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    The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment
    The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment
    The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment
    Ebook124 pages3 hours

    The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment

    By Rupert Matthews

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    About this ebook

    Men from Hampshire have for generations fought in the ranks of the Royal Hampshire Regiment, or its predecessors.

    All 160 Battle Honours of the regiment are featured in this book, including Blenheim, Minden, Barrosa, Kabul, Paardeburg, Mons, The Somme, Mesopotamia, Ypres, Passchendaele, Dunkirk, North Africa, Sicily, D-Day and Rhine Crossing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBretwalda Books
    Release dateAug 27, 2010
    ISBN9781907791147
    The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment
    Author

    Rupert Matthews

    Rupert Matthews has written over 150 books for different publishers, achieving significant sales in a variety of markets both in the UK and abroad. His works have been translated into 19 languages and have been shortlisted for a number of awards. Rupert has been a freelance writer for 20 years, working in-house at a major book publisher before going freelance.

    Read more from Rupert Matthews

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      Book preview

      The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment - Rupert Matthews

      The Battle Honours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment

      by

      Rupert Matthews

      Published by Bretwalda Books at Smashwords

      Website : Facebook : Twitter

      Copyright © Rupert Matthews 2010

      Website : Facebook : Twitter

      This book is available in print from www.amazon.co.uk

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ISBN 978-1-907791-14-7

      Contents

      Introduction

      War of the Spanish Succession

      Blenhein - Ramillies - Oudenarde - Malplaquet

      War of the Austrian Succession

      Dettingen

      Seven Years War

      Minden - Belleisle

      French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

      Tournay - Peninsula - Barossa

      Second Opium War

      Tuku Forts - Pekin 1860

      The British Raj

      Afghanistan 1879-80 - Charasiah - Kabul 1879 - Burma 1885-87

      South Africa

      South Africa 1900-02 - Paardeberg

      First World War

      Retreat from Mons - Ypres 1915 - Gallipoli 1915-16 - Macedonia 1915-18 - Somme 1916 - Egypt 1915-17 - Palestine 1917-18 Arras 1917 - Ypres 1917 - Cambrai 1917 - Mesopotamia 1915-18 - Arras 1918 - Somme 1918 - Siberia 1918-19

      Second World War

      Dunkirk - Malta 1941-42 - North Africa 1940-43 - Italy 1943-45 - Greece 1944-45 - Northwest Europe 1944-45

      Introduction

      The Royal Hampshire Regiment was formed in 1881 and ceased to exist in 1992. However, the regiment has a much longer and prouder tradition than these dates would indicate. It has been one of the hardest fighting regiments in the British Army and has racked up a list of battle honours that is the envy of many

      The regiment dates back to 1702 when Thomas Meredith was asked by Queen Anne to raise a regiment of infantry in Ireland, Meredith coming from a noted Anglo-Irish family. Within months Meredith’s Regiment was marching off to war against the French in Europe. As was the custom in the British Army at this date, the regiment continued to be known by the name of its colonel until 1747 when numbers were assigned instead. What had by then become Dejean’s Regiment thus became the 37th Regiment of Foot.

      In 1758, the 20th Regiment of Foot was divided in two, with half the men mustering in as the new 67th Regiment of Foot. This new regiment was raised specifically to take part in the war against the French then raging in North America. The colonel tasked with raising the regiment was a 31 year old named James Wolfe, a man soon to be raised to the rank of Major General and put in charge of the siege of Quebec. Wolfe was killed at the moment of his triumph and the 67th Regiment lost its first colonel barely a year after being formed.

      In 1782 the British infantry was reformed so that each regiment recruited primarily from one specific area, after which it was to be named. The 37th Regiment thus became the 37th North Hampshire Regiment while the 67th became the 67th South Hampshire Regiment. In 1881 another round of reforms saw all British infantry regiments standardised to have two regular battalions and two militia battalions, all based on a county. The 37th and 67th therefore joined to form the Hampshire Regiment, which was to become the Royal Hampshire Regiment in 1946. Officially the numbers of the 37th and 67th were done away with, but unofficially the 1st Battalion of the new regiment kept the tag 37th, while the 2nd Battalion was the 67th. In 1990 the Options for Change reforms saw the British army drastically reduced in size as politicians sought to save money after the end of the Cold War. The Royal Hampshire Regiment was amalgamated with the Queens Regiment to form The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.

      The Battle Honours gained by the Royal Hampshire Regiment, and by its predecessors the 37th and 67th Regiments, remain attached to the new Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. They tell the history of the regiment through the bloody battles and campaigns that the men have waged. The practice of a regiment having battle honours is an ancient one. At first it was left to the commanding officer of the regiment whether or not to award an honour to his men.

      By the time the 37th Regiment was formed in 1702, however, it had become the custom to award an honour only if the regiment actually fired a volley of musketry at the enemy. Such honours remained in the gift of the colonel and were not officially recognised. Then in 1784 the army decided to allow regiments to embroider the names of Battle Honours on to their flags. This necessitated a formal list of Battle Honours recognised by the army. The 37th and 67th, along with all other regiments, hurried to get their list of honours officially recognised. Not all of the older, informal Battle Honours were recognised by the general staff. After 1784 a colonel had to apply to the staff for permission to add a Battle Honour to his regimental list.

      This system has remained in place down to the present day — except that in 1882 a special Battles Nomenclature Committee was set up to decide whether an action constituted a battle and, if so, whether any Battle Honours should be awarded for it. In addition to Battle Honours, there are also what are known officially as Theatre Honours. These are awarded when a regiment takes part in a campaign, but does not join in any of the actions designated battles.

      Traditionally the most impressive or important of the Battle Honours are embroidered on the flag of the regiment, painted on its drums and written on the drum major’s mace. This book follows that practice by concentrating on the Battle Honours that the Royal Hampshire Regiment chose to mark on its flag, drums and mace. All the Battle Honours are featured in this book, but only those acknowledged by the regiment itself to be of prime importance are treated in depth.

      Chapter 1

      The War of the Spanish Succession

      In 1700 King Charles II of Spain, the last of the Spanish branch of the Hapsburg Dynasty, died without children. His closest heir was Duke Philip of Anjou, his sister’s grandson. Unfortunately, Philip was also a grandson of King Louis XIV of France and so might conceivably inherit both crowns. Louis was delighted, but most other European countries were horrified. The prospects of the two most powerful states in the world being united was a direct threat. War broke out in 1701 with France, Spain and Bavaria being pitched against Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and numerous smaller states. After much bloodletting the war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Philip was allowed to become King of Spain, but only on condition that he renounced all claim to the French throne and gave Spanish lands in Italy and the Netherlands to the Austrian Hapsburg’s. Britain gained Gibraltar from the Spanish and various French colonies in North America and the Caribbean.

      At this date, infantry were armed with smoothbore muskets to which bayonets could be fitted. The muskets had a range of about 100 yards, but were highly inaccurate. To get effective fire it was necessary to fire hundreds of muskets at the same time. For this reason infantry formed in formations three or four men deep and 200 men wide standing shoulder to shoulder. British infantry, such as Meredith’s Regiment, were proudly able to fire three times a minute which gave them the edge in a straight fire fight with most continental infantry. Like all British infantry, Meredith’s men wore a long red coat reaching to their knees over white trousers and black boots. To distinguish the regiments it was usual for the cuffs, collar and other facings to be of a distinctive colour. Meredith’s Regiment had bright yellow facings while button holes and the like were edged in white. Officers wore silver lace. Men and officers wore black felt tricorn hats, those of the men edged in white and officers in silver.

      Cavalry were armed with carbines — even less accurate than muskets — and swords. They would skirmish with their carbines, or charge with swords. Artillery fired solid cannonballs over a ranges of up to 1,000 yards with reasonable accuracy. At short range cannon fired grapeshot, a bag containing dozens of musket balls that spread like shot from a shot gun.

      Blenheim

      Meredith’s Regiment (later 37th North Hampshire Regiment) was in the Netherlands in early 1704, forming part of Ferguson’s Brigade in an army led by the Duke of Marlborough. News arrived that a large French-Bavarian army was advancing on Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, so Marlborough set off on an epic march of 250 miles from Bedburg to the Danube at Donauworth in order to get between the French and Vienna. Having linked up with the Imperial commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Marlborough advanced to attack the French in their entrenched positions around Blenheim (now Blindheim).

      French Marshal

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