John Bull viewing the preparations on the French coast! (1803)

John Bull viewing the preparations on the French coast! (1803)

1Long before the camp de Boulogne, the British Isles were the subject of invasion desires by the French government. Throughout the 18th century, schemes were devised for the invasion of the islands. For one of the last (just before the French Revolution in 1778-9), the celebrated turncoat Charles François Dumouriez had written a series of propositions for a descent upon England via the Isle of Wight. In 1778, Dumouriez remarked that England had 50,000 men in America and no more than 10,000 regular soldiers at home, the latter of which could only with great difficulty be concentrated. In his opinion the militia was a non-entity. His plan needed “two hundred coasters, 30 converted gun sloops that could transport 24 battalions, as well as a regiment of dragoons and eight companies of artillerymen”… “barely two hours would be needed to embark the men in Cherbourg, and with an evening departure in November on a falling tide, they could expect to reach the Isle of Wight with the rising tide.” After rallying to Britain, Dumourriez in 1802 was to present the same plans [which he now called a Mémoire détaillé sur la défensive des Côtes, dont la Note historique est l’introduction nécessaire] to his Highness the Duke of York, expressing himself “happy if my experience could perhaps be useful to a great and good King, adored by his subjects, and to a nation full of energy and resources, and if I can contribute to saving even just one cottage of happy England.”  [2]

« Mémoire militaire sur l’Angleterre » ; manuscrit de 113 pages folio. Papier filigrane de 1799. Cette page : « Note historique sur les différents plan [sic] de descente en Angleterre »

« Mémoire militaire sur l’Angleterre » ; manuscrit de 113 pages folio. Papier filigrane de 1799. Cette page : « Note historique sur les différents plan [sic] de descente en Angleterre »

2The Revolution brought war and renewed interest in these projects. A descent on Britain was planned but never realised in 1793. This plan was resuscitated in 1796, following the presence in Paris of an Irish republican delegation led notably by Wolfe Tone. It was hoped that if the Directory brought assistance to the United Irishmen, Britain would be destabilised and this would aid republican emancipation in Ireland. Once Ireland had been brought in revolt against England, subsequent actions would excite revolutionary spirit in London. As a result, on 16 June, 1796, the Directory devised a plan in three parts, namely, a descent upon Ireland whilst at the same time exciting “chouannerie” in Cornwall and Wales. General Lazare Hoche was to lead the party.

3After many attempted departures, on 15 December 1796, generals Hoche and Grouchy, the appointed leaders of the expedition, left for Bantry Bay on the south west coast of Ireland. They had with them 14,000 men, a flotilla of 17 ships of the line, 13 frigates, 3 corvettes, 6 transports and two unarmed vessels.

4Unfortunately for the French expedition, a certain timidity on the part of Hoche when faced with the unknown in Ireland, exacerbated by news of the imminent arrival of a British navy squadron, added to which was the worst storm in Ireland since 1708 (in fact a quasi-cyclone), all of which led to the dispersion and destruction of the expeditionary force without a single soldier ever having set foot on land.

“A new map of Ireland: civil and ecclesiastical; by the Rev.d D. A. Beaufort LLD member of the royal Irish Academy. 2^nd Edn 1797”

“A new map of Ireland: civil and ecclesiastical; by the Rev.d D. A. Beaufort LLD member of the royal Irish Academy. 2^nd Edn 1797”

5The expedition limped back into Brest over the first two weeks of January 1797, having lost 12 ships and thousands of soldiers.

“End of the Irish Invasion - or - The Destruction of the French Armada”. Gillray 20 January 1797.

“End of the Irish Invasion - or - The Destruction of the French Armada”. Gillray 20 January 1797.

Left to right, Pitt, Dundas, Grenville, and Windham. Fox is the figurehead of the ship “Le Revolutionare”. The ship, “L’Égalité”, is destroyed by Grenville, the inscription on the flag being “Vive… Égalité”. Another liberal, Sheridan, is not yet entirely submerged. In the sinking rowing boat marked “Revolutionar (sic) jolly boat” are other recognised radicals.

6The Directory decided launch to another expedition immediately. Basing themselves partly on the June 1796 plans, they wanted another less structured descent, this time directed on Wales and England. Wolf Tone traced the outline: “the primary aim is, if possible, to start an insurrection in the country, the second is to interrupt, or at least hamper, enemy commerce; the third is to prepare and facilitate a descent so as to attract the attention of the English government.” He mentioned an incendiary attack on Bristol so as to cause damage estimated at 125 million francs.

7Since military means were scarce, at the beginning of 1797, Lazare Carnot, at that time the strong man of the Directory, had suggested the idea of the landing in Britain of a Légion franche (basically mercenaries) called the Black Legion, composed for the most part of freed convicts. Hoche spoke of “600 men raised from all the prisons within my command [...] I will add to this, 600 elite convicts (« galériens d’élite ») (these men are still in irons)”. Wolf Tone reviewed these men and called them « tristes grédins » (‘sad beggars/rascals’)  [3]. What had been a military expedition had become a freebooting raid.

8On 16 February 1797, under the leadership of the Irish American, William Tate of South Carolina, this punitive expedition left Camaret, in confusion, heading for Cardigan Bay and the town of Fishguard in Wales. On 22 February, at the end of the day, they landed not far from Fishguard. Almost entirely by accident, a regiment of the part-time militia just happened to be at that precise spot where they landed. Twenty-four hours after the beginning of the operation, the Black Legion was forced to capitulate.

James Baker, J. Bluck, Carngwasted & Ebewalin, [after Feb. 1797], engraving  [5] - French troops landing from their anchored vessels and setting up on Welsh soil.

James Baker, J. Bluck, Carngwasted & Ebewalin, [after Feb. 1797], engraving  [5] - French troops landing from their anchored vessels and setting up on Welsh soil.

James Baker, J. Bluck, “Goodwick Sands”, engraving,  [7] French troops surrendering to the British militia on Goodwick Sands

James Baker, J. Bluck, “Goodwick Sands”, engraving,  [7] French troops surrendering to the British militia on Goodwick Sands

9“But the patriot will find himself amply gratified by [...] the rocks of Carreg-Gwafstad and Assevelin, where, on the 22nd of February, 1797, a desperate banditti, consisting of about 1300 French felons, &c, in warlike appointment, were hastily disembarked from a squadron of French ships of war, evidently for the purpose of harassing the natives, and producing a diversion of the British troops to this side of the island, whilst the enemy had in contemplation more serious plans to be directed against the other. But by the gallant exertion, of a far inferior force of Welsh volunteers, there were as hastily compelled to lay down their arms on the neighbouring sands of Goodwick, which, hitherto unconscious of any thing but the lashing of the solitary wave, will now go down to posterity dignified by an event that cannot fail to draw along with it the most pleasing sensations, if we reflect on the temerity of the enterprise.”

10Whilst this defeat of the attack was improvised, the British had already made costly attempts to counter a possible French invasion. Well aware of the danger, in the wake of this invasion scare, they tried to set up a better defence system, based on the population and anchored by the local gentry.

I. The militia, volunteers and the regular British army

11Before 1793 there were two systems whereby a man could choose, or be forced, to join the military. One was traditional army recruitment. The second was the militia. In 1793, this latter was organised according to a law of 1757 whereby every English and Welsh county had to supply (and pay) a given quota of men (aged between 18 and 45) who had been selected by ballot (although the buying of substitutes was legal and widely practised). The total sought by the government in 1793 was 32,000. Those balloted would be under martial law during active service, and in peacetime they were obliged to do a month’s military training under the leadership of voluntary local gentry. The system was however only partly effective. In 1796, for example, in principally agricultural areas (territories therefore low in population) such as Dorset, Bedfordshire and Montgomeryshire (Wales) the proportion of eligible men serving in the militia was one in ten. In highly populated new industrial areas such as the West-Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire the proportion could be as low as one in thirty and even one in forty- five. In the end, however, since those balloted were only asked to perform at home this service bore on them only lightly.

12As for the regular British army, it traditionally had significant problems raising anything like sufficient numbers of men, and it only attracted the poor or socially un-adapted (petty thieves, outsiders, bastard getters, etc.). Indeed, it seems clear from the contrasting recruiting experiences of the army and navy and the size of their manpower, that the army was the navy’s poor cousin. In 1793 the army numbered a mere 45,000 men, of which two-thirds were stationed abroad.  [8]  Clearly this was no match for the huge continental armies, particularly France with its population three times that of Britain and where conscription levels reached 60, 80 and 100 thousand men per year, rising to 2 million for the years 1800-1814, in other words 36% of all mobilisable men and almost 7% of the French population as a whole. Given the shortfall in numbers in the British army, a major effort had to be made to encourage large numbers of men to step up to fight for their country.

13The militia (not the army) was however to be the first target of (cautious) innovation in the face of the Revolutionary threat. The Supplementary Militia act of 1796 demanded a supplementary 60,000 men. It was however a ‘top down’ development, not funded by central government and quotas were filled by middling and upper-class sorts – those who could afford to pay for their own uniforms and weapons. The act had indeed pre figured this, and it has been ventured that the government preferred arming a wealthy (and so establishment) amateur rather than a peasant whose loyalties might be unpredictable. Then came the military defeat in the summer of 1797, where France beat the First Coalition, and in the following autumn the young general Bonaparte began dictating terms to Austria. Now Britain found herself faced the direct threat of invasion in the shape of the menacingly named ‘Armée d’Angleterre’ massing on the coasts of northern France. In its scramble for manpower, the British government not only set in motion the first ever national census (if you are out to get soldiers, you need to know the size of your population) but also more specifically military aimed measures with the Defence of the Realm Act of 1798. In this the state asked each county the number of men present within county borders and whether those men were willing to fight if the invasion took place. Almost simultaneously with the act came a remarkable knee-jerk civilian reaction to volunteer. In the four months between April and July 1798, the number of volunteers increased from 54,000 to 116,000.  [9]  Indeed, the occurrence was so spontaneous that the British government was taken by surprise and almost worried by the amplitude of the civilian response, acting quickly to provide a legal framework for it. And the sheer numbers caused fears in government that an armed populace might be dangerous. Some in parliament, however, notably William Dundas (soon to be Secretary at War), were confident in fact that patriotic action together would serve as the cement which would bring ‘British’ society together. Dundas himself remarked (referring to Scottish volunteers of the 1790s)’You will recollect, many parts of this country which were most disaffected, but were insensibly cured of it by being enrolled under arms along with others of a different description. If, on the other hand, they are not so associated, they become prey to the intrigues of traitors and enemies, being debarred the privilege of bearing arms on the right side’.  [10]  Parliament also felt that the public in its wisdom had chosen the mode of defence most suitable for Britain, and some high-pro file politicians, such as Pitt, became colonels of their own volunteer regiments.

14Pitt’s (and Dundas’s) opinion was also that military service reduced social tensions. They believed that all parts of society (even Catholic Ireland) could be mobilized to resist the French threat, and that that experience would have a powerfully unifying effect on the nation. All classes (they thought) would discover the power of the national bond under the threat of foreign conquest; radicalism would be marginalized by military participation as the lower orders were brought into closer contact with and acquired greater confidence in their superiors.

15But the huge mass of volunteers in 1803 proved difficult to manage. Size alone, 380,000 men, was a problem. By August, the government limited the volunteer mass size to six times the militia establishment, but it was soon realised that training and arming such enormous numbers was completely impracticable. Local feelings also led to opposition to official army control. There were many small corps which refused amalgamation, men in the corps refused to serve outside their localities (it was national service but on their own terms). And the whole was operating almost completely outside the control of military law.

16In short, the situation up to 1804 can be described, with Cookson, as illogical and incoherent. In 1796, Dundas had reacted to the changes in the strategic system by enlarging the militia. In 1798 the same minister had encouraged the volunteer formation, thus starving the militia of men. In 1799, the militia had then further been weakened as men were taken from it to be used in a regular army for offensive operations. In 1803, Addington and his party returned to the militia as the bed-rock of home defence (the Army Reserve scheme with its balloted recruitment) but at the same time encouraged the volunteer movement. To quote Cookson, “the volunteers starved the militia system, the militia starved the army and the army had negligible authority over the bulk of the country’s fighting men”.  [11]  In the face of these obvious shortcomings, Windham – as war minister – turned almost exclusively in favour of compulsory and not voluntary service. Pitt too (as Addington had) came to consider levy en masse as appropriate, if only as a pis aller. In his speech to the Commons of 18 July 1803, Pitt noted that he did not “like the idea of waiting for the slow progress of a ballot ” [ …] but that “unless volunteers should, within a certain date, comply with the condition prescribed, their consent should not be waited for ”.

17And so after the allied debacle of 1806, all volunteers came to be subsumed by the militia model. And later, as the British began finally to see success in the Peninsular campaign, even traditionally sluggish army recruitment began to take off as men fancied playing on a winning side.

18Wellington looking back on the Napoleonic wars in 1831 famously criticised the British system thus: “A French army is composed very differently from ours. The conscription calls out a share of every class — no matter whether your son or my son — all must march; but our friends — I may say it in this room — are the very scum of the earth. People talk of their enlisting from their fine military feeling — all stuff — no such thing. Some of our men enlist from having got bastard children — some for minor offences — many more for drink; but you can hardly conceive such a set brought together, and it really is wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are.”  [12]

19The great moment of fear had passed. The government could see no salvation in untrained volunteers. War, they came to the conclusion, was a matter for professionals.

Coloured aquatint by J C Stadler after P Hubert. Published by P Hubert and S White, 28 March 1804.

Coloured aquatint by J C Stadler after P Hubert. Published by P Hubert and S White, 28 March 1804.

William Pitt the Younger became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in August 1792, but while serving as prime minister played little role in their defence. However, after his resignation in 1801 he took on a more active role. In 1802 he formed the three battalion-strong Cinque Port Volunteers who were responsible for the defence of Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich, along with the two ‘Antient Towns’ of Winchelsea and Rye. Until his return to office in May 1804 Pitt often drilled his men in person in his capacity as Colonel Commandant.

II. The invasion scare

20The British government led by Lord Addington, for whom the Peace of Amiens had been felt basically as a defeat, lost no time in kick-starting the war with consular France in May 1803. The Boulogne Camp was a significant reality, and throughout the British Isles, public opinion was being prepared for the very real probability of imminent invasion. National resistance was encouraged by means of patriotic publications, sometimes bombastic and hyper-confident, at other times comic and even alarmist. Such broadsheets were produced in very large quantities. Here are a few examples:

Poster detailling Bonaparte’s « crimes », [1803] (Private Collection).

Poster detailling Bonaparte’s « crimes », [1803] (Private Collection).

A footnote exhorts « Noblemen, Magistrates and Gentlemen » to order several dozen copies of the poster from their local bookseller and to have them posted in the villages where they live so as to inform the people of “the cruelty of the Corsican Usurper”.

Patriotic poster addressed to the inhabitants of the United Kingdom (English, Scots and Irishmen, but not Welsh), July 1803 (Private Collection)

Patriotic poster addressed to the inhabitants of the United Kingdom (English, Scots and Irishmen, but not Welsh), July 1803 (Private Collection)

Address/Poster aimed specifically at the navy [c.1803] (Private Collection)

Address/Poster aimed specifically at the navy [c.1803] (Private Collection)

Broadsheet bearing a song satirising Boney’s hesitating to invade, to be sung to the melody Blue Bell of Scotland (here below)  [14], 13 August 1803 (Private Collection)

Broadsheet bearing a song satirising Boney’s hesitating to invade, to be sung to the melody Blue Bell of Scotland (here below)  [14], 13 August 1803 (Private Collection)

21The last of this selection of broadsheets is famous because it gives instructions to the local population as to how to react in case of a real invasion, Newcastle [c.1803] (Private Collection) as follows:

22“In Case of actual Invasion.

23To lessen as much as possible that confusion which must necessarily take place in case of alarm on the landing of the enemy, - the following PLAN for the more easy removal of the women and children, and the aged and infirm, from villages near the sea coast, to the place of general military rendezvous, is recommended.

24The village if large, to be nominally divided into stations, where carts should be appointed to receive the people.

25The stations to be in such parts of the village as are most known and conspicuous, and interfere as little as possible with the Turnpike-road, so as not to prevent the March of Troops, &c.

26The carts to attend at their respective stations immediately on a signal or notice given. [...]”

III. The Martello Towers

27Simultaneously, the second son of George III, Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, was making plans for action against the danger of invasion. Having experienced two campaigns against the French army, in Flanders in 1793, and in the Netherlands in 1799, with less than glorious results against fortresses, he was convinced that fortification was the solution for the defence of the British Isles. With this in mind, he was also astounded to discover that the island lacked large modern fortifications, either on the southern ports or in London itself. As commander-in-chief of the army (a position ratified in 1798), he expressed the opinion that fortresses would be very helpful in preventing an invading force from getting a foothold in the south of England.  [15]

Elevation & Plan of a Martello Tower, Corsica, and a profile of an eighteen pounder […]. From original drawings taken on the spot in the possession of I. MacArthur Esq.^r., PAD1624, Royal Museum, Greenwich, UK.

Elevation & Plan of a Martello Tower, Corsica, and a profile of an eighteen pounder […]. From original drawings taken on the spot in the possession of I. MacArthur Esq.^r., PAD1624, Royal Museum, Greenwich, UK.

28At the end of 1803, in reply to the French threat, a captain in the engineers, William Henry Ford, and his friend and colleague, William Twiss, revived an idea inspired by the tower on Mortella Point in Corsica. This Corsican tower, built in 1565, was thought by the British to be miraculous. In fact, shortly before the siege of Bastia in 1794, the tower had resisted a two-day bombardment by two British ships of the line causing significant damage to the Navy (60 men wounded and a damaged ship).

Mortella Tower. Corsica. Elevation. Probably by a British officer. c. 1794, PAD1621, Royal Museum, Greenwich, UK

Mortella Tower. Corsica. Elevation. Probably by a British officer. c. 1794, PAD1621, Royal Museum, Greenwich, UK

Inside view of Mortella Tower. Probably by a British officer. c. 1794, PAD1622, collection Royal Museum, Greenwich

Inside view of Mortella Tower. Probably by a British officer. c. 1794, PAD1622, collection Royal Museum, Greenwich

29Twiss sent to the government his sketches for a 46-foot square tower, with a circular interior supported by a massive central pillar. From top to bottom, the tower had: a platform for a canon; and two further floors, one for the garrison and one for the stores. In the document the Duke of York sent to the Master General of the Ordinance Board, Lord Chatham (the indolent brother of Pitt the Younger, notorious later on for his slowness and disorganisation in managing the attack on Walcheren in 1810), the Duke vaunted Twiss’s turrets because they would more effective against an attack by a flotilla of small vessels.  [16] Reacting with his usual ‘alacrity’, Chatham gave a late approval to the Duke of York’s demands. In September 1804, under Twiss’s direction, work began on the reconnaissance of the south-east coast and on the preparation of the designated places. After study of the question, Twiss proposed the construction of 88 towers, estimating that they would all be operational by the end of 1805. The government dictated to Twiss the generic design of all the towers, in the following words: “The interior circle of the tower has a diameter of 26 feet, and the area at the top is calculated to receive one 24 pounder Gun, and 2 Carronades of the same calibre, all mounted on traversing platforms, to fire over a high parapet, the crest of which is about 33 feet above the foundation. The ground floor to contain a powder magazine and cistern with room for provisions, fuel and other stores. The middle floor to lodge a garrison of one officer and 24 men, having an entrance placed 10 feet above the exterior ground. In this Project the centre Pillar is solid, and a stone staircase is contrived in the exterior wall which at that part is so encreased [sic] in thickness as to render it everywhere equally strong.”  [17]

Contemporary photograph of a surviving tower. The elevated entry can clearly be seen.

Contemporary photograph of a surviving tower. The elevated entry can clearly be seen.

30In October, a meeting between politicians (Pitt, Lord Camden, Chatham) and military men (York and Twiss, among others) took place in Rochester (in Kent), and they approved the shape. At the end of 1804, a full eighteen months after the first discussions led by the Duke of York, the project was finally validated by the British government. However, work was not to begin until the spring of 1805. Had Napoleon disembarked as planned in August 1805, none of the towers would have been ready... The program finally was completed in 1808 – a total of 74 towers were finally built, some in great haste – but the threat of a French landing had by then disappeared.