'That Astonishing Infantry': The History of The Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1689–2006

By Michael Glover and Jonathon Riley

The Royal Welch Fusiliers were present at all Marlborough's great victories; they were one of the six Minden regiments; they fought throughout the Peninsula and were present at Wellington's final glorious victory at Waterloo. In The Great War their officers included the writer poets Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves; their 22 battalions fought not just on the Western Front but at Gallipoli, in Egypt, Palestine, Salonika, Mesopotamia and Italy. In WW2 they won battle honours from the Reichswald to Kohima. More recently they have served with distinction in the war against terror in the Middle East. Like so many famous regiments the RWF are no longer in the British Army's order of battle having been amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Wales. But this fine book is the lasting memorial to a fiercely proud and greatly admired regiment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 15, 2007
• ISBN: 9781473818903

Book preview

‘THAT

ASTONISHING

INFANTRY’

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Colonel-in-Chief,

The Royal Welch Fusiliers

By Major Aubrey Davidson-Houston. Commissioned by the Regiment, 1956

‘THAT

ASTONISHING

INFANTRY’

The History of the

Royal Welch Fusiliers

1689–2006

MICHAEL GLOVER & JONATHON RILE

‘Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry’

William Napier

First published by Leo Cooper 1989

Published in this format in 2008 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers

ISBN 978 1 84415 653 5

The right of The Royal Welch Fusiliers to be identified as the

Authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

The quotation on the title page is from:

William Napier’s History of the War in the Peninsula and the

South of France from the Year 1807 to the Year 1814

(6 vols, London 1828–1840)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including

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system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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by Biddies Ltd

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of

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Dedicated

by gracious permission

To Her Majesty The Queen

Colonel-in-Chief The Royal Welch Fusiliers,

By All Ranks to commemorate

the Service of the Regiment,

16th March 1689 – 1st March 2006

The publication of this updated volume was made possible by the late Brigadier R.C.H. (Bobby) Barber, the late Colonel W.L.R. (Winkie) Benyon, and the late Lieutenant-Colonel L.H. (Uncle) Yates, whose generous bequests funded the project in their memory, and the memory of all those who served their Sovereign and their country in the Regiment.

Mae gwaedd y bechgyn lond y gwynt,

A’u gwaed yn gymysg efo’r glaw.

Their cry is on the wind,

Their blood is in the rain

Hedd Wyn* (Ellis Evans), 1917

---

* Hedd Wyn, shepherd and poet from Trawsfynydd, won the Bardic Chair at the Welsh National Eisteddfod at Birkenhead in 1917. When called to take his place on the chair, it was revealed that he had been killed a few weeks earlier at Pilckem Ridge near Ypres, in Flanders, while serving with the 15th Battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Contents

Maps

The maps and battle plans numbered 1–25 were drawn by Tony Lewis of Angel Graphics, Kenilworth, Wallop Road, Grateley, Hampshire. The family tree was drawn by Steve Waites, JSCSC.

Line Drawings and Sketches

The pen and ink sketches at the chapter headings and elsewhere are by the late Sir Kyffin Williams, OBE RA DL, T.W. ‘Bill’ Ward and Toby Ward, all of whom served in the Regiment; and the late John Ogle.

Captain Robert Barclay (RWF Museum 2772)

The Goat and Guard of Honour for Queen Victoria’s visit to Bangor to open the Britannia Bridge across the Menai Straits. (Illustrated London News, 23 October 1852)

Officers and Men of the 2nd Battalion about to depart for the Ashanti Campaign (Illustrated London News, 6 December 1873)

The Czar of Russia salutes the Crimean War Colours of the 1st Battalion, May 1874 (RWF Mus 4378)

Robert Graves’s draft for his poem Goliath and David, March 1916 (RWF Mus 3635)

Two sketches of life in the front line with 15th (1st London Welsh) Battalion by the artist and writer David Jones (RWF Mus 3675)

Two sketches by T.W. (Bill) Ward of soldiers of the Second World War (RWF Mus Pic 12)

Hightown Barracks, Wrexham, by John Ward RA (RWF Mus)

The CO’s notes for the extraction from Goražde, 1995 (Author’s Collection)

A soldier of D Company 1 RWF at Bugojno, Bosnia, in 1995, by Toby Ward (RWF Mus)

Photographs and Illustrations

There are two sections of coloured illustrations and photographs covering the period 1689–2006, and five sections of black and white illustrations. Of these, section 1 covers the period 1815–1914; section 2 covers 1914–1918; section 3 covers 1919–1942; section 4 covers 1943–1946 and section 5 covers 1947–2006.

Black and White Illustrations

Section 1 (following page 64)

RWF Sgt on the plinth of the statue of the Duke of Wellington, London

Band of the 2nd Battalion, 1848

Drum Major, goat, and an officer of 2 RWF, c.1892

Captain E.W.D. Bell winning the VC at the Alma, 1854

An informal 1st Battalion group at the barracks, Newport, 1870

Depot Companies on arrival at the new Depot in Wrexham, 1877

B and D Companies of the 1st Battalion, India, 1896

Men of 2 RWF resting in the British Legation, Peking, 1900

2nd Battalion at Harlech Castle during the North Wales recruiting march, 1892

King George V inspects the Regiment at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, Caernarfon, 1911

1st Battalion marches past Maj-Gen Sir Luke O’Connor VC KCB, Windsor, 1913

Officers of 1st and 2nd Battalions meeting at Malta, 1914

Section 2 (following page 96)

Officers of the 1st Battalion shortly before embarking for France, September 1914

The unveiling of the 38th (Welsh) Division Great War memorial, Mametz Wood, 1987

Welsh knife carried by the 9th Battalion in the Great War

Survivors of the original 2nd Battalion, May 1919

Poets and authors who served with the Regiment in the Great War

CSM Frederick Barter VC, 1915

15th Battalion in the trenches, Fleurbaix, winter 1917

2nd Battalion on the Ypres Canal front, winter 1916/17

10th Battalion moving up for the attack on Langemarck, 1917

Coloured Illustrations

Section 3 (following page 128)

Henry, 4th Lord Herbert of Chirbury, founder of the Regiment

Lord Herbert’s Regiment, 1689

23rd Fusiliers, 1763

Colonel G.W. Baynton

23rd Regiment in America at the Fusilier Redoubt, Yorktown, 2006

2nd Battalion 23rd Fusiliers closing the postern gate of Coruña, 1809

Battle of Salamanca, 1812

Eating the Leek. The Officers’ Mess, St David’s Day, c.1814

Lt-Col J.C. Harrison, CO 1 RWF when the wearing of the Flash was approved

1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers at Manchester, c.1835

Dress of the Regiment, 1849

Sgt Luke O’Connor winning the VC at the Alma, 1854

Cpl Robert Shields winning the VC at Sevastopol, 1855

Black and White Illustrations

Section 4 (following page 160)

2nd Battalion leaves Phoenix Park Barracks, Dublin, 1922

1st Battalion piquet in Waziristan on the NW Frontier, India, 1923

2nd Battalion on Public Duties, London, 1925

Lt-Comd J.P. Sousa presents the score of his march The Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1930

2nd Battalion as an experimental mechanised battalion, Tidworth, 1930

2nd Battalion in Shanghai, 1937

250th Anniversary of the raising of the Regiment, Caernarfon, 1939

Officers of 60th (RWF) Anti-Tank Regiment RA (TA) training, 1939–1945

Men of the 1st Battalion in France, 1940

‘Stockforce’, Norway, May 1940

Members of the North Wales Local Defence Volunteers, later 5 RWF Home Guard, 1940

Sergeant and carrier pigeon from 6th Battalion (Royal Welch) The Parachute Regiment

2nd Battalion landing at Madagascar, September 1942

Coloured Illustrations

Section 5 (following page 192)

‘A Halt Outside a Wayside Tavern’, c.1865

‘His Little Joke’, c.1881

6 RWF (TA) recruiting poster, 1938

Design for 1st Battalion Colours, 1975 and 1996

Public Duties, London, 1975

Scene in Northern Ireland, 1982

Tercentenary Window in St Giles’s Church, Wrexham, 1989

Tercentenary Parade, Powis Castle, 1989

Armistice Day parade at Pembroke Dock, 1994

Royal Welch Fusiliers at Goražde, 1995

Presentation of Colours Parade, Chepstow, 1996

Fusiliers Johnson and Parry at Az Zubbayr, Iraq, 2004

Black and White Illustrations

Section 6 (following page 224)

1st and 2nd Battalions meeting at Ahmednagar, India, August 1943

District Commissioner’s bungalow, Kohima, May 1944

Lt-Col J.A.M. Rice-Evans, 4 RWF, giving orders before the battle of Evrecy, July 1944

Section of 6th Battalion in full battle order, 1944

Major J.E.M Dugdale and A Company 7 RWF, ’s-Hertogenbosch, October 1944

A Company 7 RWF, ’s-Hertogenbosch, October 1944

3-inch mortar detachment of 7 RWF, December 1944

Men of 1 RWF in northern Burma during the Second World War

A section of the 2nd Battalion before the attack on Pinwe, Burma, 1944

Detachment of the 6th Battalion during the Victory Parade, Paris, May 1946

2nd Battalion Corps of Drums, Etajima, Japan, 1946

Artists and writers who served in the Regiment during the Second World War

Regimental War Memorial in Wrexham

Section 7 (following page 256)

1st Battalion goat arriving in Berlin by air, 1949

C Company 1 RWF on internal security duties, Georgetown, British Guiana, 1953

HM The Queen presents Colours to the 1st, 2nd and 4th Battalions, Wroughton, 1954

Sir Watkyn Williams-Wynn’s hounds meet at the Depot, Wrexham, 1954

Men of 2 RWF disembarking from a helicopter during operations, Malaya, 1956

General Sir Hugh Stockwell salutes the Colours of 2 RWF, 1957

A1 RWF vehicle patrol, Cyprus, 1958

1 RWF dealing with rioters, Londonderry, 1972

GOC Northern Ireland bids farewell to CO and members of 1 RWF, 1981

A Company 1 RWF mounted in Saxon APCs, 1994

Relieving sentries, Goražde, 1995

Recipients of operational honours and awards for Bosnia 1995

Men of 1 RWF emplane in a Chinook helicopter, Northern Ireland, 2005

1 RWF on exercise, Germany, 1981

Recipients of operational honours and awards for Iraq, 2004

Men of the 1st Battalion, Iraq, 2005

Author’s Preface and Introduction

This book was originally commissioned by the Regiment, under the colonelship of Brigadier A.C. Vivian CBE, to commemorate the Tercentenary of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1989. The well-known historian, the late Michael Glover, took on the task of compressing three hundred years of history into a comparatively small book – a work of some difficulty, especially when the history was that of a regiment as distinguished as the Royal Welch Fusiliers. The Regiment hardly missed a major campaign in more than three centuries and accumulated 144 Battle Honours, twenty-nine of which were before the great expansion of the Army in 1914. This pre-1914 figure was exceeded only by a single other infantry regiment, and the total rivals many which have suffered amalgamation on one or more occasions. In writing the book, therefore, Glover was forced to pass over some famous victories with only the briefest of mentions, but to compensate for this, he selected a number of the greatest for special treatment, in order to illustrate the way that the ethos and fighting spirit of the Regiment had developed over the generations.

The compression is most apparent during the two World Wars of the twentieth century when a large number of battalions was formed to fight in many different theatres. During the Great War the Regiment expanded to forty battalions of which twenty-two served overseas. This is the eighth highest total in the infantry, even more remarkable when one considers the relatively sparse population of Wales and the Marches (and accepting that the two Regular battalions and two of the Service battalions of the Regiment also recruited in Birmingham and London) as compared with the teeming populations available to the other big-hitters like the Durhams, the Middlesex and the Royal Fusiliers. Unavoidable though the compression of this period was, Glover especially regretted not being able to devote more space to the astonishing literary flowering in the Regiment. Since 1989, this gap has been filled by a number of works, including television, film and radio, on poets and authors like Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Ellis Evans (Hedd Wyn), Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, David Jones, James Dunn, Bernard Adams, Vivian de Sola Pinto, and Frank Richards. During the Second World War, the ranks of the Regiment included an equally impressive number of men of distinction: Desmond Llewelyn and Jack Hawkins, who became famous as actors; the painters Kyffin Williams and Bill Ward; cabinet minister Anthony Crosland; broadcaster Huw Wheldon; the businessman Rowan Bentall; and two men who reached the highest ranks of the Army: Hughie Stockwell and Tony Farrar-Hockley. This tradition of distinction has continued into modern times.

Glover’s original book was a huge success, and has been out of print for some years. Despite this, there has been a continuing demand for it. When it became clear in 2005 that, in common with all infantry regiments as we have hitherto understood them, the Regiment would cease to exist in 2006, the Regimental Trustees decided that now would be the right time to update Glover’s original work as a complete history of the Regiment from beginning to end: one of the last unamalgamated regiments to remain on the order of battle. I have kept much of the original text unaltered, although I have corrected errata, added new material, and altered the organisation of the chapters. I have added a new ending to what is now the penultimate chapter, and a new final chapter covering the period from the end of the Cold War to 2006. The maps, and a number of line drawings, have been moved into the appropriate point in the text, and the pictures grouped into sections. New maps and additional photographs have also been added. Last, the Appendices have been revised and expanded. The new book is therefore a survey of the whole history of the Regiment. It is not, however, an exhaustive history; that task is fulfilled by Regimental Records, currently in six volumes and planned to be completed in eight.

Some other points still require explanation. First, the spelling of the title. In 1702, when the Welsh designation was granted, the spelling ‘Welch’ was common usage, although it faded from everyday speech during the late eighteenth century. In 1881 the War Office ordered the adoption of ‘Welsh’, but unofficially, the Regiment stuck to the old designation. In 1920, officialdom relented. Similarly there are four variations of ‘Fusilier’ which, for many years, seem to have been used indiscriminately. In this book, the modern spelling has been used, except in quotations. The spelling of place names also presents problems, the more so since many Battle Honours borne on the Colours of more than one regiment are differently spelled: Albuhera for Albuera, Affghanistan for Afghanistan, Orthez for Orthes and so on. Throughout this book, the most commonly accepted spelling is used except where this would be pedantic – so it is Blenheim instead of Blindheim, and Peking instead of Beijing, for example. To do other than this would be frankly absurd.

When quoting the strength of a regiment or battalion several different figures can be used. Until the late eighteenth century the most common was ‘rank and file’, that is corporals and privates. In most regiments, this gave the number of men carrying muskets since sergeants carried pikes. Ironically this was not the case in fusilier regiments, where sergeants carried muskets. Then there is ‘other ranks’, which included sergeants and drummers – and later bandsmen. ‘All ranks’ includes the officers as well.

For much of the Regiment’s service, it had only one battalion, usually referred to as a regiment and given a number to designate its seniority – in our case, the 23rd. At various times, as has been noted, more battalions were raised in which case the terms regiment and battalion ceased to be synonymous. Between 1771 and 1858 the term ‘flank companies’ was used to denote the two specialist companies in a battalion or regiment: the grenadiers, who formed up on the right of the line, and who led the assault on fortified positions; and the light company, whose place on parade was on the left but in battle formed the skirmish line. Sometimes, flank companies of several regiments would be grouped as functional battalions. The remaining companies were known as ‘battalion companies’.

The term ‘Colonel of the Regiment’ can also cause confusion. Until the mid-eighteenth century the Colonel was the man charged to raise and command the regiment. He would also nominally command a company, in practice commanded by the senior lieutenant, known as the Captain-Lieutenant. The Second-in-Command of the Regiment would therefore be the Lieutenant-Colonel. Moreover the regiment would be known by the name of its Colonel, and the 23rd, until they received their titles of honour as Royal Welch Fusiliers, were in succession Herbert’s, Purcell’s Morgan’s, and Ingoldsby’s Regiment. Later, and in the case of the 23rd in 1743, the Colonel ceased to command, at which point the appointment became a reward for services – albeit one still carrying considerable powers of patronage and appointment, and access to pay, allowances and other sources of income from government contracts. Between 1743 and 1875, no Colonel of the Royal Welch Fusiliers actually served with the regiment. Since then, however, all the Regiment’s Colonels, and the Honorary Colonels of Militia, Volunteer or Territorial battalions, have either served in its ranks, or have had close connections. The fringe benefits have long since been shorn away! Further to confuse matters, after 1743 the actual command of the regiment or battalion as a fighting unit devolved onto the Lieutenant-Colonel, who is frequently referred to colloquially as ‘the Colonel’.

Old Style dates are used for all events prior to 1 January 1752 when the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Britain, losing eleven days from the Julian Calendar and changing New Year’s Day from 25 March to 1 January.

Jonathon Riley

Wrexham

1 March 2008

Acknowledgements

The illustrations used as chapter headings and tailpieces in the original volume, and now transferred here, were specially drawn for the book by the late Sir Kyffin Williams. To those have been added work in the possession of the Regiment by Toby Ward and Bill Ward.

The ’s-Hertogenbosch chapter heading is by the late ex-Corporal John Ogle, and is taken, with the permission of the author, Major David Bolland, from Team Spirit – The Administration of the 53rd Welsh Division during "Operation Overlord" June 1944 – May 1945, Düsseldorf 1945.

The Author and the publishers would like to thank the following for copyright illustrations used in the original volume and this revision: The Illustrated London News Picture Library; The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum; Soldier Magazine. The portrait of Robert Graves was reproduced by permission of Richard Perceval Graves; that of Llewelyn Wyn Griffith by Hugh Wyn Griffith; that of David Jones by the Trustees of David Jones Estate; that of Frank Richards by Mrs Mary Richards; that of Siegfried Sassoon by BBC Hulton Picture Library.

Many Royal Welchmen assisted Michael Glover with the original volume, in particular Brigadier A.C. Vivian, then Colonel of the Regiment; Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Sinnett, the Regimental Editor; the late Brigadier M.H. ap Rhys Pryce; Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Crocker; and Norman Holme the then Regimental Archivist. The original Appendices were compiled chiefly by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Sinnett, and the family tree by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Crocker. In revising and reissuing the current volume, I would add once again my thanks to Richard Sinnett and Peter Crocker for correcting errata in the original volume, scanning and preparing the text for editing, and assisting with the revision of the Appendices. Also to Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Lock who provided the material on Iraq, 2004–2005, and Colonel Gerhard Wheeler for material on South Armagh, 2005.

Outside the Regiment, Glover recorded thanks to John Andrews, Brigadier Shelford Bidwell, Mrs Judith Blacklaw, Professor Roger N. Buckley, Caldwell Delany (Museum Director, City of Mobile), Colin Hughes, Sir Robert Ricketts Bt, Leo Cooper, and Mrs Michael Glover. To that list I would like to add my thanks to Brian Owen, now Curator of the Regimental Museum and Archive, Ms Anne Pedley, and, from Pen & Sword, the commissioning editor, Brigadier Henry Wilson, and designer Sylvia Menzies-Earl.

Chapter 1

The Raising of the Regiment and

the Early Years

1689–1702

[See Map 1]

On 16 March 1689, King William III authorized nine of his influential supporters to raise regiments of infantry, each consisting of ‘eight companies of sixty private soldiers; three sergeants, three corporals and two drummers to each company’. * One of these supporters was Henry, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, who had resigned as a junior officer of infantry eleven years earlier. The Herberts had great possessions on the Welsh Marches and his regiment, later to be known as the Royal Welch Fusiliers, was to be raised in the counties of Montgomery, Radnor and Shropshire and assembled at Ludlow. Pressure of political business compelled Lord Herbert to resign his colonelcy within three weeks of his appointment but his place was taken by his cousin, Charles Herbert, who had served as a captain of foot.

Troops were urgently required as war with France was imminent (it was declared on 1 May), the Highlands of Scotland were in open revolt and James II, whom King William had deposed the previous December, had landed in Ireland with French troops on 12 March and soon established himself in Dublin, causing all Ireland, except a few Protestant strongholds, to declare for the Jacobite cause. The early months of 1689 were as dangerous as any in the history of Britain.

Herbert’s Regiment was quickly raised, as a body of men was already available to form a basis. In the previous November, when William III (then the Prince of Orange) was landing at Brixham, he had requested his adherents to raise armed bodies and Lord Herbert had recruited men ‘att Shrewsbury and parts Ajacent’. In the following month, however, when the situation had become more stable, William had written to him,

We cannot think it fitt nor reasonable to put Our good friends, who have so frankly and generously embarked with us in the same designe, to so great an expence, as it hath already and must necessarily be to you, to keep your forces on foot. … I pray give my most hearty thanks to all those Gentlemen who have joyned with you in this undertaking … and desire them … to send the troopes home to their respective habitations.…

There was therefore a body of men who had only been ‘stood down’ for three months when the call came to raise the new regiment and Colonel Herbert was able quickly to complete his establishment and even to expand it. By August 1689, there were not only twelve ‘battalion companies’ but a company of grenadiers, whose function was to act as storm troops. Each company was commanded by a captain, whose pay was eight shillings a day, plus a lieutenant 4/- and an ensign 3/-, who carried the company colour. There was no colour in the grenadier company which therefore had no ensign but two lieutenants. At headquarters were the colonel 12/-, lieutenant-colonel 7/-, major 5/-, adjutant 4/-, quartermaster 4/-, chaplain 6/8d, surgeon 4/- and assistant surgeon 2/ 6d. The colonel, lieutenant-colonel and major also commanded companies and drew a captain’s pay in addition to the pay for their rank. With sergeants being paid 1/6d a day, corporals 1/-, drummers 1/- and ‘private sentinels’ 8d, the daily cost of the Regiment was £44/4/8d, rather less than a captain’s pay three centuries later.*

In late August 14,000 men, including Herbert’s Regiment, were landed at Bangor, County Down, in an attempt to retain a foothold in Ireland. Since King James could bring 40,000 men against them there was little that this small force could achieve and in fact they had done little more than march as far south as Dundalk when unseasonable rains made further campaigning impossible. At Dundalk disease, abetted by a corrupt and incompetent supply service, almost destroyed the army. Food was short and largely rotten, there were no greatcoats, no hospitals, no medicines. By the end of October Herbert’s Regiment had lost 421 dead without having seen a shot fired. There was a long sick list and only 256 men in the ranks. A general who inspected it before it was withdrawn to winter quarters reported,

Colonel very assiduous, but too easy to the officers, who are the most negligent that can be imagined. Often he is the only officer present with the Regiment, which he never quits: yet the Regiment is in a bad condition: clothing good, but arms almost useless.

The fact that the men’s clothing was good is another credit to Colonel Herbert whose responsibility it was to supply it. He may not have been so reliable on weapon training since it is recorded that at this time he wounded himself in the head while ‘rashly flourishing a loaded pistol’.

Over the winter the Regiment was made up to strength with drafts, and in 1690 accompanied King William’s army in the campaign that led to the Battle of the Boyne, an action in which most of the serious fighting was entrusted to the foreign mercenaries – Danes, Dutch, Germans, Huguenot French and Finns – while the raw British units were held in reserve. While the main army marched on Dublin, Herbert’s were put into garrison at Drogheda where they spent an energetic winter chasing rapparees, Irish brigands, mostly disbanded soldiers in search of plunder. In this anti-guerrilla warfare a leading part was taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Tobias Purcell, who had been second-in-command of the Regiment at the Boyne, and the spurs he wore at that battle became a prized possession of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, being drunk to on every St David’s Day dinner and worn on ceremonial occasions by successive seconds-in-command until they were destroyed in a fire in Canada in 1842.

The decisive battle of the Irish war was fought at Aughrim, County Galway, on 12 July 1691, where King William’s army defeated a somewhat larger Franco-Irish force. Herbert’s Regiment was unfortunate. With three others it was sent forward to attack the infantry of the Irish right. The way led through a waist-deep bog from which the troops emerged in some disorder only to be charged by cavalry and driven back into the bog. Three company commanders were killed and eighty-one other casualties were suffered but the most serious loss was Colonel Herbert who was captured and later murdered to avoid his recapture.

Toby Purcell succeeded to the colonelcy but had soon to resign due to ill-health. His successor, Sir John Morgan, died in January 1693, making four colonels in less than four years but the fifth colonel, Richard Ingoldsby, promoted from the Royal Irish, was to lead them for twelve years. Under him the Regiment undertook its first continental campaign in the so-called War of the League of Augsburg which had been going on for five years when the Regiment landed in the Netherlands in August 1692. At this stage warfare consisted largely of endless marches and counter-marches which seldom produced any decisive result. It was not until 1695 that Ingoldsby’s Regiment got its first taste of serious action when it took part in the siege and storm of Namur. What part it took is not identifiable but its casualties of ninety-two dead and 123 wounded in the storming alone show that it must have been considerable. The Regiment’s earliest battle honour is Namur 1695, although it was not awarded until 1910.

A temporary truce, the Peace of Rijswijk, brought the war to a halt in 1697 and the Regiment spent two years on garrison duty during which time its strength fell rapidly so that when, in 1701, it was ordered back to the Low Countries its strength was only 351 all ranks, a deficit that was soon made up by recruiting. The new war, known as that of the Spanish Succession, was a far more mobile affair than its predecessor since command of the allied armies was entrusted to John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, who, although hampered by the fears of his Dutch allies for the safety of their homeland, was determined to press the aggressive French back into France. In October 1702, he scored his first success by storming the citadel of Liège with the combined grenadier companies of the British regiments. As he wrote on 12 October,

The attack on the counterscarp of the citadel was done this afternoon. After the French were driven out of it, our men attacked the breach, and after a resistance of half an hour, they carried it. The governor was taken in the breach by an English lieutenant, which shows that the Queen’s subjects were the first upon the breach. This has been an action of much vigour, so that it is impossible to say too much of the bravery that was shown by all the officers and soldiers.

The army then retired into winter quarters, the strength of the Regiment being forty-four officers and 840 other ranks, the latter figure being a hundred short of the war establishment.

In December 1702, both the General and the Regiment were honoured. Marlborough was made a duke and the Daily Courant of 15 December announced that Ingoldsby’s Regiment was to be known as the Welsh Regiment of Fusiliers. The title fusilier derives from the fusil or flintlock musket which by the end of the seventeenth century had superseded the matchlock, a weapon which was fired by a slow-burning match. The flintlock was first introduced into the army as the weapon of die foot soldiers who guarded the artillery train since it was clearly undesirable to have a large number of burning matches in the immediate vicinity of barrels of gunpowder. In 1685 James II had raised a special regiment, the Ordnance Regiment, for this duty and from its weapons it became known as the Royal Fusiliers. How this regiment managed to convert this somewhat menial role into one of elite troops in seventeen years during which they won no great victories and were under suspicion of Jacobitism remains one of the mysteries of history but there is no doubt that by 1702 the title of Fusiliers conferred on the Regiment was a great honour.

In practical terms becoming a regiment of fusiliers made little difference since by then the entire army was armed with flintlocks, but fusilier sergeants carried muskets instead, as in other regiments, being armed with a short pike. Company officers also sometimes carried muskets, although an order of 1707 directed the officers of the Scots Fusiliers to carry partisans (short pikes) ‘as those of the Welch Fusiliers’.* One difference was that company colours were no longer carried so the fusilier ensigns were re-titled second lieutenants. The main outward change was in the headgear. Until the end of the eighteenth century the usual military hat was a three-cornered affair except in grenadier companies, who wore a tall mitre cap. This was because in hurling a grenade, a highly dangerous proceeding at the time, the corner of the hat was liable to obstruct the throwing arm. Moreover, grenadiers were traditionally the tallest men in the battalion and a tall hat gave them an imposing appearance which, it was hoped, would overawe the enemy. As a result a mitre hat became the sign of elite troops and while fusiliers could not all claim to be grenadiers – they had their own grenadier companies – they did claim to be elite. They therefore adopted a slightly lower mitre and when, fifty years later, grenadiers adopted a tall bearskin cap, fusiliers followed suit by changing to somewhat lower fur caps.

Map 1

---

* Six of these new regiments were disbanded before the end of the century. The other two which survived became respectively the Cheshire Regiment and the 2nd Warwickshire (later the South Wales Borderers and later still part of the Royal Regiment of Wales)

* Before the introduction of decimal currency in 1971, there were twenty shillings (20/ –) to the pound and twelve pence (12d) to the shilling. In post-decimalisation currency 5p equates to 1/-.

* Until 1916 it was the regimental custom for subaltern officers to carry rifles in full marching order.

Chapter 2

Royal Regiment

1703–1756

[See Maps 1 & 2]

The campaign of 1703 was indecisive but in the following year the French king, Louis XIV, decided to strike at his most powerful enemy by seizing Vienna from the Hapsburg Emperor. He detailed two French armies to support his ally the Elector of Bavaria for this task, but Marlborough heard of the French intentions and resolved to intervene. The Dutch would have no part in a march to the Danube but the British troops and their German auxiliaries marched south and, having been joined by an Imperial army under the Margrave of Baden, reached the Danube at the end of June. The immediate problem was how to cross that river, since every bridge was heavily defended, but Marlborough decided to put in a swift attack at Donauwörth where the crossing was protected by a bell-shaped hill, the Schellenberg, 500 feet high and defended by 14,000 picked troops with the advantage of fixed fortifications. Since the enemy was known to be moving reinforcements towards the place, any attack had to be mounted immediately.

At 6.15 pm on 21 June 1704, a ‘forlorn hope’ of eighty volunteers moved forward, followed by a storming party consisting of 130 picked men from every battalion, the men of the front rank each carrying a bundle of brushwood to be thrown into the ditch surrounding the fortress walls to form a bridge. Behind them followed the rest of the infantry with thirty-five squadrons of cavalry in support. Under heavy artillery fire the stormers stumbled into an unsuspected sunken road into which many threw their bundles so that when they reached the ditch they had to scramble down into it and then attempt to climb out the far side. After half an hour’s hand-to-hand fighting the stormers, having lost almost all their officers and half their strength, fell back, but the Bavarian counter-attack was met by a brigade consisting of the Welch Fusiliers, the First Guards and the Royal Scots and driven back into the walls. The stormers again failed to break in and then the Fusiliers and their comrades assaulted the walls. As a result the defenders sent all their reserves to deal with this threat and a body of Austrian grenadiers was able to break in at another part of the perimeter. The storming of the Schellenberg, perhaps the greatest British feat of arms unmarked by a battle honour, cost them 6,000 casualties, the share of the Welch Fusiliers being five officers and sixty-six other ranks killed, eleven