wallachia, all of which had been gained in 1718. When combined with the Russian return to Persia in 1732 of lands occupied in 1723, this suggested that far from there being a remorseless process of Western advance, it had in fact come up against barriers, if only temporarily. This could be taken further with the failure to revise the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, by which Russia had accepted its exclusion by China from the Amur Valley.

Such an arrival at limits did not preclude further advances at the expense of less powerful peoples, as with the Russian advance into the Aleutian Isles, but it appeared to suggest that the West did not necessarily always have an unbeatable advantage on land over powerful non-Western states, although failing ambition (for whatever reason) might also have played a part. This apparently excluded European powers for a time from the bulk of south-west, south and east Asia, areas that contained much of the world’s population and economic activity.

In 1775–1815, the pace of Western expansion revived, although far from evenly. The most important gains were made by the Russians, the British and the Americans. Russia had been successful at the expense of the Turks in 1768–74 and again in the war of 1787–92. The Turks had hoped to challenge Russia’s occupation of the Crimea in 1783, and, by declaring war, gained the initiative, but a Turkish force that landed near Kinburn was defeated after hard fighting. In 1788, the Russians moved on to the attack, focusing on the powerful fortress of Ochakov, which overlooked the entrance to the Bug and the Dnieper. Catherine II’s favourite and former lover, Prince Gregory Potemkin, led the besieging army, and bitter naval engagements took place offshore as the Russians struggled to create an effective blockade. After lengthy bombardment, Ochakov was successfully stormed. In 1789, the main Russian army under Potemkin advanced to the Dniester; in 1790 the forts in the Danube delta, such as Izmail, were captured; and in 1791 the Russians advanced south of the Danube. The Turks accepted terms that left Russia firmly established on the Black Sea, a goal that had eluded Peter the Great.

When war was resumed in 1806–12, the deficiencies of the Russian army, which included inadequately developed support services, did not prevent it from being an effective force. In 1806–12, the Russians occupied Moldavia and Wallachia, operated south of the Danube and, as a result of Kutuzov’s victory at Ruschuk (4 July 1811), gained Bessarabia at the Treaty of Bucharest. Similarly, the Austrians developed tactical formations to counter Turkish cavalry superiority, especially infantry squares arranged in supporting checkerboard pattern, helping them to defeat the Turks in 1789.

Superior resources, skilful generalship, and firepower also helped give Russia victory against a very different kind of opponent, the Nogais of the Kuban, to the east of the Black Sea. When, in 1783, they resisted incorporation into the expanding Russian state, 3,000 were killed at the battle of Urai-Ilgasi, in August, by a small, disciplined force under Count Alexander Suvorov; and, on 2 October, in another battle at the confluence of the Kuban and the River Laba, Suvorov again inflicted heavy casualties. The Russians also made gains in the Caucasus. In 1783, Erekle II, ruler of Kart’li-Kakhet’I, the principal Georgian state, placed himself under Russian protection, and Russian troops entered Tiblisi. In 1784, a military road through the Dariel Pass, linking Russia and eastern Georgia, was completed. However, the Russians were initially unable to maintain their presence in Georgia; war with Turkey led to the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1787, and Catherine II refused to send them back in 1791 when Erekle was threatened by Persian attack. In 1795, Persian cavalry overran Georgia and sacked Tiblisi. Nevertheless, the Russians captured Derbent in 1796 and annexed much of Georgia in 1801. A Georgian revolt in 1812 was unsuccessful.

The towns of the Caucasus provided centres of control, but the ability of Western forces to force battle on nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples, such as the Nogais, was not always sufficient to guarantee their defeat, for such peoples tended only to risk battle when they had the advantage, and they frequently ambushed extended Russian columns. In Alaska, the Russians found the Tlingits tenacious foes, partly because they had acquired firearms from American and British traders and partly because in this situation the Russians derived little advantage from the naval power they had earlier used in the Aleutian Isles. The European imperial threat was often greatest to non-Western states and peoples when they were vulnerable to superior Western naval power. In 1802, the Tlingits destroyed the Russian base of New Archangel on Sitka.

In the Far East, there was no European military pressure on China, Japan or Siam in the eighteenth century, which represented a total failure to follow up earlier bold, and unrealistic, plans of conquest. Major wars, such as that between Burma and Siam in the 1780s, were waged without reference to European powers. In addition, assertive Asian powers pressed on Western interests; for example, the Bugis besieged Dutch-held Malacca in 1784, and Haidar Ali and Tipu, successive Sultans of Mysore, threatened British interests in southern India from the 1760s to the 1780s.

However, there were areas of Western advance, as well as a willingness to turn to Westerners for military expertise in struggles between non-Western powers. In addition, attacks by assertive Asian powers were less successful than in the past. For example, although concern over the contrast between their weak defences in Malacca and the military strength of the Bugis helped encourage the Dutch to adopt a hesitant role in the Malay world, the siege of Malacca was repelled in 1784.

In India, the British experienced serious checks from the Marathas of Maharastra (West India), as well as from Mysore. In 1778, the British sent an army from Bombay towards the Maratha capital. It was not up to the task, and, in the difficult terrain of the Ghats, the British failed to master the crucial problems of mobility, logistics and terrain, advancing less than a mile a day. When they turned back, they were surrounded by a far larger and more mobile Maratha force. On 12 January 1779, the British commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Cockburn, recorded, “we remained under a severe cannonade, having the whole flower of the Maratha horse ready to charge whenever an opportunity offered, but our well served artillery and the steadiness of the infantry prevented them”. By the following night, however, the army was badly affected by failing morale; desertions sapped its strength and ammunition supplies were falling. The British signed a convention at Wagdaon, agreeing to withdraw to Bombay. A well trained force could only achieve so much, especially if on difficult terrain in the face of considerably more numerous opponents and if reconnaissance was inadequate.

Mysore also had effective light cavalry, and Mysore armies defeated British forces in 1780 and 1782. The British advance on Seringapatam, the Mysore capital, in 1791 failed for different reasons. Having reached the city, defeating a Mysore force outside it, the British found themselves short of supplies, in part because of an epidemic among the bullocks that supplied transport, and, with the monsoon about to break, before a strongly fortified position. They fell back in disorder, abandoning many of their cannon.

Individual successes and failures had different causes, but the overall lesson was that Indian military systems were not foredoomed to failure. The light cavalry of Britain’s opponents could best be thwarted only if the British recruited local allies. This put a premium on the political skill of British leaders, on the financial resources of Britain’s Indian possessions, and also on the factors encouraging Indian rulers to help Britain. Thus the 1792 and 1799 advances on Seringapatam were more successful than that of 1791 largely because local allies had been secured. The failure of Hyderabad, Mysore and the Marathas to make common cause against the British was crucial.¹

Politics were also involved in the cohesion of opposing states. Like China, the European powers had great strength as a result of the continuity of administrative organization and government identity. Opponents who were largely dependent on the leadership of a single individual were weaker. This was a problem for Mysore, while the Marathas were greatly weakened by periods of civil war that in general reflected disputed successions.² There was a considerable shift in power from the centre to the peripheral Maratha states, and this eventually made the British task easier because it hindered cooperation between their opponents.

In 1803, the British waged war with the Marathas in a very different fashion than in 1778–79. A far larger force was deployed: 60,000 men on a number of fronts. The commander in the Deccan was General Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, a master of methodical yet rapid warfare, who understood the importance of logistics without allowing them to preclude mobility. Wellesley was able to achieve what had eluded his predecessors in the American War of Independence; the decisive victory. At the battle of Assaye on 23 September 1803, Wellesley, with 4,500 men, 17 guns and 5,000 unreliable Indian cavalry, successfully confronted 30,000 cavalry, 10,000 infantry trained by French officers, and over 100 well served and laid cannon, a disparity greater than that faced by Napoleon in his major battles.

The British infantry had to advance through the heavy fire of the Maratha artillery and the battle was a confused and hard-fought one in which successive British infantry and cavalry attacks eventually forced their opponents to retreat. At Assaye, Wellesley demonstrated the speedy attack he believed essential for campaigning in India.³ This compensated for his numerical inferiority and for poor intelligence about the location of the Maratha forces. Wellesley’s success in the battle owed much to bayonet charges, scarcely conforming to the standard image of Western armies gunning down masses of non-European troops relying on cold steel.⁴ Casualties accounted for over a quarter of the British force, but, crucially, the fearsome Maratha cannon were captured.

There were fewer British losses in their victory at Argaon (Argaum) on 29 November, but, again, the Maratha artillery, although it opened fire at too great a range, was effective and checked the first British attack. Wellesley eventually succeeded with a second attack supported by light artillery. This victory, and Wellesley’s continued ability to take the initiative and to sustain the range and mobility of his force, were instrumental in leading Dowlut Rao Sindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, to accept peace terms on 30 December 1803. The weak command structure and lack of money of the Marathas had disrupted operations, and the absence of regular pay had destroyed discipline and control.⁵

Further north, the British were commanded by General Gerard Lake, who defeated the Marathas outside Delhi on 11 September 1803, at Laswari on 1 November 1803, and at Farruckhabad on 17 November 1804. Lake was also a firm believer in mobility because only thus could the British hope to counter the Maratha cavalry and impose themselves on such a large area. Lake benefited from the Experimental Brigade of Horse Artillery, created by the Bengal Army in 1800, a step which reflected the influence of the formation of the Royal Horse Company in the British Army in 1793.

Despite their increasing flexibility, the British had a number of serious setbacks. Colonel William Monson lost his guns when forced to retreat in July–August 1804, in the face of the vastly larger cavalry force of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, Maharaja of Indore, a key Maratha leader.⁶ The following year, Lake lost heavily in four unsuccessful attempts to storm Bharatpur. As at Assaye, the British were outgunned. Lake had only four 18-pounders and insufficient ammunition and was unable both to neutralize the defensive fire and blow the gates in, as he had done at Aligarh the previous year. The need to combine sufficient firepower to offset opposing cannon and make an impact on fortifications, and at the same time to achieve mobility, was a serious command and organization problem. Nevertheless, defeated at Farruckhabad, and eventually driven to take refuge in the Punjab, Holkar finally sought peace and a treaty was signed in January 1806.⁷

Westernization was both a challenge and an opportunity for the British in India. It was a challenge, because the already formidable military difficulties presented in particular by Indian light cavalry were accentuated by the well trained artillery and infantry units that Indian states in large part owed to European advisors. European-style infantry forces were created by, for example, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Marathas. French experts taught Indians to cast cannon in the French style and also played a role in local fortification techniques. Thus, Benoît de Boigne, commander of a corps for the Maratha leader Sindhia, constructed French-style fortifications at Aligarh east of Delhi, after 1788. French engineers also helped fortify Seringapatam, and other Mysore fortresses.⁸ This was part of the history of Western warfare in this period, for its global impact was not simply achieved by the direct action of Western forces.

Westernization was also an opportunity, because the fusion of European training and Indian manpower was to be a basis of British military power in the nineteenth century, helping in the creation of a South Asian imperial state of hitherto unprecedented range. The mostly native East India Company army was 18,200 strong in 1763 and numbered 154,000 in 1805. This army was supported by the resources of the fertile areas that were under British control: Bengal and the Carnatic. Their banking networks were also crucial, because they helped the British to tap resources outside the combat areas.

The resulting army was capable by the 1800s not only of defeating the most powerful of Indian forces, but also of acting as a maritime imperial force in the Indian Ocean in a way that no previous Indian state had managed. The nearest comparison was with the Chinese amphibious expeditions of the early fifteenth century, but these had not been sustained. During the Napoleonic Wars, expeditions were also sent from India to Egypt, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Mauritius, the Persian Gulf and the East Indies in order to fight both Western and non-Western opponents.

The former involved attacks on Western bases, as well as an attempt to resist French pressure on Egypt. About 3,000 sepoys served in the successful attack on Mauritius in 1810. The following year, 5,770 Indian as well as 5,344 British troops took Batavia, the leading Dutch position in the East Indies. The British landed on 4 August and the Dutch governor rapidly abandoned vulnerable Batavia in order to concentrate on holding the well fortified lines of Cornelis, but they fell on 28 August after they had been outflanked and attacked from the rear. After another defeat at Samarang on 8 September, the Dutch surrendered. This was a fast-tempo war comparable to that of Napoleon in Europe. British forces from India were also deployed against non-Western opponents. In the Kandyan War of 1803, the British were thwarted in Ceylon by guerrilla attacks, logistical problems, inhospitable terrain and disease. The garrison in Kandy was obliged to surrender in June and was then massacred on its retreat to the coast; imperial retreats were always hazardous. In 1815, however, 900 British and 1,800 Indian troops conquered the kingdom of Kandy in the interior of Ceylon as a result of concerted operations by independently moving columns. Three years earlier, British forces had deposed the Sultan of Palembang on Sumatra and stormed the Sultan of Yogyakarta’s kraton (royal residence), despite its far larger garrison and numerous cannon. Pangeran Arya Panular, a Sumatran whose diary recorded the assault, was impressed by the British combination of discipline, bravery and determination.⁹

The use of Indian military resources was very important as it enabled the British to overcome the demographic imbalance that affected European forces in South and East Asia and, albeit to a lesser extent, Africa. As such, the British role was not too dissimilar to earlier empire builders in India from central Asia.¹⁰ However, the British were less willing than earlier conquerors to absorb Indian political and military values and more determined to deploy Indian resources in accordance with a wide ranging strategy. The British also benefited from ambitious, determined and skilful leadership, able generalship and a high degree of military preparedness in a period of near-continual conflict. The increase in British commitments in South Asia led to an expansion in the military there and to greater willingness to consider a resort to force to push boundaries further.

This led to a renewed bout of activity in 1814–18. War was declared against the Gurkhas of Nepal in 1814. Initial failures in 1814–15 owed much to poor British generalship, unfamiliarity with mountain warfare and the Gurkha combination of defensive positions, especially hill forts and stockades, with attacks on British detachments. British success was far from inevitable, but victories at Almora (1815), Malaun (1815), and Makwanpur (1816) eventually brought the conflict to a successful conclusion in March 1816. The victories owed much to the effective use of bayonet attacks, but also reflected luck, the skill of some commanders, and the failure of the Marathas and Sikhs to support the Gurkhas.¹¹

The Marathas were more rapidly crushed in 1817–18, thanks to victories at Kirkoe, Sitabaldi, Mahidpur, Koregaon and Satara. At Mahidpur (21 December 1817), the British infantry advanced under heavy fire from the Maratha artillery. The Maratha infantry mostly retreated, but the gunners ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Western Warfare in its Global Context, 1775-1815
• 2 Two Episodes of Modernity? The American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars
• 3 Napoleon and His Opponents
• 4 Naval Power and Warfare
• 5 The Global Context, 1815-82
• 6 After Waterloo: Conflict Within the West, 1815-60
• 7 Conflict Within the West, 1861-82
• 8 Social and Political Contexts
• 9 Conclusions: Revisiting Modernity
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index