by Mike Brunton
So, while the individual Tommy had shown excellent fighting qualities he was sometimes, too often perhaps, let down by the army’s leadership. British troops fought well; British commanders came to rely on this, rather than their own skill, to win their wars. British generals were usually brave, patriotic and honourable, but this did not always make them great or useful commanders. The worst of them could be bull-headed, self-centred and ignorant of military realities, but fortunately Lord Roberts was far from being the worst.
Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts had been recently promoted to field marshal and was expected to be the new Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. A brave and resourceful soldier, he was ordered to oppose the Martians with everything in England. By the middle of the first week, Roberts had few illusions about his chances of success but was determined to go down fighting.
His command comprised everything to hand in the Southern English garrisons. Home defence was one of the lesser tasks of the regulars in Aldershot, the main one being getting ready for postings overseas. The militia and volunteer battalions and Yeomanry cavalry were responsible for defence of the home islands. In effect, these part-time forces protected their own homes. When the call went out to confront the Martians, it turned out that they were not too keen on defending other people’s homes. The regiments and battalions went, as duty demanded, but with no little grumbling and gaps in the ranks. Far too many men found reasons to stay at home and look to the defence of their own families and property. Both Cambridge and Lord Salisbury were frustrated at what Salisbury called ‘… this sad want of patriotism, of backbone, of manly British spirit…’ Later, Salisbury saw to it that nothing was done to punish the reluctance of some part-timers. He saw no political gain in punishing men who were probably Tory or Unionist supporters.
Field days at Aldershot demonstrated the ‘dash and fire’ of the British Army in 1895, even as such ideas became suicidal on the battlefield. The army was an excellent force for fighting colonial wars, but not ready for a European conflict. The Martian War would test the army’s mettle to breaking point.
As soon as it was clear that the Martians were hostile, the Duke of Cambridge realized it made no sense to recall overseas troops. The Martians could (perhaps would) be in London before any reinforcements arrived. Weakening colonial garrisons might embolden natives or, worse, encourage European nations into foolish adventurism. Cambridge briefly considered using the Dublin garrison, but then rejected the notion as a risk to good order in Ireland. In this, Cambridge misjudged Irish sentiment. There was anti-British feeling but the Martians were seen as a greater threat, thanks to a widely reported sermon by Cardinal Michael Logue, the Archbishop of Armagh. On the Sunday after the landing, he denounced the Martians as servants of Satan. It was, he argued, a Catholic duty to make common cause against the ungodly aliens, and not use the crisis to weaken human (and that included English) strength. The 2nd Royal Irish and the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers volunteered for service in Surrey immediately. They were ordered instead to organize anti-Martian watches in Ireland.
Sensibly, Cambridge saw that the army could only fight with those units already in the south-east. Any northern or Scottish forces would be needed if there were further landings. Within hours of the Woking landing, Cambridge’s headquarters staff at Horse Guards sent alerts to the Aldershot Division, organizing the forces there into two infantry brigades and one (oversized) cavalry brigade. The gunners at Woolwich and sappers at Chatham were also warned of a move.
Aldershot was the home of the British Army in 1895. The brains might be at Horse Guards in London, the guns at Woolwich and the sappers on the Kent coast, but the guts of the army were in Aldershot, to the south-west of London. Aldershot was a military town and there was land for barracks, stables, field exercises, route marches, polo fields and everything else the army needed. It was also near enough to London for officers and men to enjoy all the capital’s diversions. Sadly, among the lower ranks ‘the Demon Drink’ and boredom did their work every week, although keeping the men busy could do wonders. Among the officers things were sometimes no better: two officers were bullied (no other word is strong enough) out of the 4th Hussars simply because they lacked the income necessary to maintain the regiment’s exclusive social standards. Mischief was the result if people were not kept busy.
A posting at Aldershot, busy or not, was actually something of a mixed blessing. Officers received very generous leave, and there was plenty of honest English beer for the men. There was no danger of sudden death at the hands of ungrateful locals, unlike some postings in the Empire. But what could have been a relatively staid life in barracks with sundry benefits on the side was disrupted: Aldershot was a little too close to Horse Guards. It was a convenient destination for senior officers bored with office life. Few of these gentlemen were able to resist the temptation of a comfortable train journey and a good dinner in one or other of the many regimental messes. This meant that a regiment so honoured also revelled in snap inspections, or had the pleasure of an (almost-impromptu) field day on Laffan’s Plain, regardless of the weather. Inspections could be disruptive enough, but the field days – mock battles and practice manoeuvres – made uniforms and kit dirty, something that sergeants could not abide! And there was nearly always a march past at the end of the day, where any mistake would attract the sergeants’ wrath upon the miscreants responsible. Generals’ visits meant extra duties, and no sensible soldier ever welcomed extra duty.
Importantly for what was to come, most units stationed at Aldershot were under strength. It was quite usual for units to be as much as 40 per cent under their nominal manpower. It simply wasn’t policy to keep more soldiers available than was strictly necessary. A unit brought itself up to numerical strength when it was preparing for an overseas deployment, or there was a war to be fought. The expeditionary nature of most of Britain’s wars in the Victorian period meant that this had never been a problem. Wars were always carefully considered if they involved troops from Britain; it took weeks or months to organize and dispatch a force to fight in some far flung corner of the Empire. Fear of invasion had never entered these calculations either, because the Royal Navy would destroy any invaders before they set foot on English soil.
This lack of preparedness hurt the army when the Martians arrived: Aldershot’s garrison was able to react swiftly to events, but not with huge numbers of men. Wars just didn’t happen overnight, and they certainly didn’t happen overnight in England! It could take days to summon a regiment’s officers back to the colours and organize their baggage. Fortunately, the rank and file in barracks were a little more prepared for action, but under strength. This explains why the British Army went to war against the Martians in piecemeal fashion: in its homeland it could do little else.
The army did have plenty of equipment, most of it quite good. The weapons were all serviceable and proven in action. There were, however, shortages of ammunition. The 1895 General Election had been triggered by a scandal concerning cordite production and stocks, but Lord Salisbury took no comfort from being proved right on the issue.
The Lee–Metford was the standard rifle issued to regular infantrymen (some militia still had the older Martini-Henry). Introduced in the 1880s, this magazine rifle fired a .303 bullet, a smaller round than earlier weapons. The action, magazine and bolt had been designed by James Lee, while the barrel was the work of William Metford. The same rugged ‘Lee’ element was re-used to make the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield (SMLE) rifle which replaced the Lee–Metford shortly after the Invasion and stayed in service for the next 60 years. The Lee–Metford was supposed to use smokeless powder – cordite – cartridges, but older gunpowder cartridges were still being issued from stores. Gunpowder generates huge clouds of white smoke when fired: any unit using gunpowder cartridges immediately gave its position away, and the Martians quickly learned to target smoke clouds with Heat Rays. Firing at the Martians therefore became a death sentence for too many brave troops. The Lee–Metford itself was accurate,
although incapable of damaging a Martian War Machine unless the shooter was uncommonly lucky and struck a viewing port. Even then, a penetrating shot was not a certainty, but crystalline fragments could and did cause wounds.
A carbine version existed for the cavalry. Despite boasting romantic regimental titles like hussars and lancers, British cavalry were equipped to fight as mounted infantry. Although nobody admitted it the days of the cavalry charge were long gone, even in 1895…
Officers were responsible for providing their own side arms, and had a free choice as long as the gun chosen used the standard .455 cartridges. Most chose the rugged and reliable Webley revolver. This was a handy weapon in close combat, but completely useless against the Martians. Oddly, for the first few days of the struggle, the Martians didn’t bother searching captives. Churchill was able to hide his gun when he was captured, and dead officer captives were found at landing sites with revolvers still in their possession.
Martini-Enfield and Lee-Metford rifles: the Lee-Metford was standard issue to British infantry and cavalry (in carbine form). The older Martini was issued to police forces and militia battalions. Both were largely useless against Fighting Machines but nothing else was available.
The British Army had adopted the Maxim machine gun, largely at the insistence of General Sir Garnet Wolseley. He had ordered 120 Maxims in the late 1880s, chambered for the .577 bullets used by the Martini-Henry rifle. However, most of these were in the colonies and most officers, even if they thought about technical matters like Maxims, considered that they were suitable for use only against ‘savages’. The few Maxims in Britain did not see action, because no one could think how to use them against the Martians until it was too late. As the final Martian Cylinders arrived suggestions were made to use the small number of Maxims available to saturate the crater around newly landed Cylinders with bullets, killing any emerging Martians before they could use their War Machines. This perfectly sensible idea was never put into practice.
The ‘proper’ artillery did have some very large cannons in forts guarding the Royal Navy’s bases, such as the line of defences around Portsmouth. The weapons included 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loaders and 7in breech-loaders; a hit from any fortification gun could smash a War Machine to very small pieces as was shown at Shoeburyness on the Thames Estuary. But these guns were in emplacements, and unless a War Machine came into range, they were useless. Field artillery was all that could counter the invaders in a practical way.
There were three types in England: two versions of the breech-loading 12-pounder and a slightly modified 15-pounder which actually fired a 14-pound (6.35kg) shell, just to be confusing – and all fired a 3in (76.2mm) shell. They also all used the same system of separate propellant charges and shells; a 15-pounder could fire 12-pounder shells at a pinch. All three were pulled by teams of six horses.
The seven-hundredweight (7cwt) 12-pounder was the oldest design, and was gradually being replaced. It hadn’t proven reliable in the dusty conditions in India, and was considered too heavy for the horse artillery to keep up with cavalry. The simpler six-hundredweight (6cwt) gun had a shorter barrel and a better carriage, and was a more practical weapon. It used the same ammunition and, thanks to the arrival of cordite (although in limited amounts), it was in no way inferior to its heavier sibling.
The 15-pounder was a redesign that took advantage of cordite to fire a longer, heavier shell from an identical calibre of barrel. It was a heavier gun, of course, but its increased killing power more than made up for that.
All three guns were adequate for fighting terrestrial opponents. Against the Martians, it was crew quality and bravery that counted: a fast crew stood a chance of getting off enough rounds to give the Martians pause, even if they didn’t destroy them. A slow or irresolute crew were usually cooked by a Heat Ray after their first shot.
THE ROYAL NAVY
In terms of fighting ability the Royal Navy was almost certainly the equal of all the other Great Powers’ navies combined. Since Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805 the Admiralty had maintained Britain’s pre-eminent naval position regardless of cost. Steam power, ironclads and new-fangled weaponry had been quickly and efficiently adopted. Despite occasional flurries of excitement over foreign navies, the Royal Navy had kept its lead.
The navy was Britain’s first, main and last line of defence, and it was inconceivable that enemies would set foot on British soil while it existed. The navy never went short of manpower, ships or money: it was a very courageous politician who even hinted the navy should get less funding. The admirals, though, must have felt they were on short rations simply because they were expected to defend all of the Empire and police the High Seas. The Royal Navy could legitimately claim that nothing moved at sea without Britain’s approval, sometimes much to the annoyance of the other Great Powers. The navy could also claim that a latter-day Armada would have a very rough passage indeed while there were hardy Jack Tars at sea. It might – just might – be a job for the army, or possibly Scotland Yard, to round up the invaders who survived a salvo from the fleet.
Britons did get a taste of invasion from time to time, but only in the London weekly magazines. Fictional and untrustworthy foreigners visited all kinds of swinish, despicable cruelties on the inhabitants of the Home Counties before they were defeated by British pluck, manly honesty and cold steel. As events were shortly to prove, honesty, pluck and cold steel (British or otherwise) were of precious little use against a Martian Heat Ray.
Quite what the navy was to do against the Martians during the Invasion was never clearly set out by anyone: the Martians were plainly not sailors, and their landing grounds were far inland. In the end the navy did its share but it was not as a result of any grand strategy for defeating the Martians. Individuals found ways to attack the invaders.
The Admiralty did make sure that other European states could not interfere in the affair, and no foreign troops landed on English soil during or after the crisis. The navy also showed the flag across the Empire, even as London was besieged. The Royal Navy had always been a powerful symbol that the British Empire was more than Britain; now it was a symbol that the Empire would survive. Whether the navy could have maintained this fiction if all of England had been laid waste is doubtful, but this was never tested.
Admiral Sir John ‘Jackie’ Fisher, Third Sea Lord at the time of the Martians’ arrival and the man who arranged to have London shelled by the Royal Navy. Fisher was ruthless, unbothered by collateral damage to civilian property, and wanted the Martians destroyed at all costs.
Their Lordships moved quickly to ensure the fleet was preserved. Portsmouth and Chatham were emptied of ships as quickly as possible, and by the Wednesday of the first week nothing significant was in harbour. At Portsmouth HMS Majestic, the largest battleship of her day, was being fitted out. By heroic efforts, she was towed out to sea, towards the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. Guns and other unfitted components were lashed to her decks and irreplaceable fitters, armourers and craftsmen were half-willing passengers. Such workers’ families as could be gathered were quickly put aboard three steamers and sent after the Majestic convoy: the Admiralty was not staffed by heartless men. Although Harland and Wolff were best known for building liners, Belfast had the advantage of being on the other side of the Irish Sea and being used to building large ships. The Admiralty hoped that the H&W yards could work in relative safety and prepare the Majestic.
One of the Admiralty board disagreed vehemently with this move and the idea that lay behind it. As Third Naval Lord and Controller of the Navy, Admiral Sir John Fisher was responsible for shipbuilding at the time, and disputed the logic of sending Majestic and her workers to Ulster. He thought the entire exercise was futile, as he quite correctly recognized that the arrival of attackers from beyond Earth made a mockery of geography. The next Cylinder could as easily crash to earth in Belfast, Portsmouth or ‘any other blasted spot’ and nothing in their Lordships’ power could stop it. He was overruled, as th
e Sea Lords decided that ‘Her Majesty and their Lordships consider … action is necessary, for the maintenance of morale within the Service and of the nation as a whole…’ even if that action made little strategic sense.
Fisher, however, was all for using what naval forces were available to bombard the invaders as soon as they were near a coastline, and regardless of any other damage this would cause. This horrified the other Naval Lords, but Fisher was adamant: any sacrifice was worthwhile if the invaders were weakened or destroyed. In this he and Lord Roberts were eventually of one mind. Unless the Martians were destroyed root and branch there would be nothing left for Britain or humanity as a whole (later, Fisher did get the chance to put his idea into practice with HMS Revenge). His mind had always had a ruthless streak, but the war against the Martians gave him an underdog’s view of facing an overwhelming force. Fisher took this lesson to heart and became absolutely convinced that his beloved navy should never, ever be in such a position again. It was a lesson he used in creating dreadnoughts, a class of super-battleships that made all other vessels obsolete. Bigger, stronger and utterly intimidating, they were, ever afterwards, pillars of Fisher’s policy. He remained bitterly disappointed that the Martians’ weapons remained beyond human understanding and could not be fitted aboard ‘his’ new battleships. Until his dying day Fisher remained convinced that if the Royal Navy had possessed Heat-Ray dreadnoughts the Germans would never have attempted an arms race with Britain in the 1900s, or been so eager to support Austria-Hungary in its Balkan adventures. Those matters lay in the future; in August 1895, the Sea Lords faced and accepted the bitter truth that the Royal Navy was not the most powerful force on the planet.
