The battles of the British Army

A period of inaction succeeded the victory at Vimiero. Burrard was superseded in his command by Sir Hew Dalrymple, and the convention of Cintra perfected, by which an army was r...

The immediate consequence of the embarkation, was the surrender of Corunna on the second day from that on which the once proud army of Britain quitted the coast of Spain. Ferrol...

In 1800, an attempt on Cadiz was planned and abandoned; and an army, the _corps élite_ of Britain, was kept idly afloat in transports at an enormous expense, suffering from temp...

Following upon their declarations of war with Russia, upon the 27th and 28th March, 1854, respectively, arrangements were at once made by the Governments of France and Britain f...

Says a writer in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” in March, 1879:--“To break the military power of the Zulu nation, to save our colonies from apprehensions which have been paralysing all...

Experts have declared that had Sebastopol been assaulted within two days of the battle of the Alma, it would have fallen an easy prey to the allied armies of France and Britain....

The first appearance of the Dutch in South Africa took place in 1652. On the invitation of the Netherlands Government, Britain seized Cape Colony in 1795, holding it for a perio...

The condition of the army was excellent, and the most exact discipline was preserved, while all unnecessary parades were dispensed with. The march ended, the soldier enjoyed all...

It is a platitude to say that the kingdom of Afghanistan is, on its Asiatic side, the bulwark of British India. Yet upon this important, if well-known, fact depended the Persian...

The struggle for supremacy in Egypt was far from being finally settled at Tel-el-Kebir. With the voice of discontent, bursting now and again into open revolt, with that potent i...

A few months passed away; Europe was apparently at rest; its military attitude was gradually softening down, and all the belligerent Powers, weary of a state of warfare that, wi...

Cooped up in the beleagured city of Lucknow, the brave Havelock received but scanty news of what was transpiring in other parts of India. He certainly felt assured that the Brit...

Though the snake of Mahdism had been severely scotched at the Atbara, it was far from being killed, and from the termination of that battle preparations were steadily pushed for...

Quickly the Indian revolt spread from garrison to garrison, and the native mind was inflamed with hatred of the British. At Lucknow the native troops waited a considerable time...

Cawnpore stands out written in letters of blood in the annals of British history, and ranks as one of the bloodiest episodes of the terrible mutiny in our Indian Empire in 1857....

On the 8th October, 1856, a party of Chinese, in charge of an officer, boarded the lorcha or junk Arrow, in the Canton river, tore down the flag, and carried away the Chinese crew.

Early on the morning of the 23rd September, 1854, the allied armies left their camp on the battlefield of Alma, and marched northwards towards Sebastopol. Traces of the haste in...

The army of vengeance was steadily closing upon Delhi, and the plans of Sir Henry Barnard as to the junctions of his force were attended with success. Major-General Reed, who ha...

The battle of Tel-el-Kebir stands out pre-eminently as one of the most glorious achievements in the history of that gallant old regiment, the 79th Highlanders. The circumstances...

Winter passed away, the army recovered from its hardships, and Lord Wellington was indefatigable in perfecting the equipment of every department, to enable him to take the field...

The town of Badajoz contained a population of about 16,000, and, within the space of thirteen months, experienced the miseries attendant upon a state of siege three several time...

Brigadier Wilson was badly in want of help, and there was joy in the camp when Brigadier Nicholson marched in one day towards the middle of August at the head of 1000 Europeans...

One of the many black deeds of the mutiny was the inhuman atrocities at Jhansi, in the province of Allahabad, and about a hundred miles eastward of Serinje. In June, 1857, the 1...

The Indian Mutiny had really its outbreak at Delhi, to which place the mutineers fled when they had taken the fatal step which was to bring death to so many, and which was to we...

The causes which led to the Chinese war of 1860 are soon told. Together with France, her old ally of 1858, Britain had determined to strictly enforce the stipulations of the tre...

In 1824 the British were forced into a war with the kingdom of Burmah. The war, however, was not of our seeking; we were forced into it. The Burmese a few years previously had t...

By the first week of November enormous numbers of reinforcements reached the Russian army in the Crimea, so that not only were some 120,000 troops under Prince Mentschikoff’s co...

For years the Ashantees had been a source of trouble and annoyance to the British settlers on the Gold Coast, and the campaign of 1873-74 was by no means entered upon without co...

Soult, who had collected thirty-five thousand men, on learning the defeat of Talavera, made a flank movement to assist Joseph Buonaparte, and reached Placentia by the pass of Ba...

The fatal _dénouement_ of the retreat from Cabul was still in vivid colouring before the British public, when tidings from the East announced that it might be considered only as...

About 1878, hostilities were very pronounced in Afghanistan against Britain, and, as a result of these, the Ameer, who appeared unnerved at the troubles, abdicated the throne. T...

Wellington was now in possession of the passes of the Pyrenees; and in the short space of two months had moved his victorious army across the kingdom of Spain, and changed his c...

Massena had suffered too heavily in his attempt on the British position, to think of attacking the Sierra de Busaco a second time. Early on the 28th September he commenced quiet...

Soult halted his different corps in the intrenched camp of Bayonne, and Wellington cantoned his troops two miles in front of his opponent, in lines extending from the sea to the...

Napoleon passed the night of the 17th in a farmhouse which was abandoned by the owner, named Bouquean, an old man of eighty, who had retired to Planchenoit. It is situated on th...

While Marshal Beresford was endeavouring to reduce Badajoz, intelligence reached him that Soult was marching from Larena. Beresford, of course, at once abandoned the siege, remo...

The man who stands out most prominently in Abyssinian history is Theodore, the king of kings of Ethiopia. He was a remarkable personage, perhaps the most remarkable who has appe...

After the day of slaughter at Arogee, Sir Robert Napier hesitated. The safety of the captives was ever in his mind. Upon his forbearance depended their lives, and the signal suc...

But the situation of Wellington momentarily became more critical. Masses of the enemy had fallen, but thousands came on anew. With desperate attachment, the French army passed f...

The death of Tippoo Saib, and the fall of Seringapatam, were astounding tidings for the native chiefs. Their delusory notions regarding their individual importance were ended, a...

A campaign highly honourable to the British arms had ended, and the rival armies had taken up cantonments for the winter months, each covering an extensive range of country, for...

The occupation of Madrid was among the most brilliant epochs of Peninsular history, and, from circumstances, it was also among the briefest. The conquest of the capital was cert...

In 1805, the British Government, having ascertained that the Cape of Good Hope had only a force under two thousand regular troops for its protection, and that the militia and in...

After various successes, Sir Archibald Campbell was enabled to make his arrangements for an advance upon the Burmese capital. The distance from Prome to Ava may be estimated at...

The next event of importance in this campaign was the desperate attack made by the Burmese on Martaban, to recover the town which they had lost. On the 26th May, upwards of a th...

A period of comparative quiet prevailed in Burmah for some years following the conclusion of the war of ’52. Gradually, however, this was broken, and on the accession of King Th...

To say that the story of Somaliland lies before it, is, at first sight, to make a self-evident and apparently obvious assertion. But undoubtedly the future of the country will c...

When the spirit of revolt in our Indian Empire first spread abroad, there can be little doubt but that the minds of the mutineers were inflamed by headmen or chiefs who had a na...

The treaty of Yandaboo concluded the Burmese war of 1824. By its terms, the safety of British commerce and British merchants in Burmah was assured, and for a long period followi...

Though the treaty which held the British and Sikh governments in amity provided that the Sikhs should send no troops across the Sutlej, they were permitted to retain certain jag...

After the retreat of Soult, the British and their allies resumed the positions from which they had been dislodged by the advance of the French marshal, and re-established headqu...

The intrenchments into which Soult, on the failure of his attempts upon the allied positions had withdrawn his troops, covered the approach to Bayonne on the side opposite to An...

We have now to deal with perhaps the most sanguinary conflict which marked the closing days of the campaign, when British arms were employed in stamping out the mutiny in all di...

Massena having taken the field again, with the object of raising the blockade of Almeida, then closely invested by Lord Wellington, the British commander, determined that this i...

The force destined for the relief of Portugal was sent partly from Ireland, and partly from Gibraltar. Nine thousand men from Cork, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed in Mondego...

Vimiero stands at the bottom of a valley, and at the eastern extremity of a ridge of hills extending westward towards the sea. The river Maceira flows through it, and on the opp...

Winter had now set in, and a season of unusual severity commenced. The allies were sadly exposed to the weather, and an increasing difficulty was felt every day in procuring nec...

It has been remarked with great justice, that until the Peninsular war had been for some time in progress, the military enterprises of Great Britain invariably failed from the b...

The celebrated conference at Chatillon terminated on the 19th of March, and the allied Sovereigns determined to march direct upon the capital, of which they obtained possession...

On the morning of the 21st, the Anglo-Indian army again took the offensive, and marched against the intrenched position of the enemy, and the details of the succeeding events of...

For a time, affairs in Scinde, after the Afghanistan disasters, looked peaceable; but the conditions proposed by new treaties to the Amirs, in the infringements upon their game...

The 10th Native Infantry, while the foregoing events were occurring, were stationed at Futtehghur, a town on the west bank of the Ganges. This regiment was every whit as famous...

For a series of years matters had been in an unsatisfactory state between Thibet and the Indian Government. This was caused by the non-fulfilment of treaty obligations on the pa...

Napoleon had reached Frasnes at nine o’clock on the morning of the 17th, and determined on attacking the allied commander. Still uncertain as to the route by which Blucher was r...

At this moment the united influence of Persia and Russia would seem to have been established in all the Afghan dominions with the single exception of Herat, and the existence of...

The capture of Melloone, as was expected, alarmed the King of Ava, who in order to avert greater calamity, sent Dr. Price, an American missionary, and Assistant-Surgeon Sandford...