British Heavy Artillery (1899-1915)
Part II: Specialization
This is the second installment of a series, the first part of which can be found on the far end of the following link.
The end of the Napoleonic Wars found the Royal Artillery with two basic types of units – fast-moving troops of horse artillery and slow-moving companies of foot artillery. During the forty-five years that followed, while the more mobile of the foot artillery companies became ‘field batteries’, those associated with heavier ordnance became ‘garrison companies’. As the same heavy guns and howitzers could be used as the defensive armament of fortresses, the weapons of the siege train, or the heavy artillery of field armies, these garrison companies proved able to reconfigure themselves into fortress companies (which had no horses at all), siege batteries (which were provided with a small number of draft animals) or mobile heavy batteries (which possessed the number of quadrupeds, limbers, and wagons needed to move all elements of the unit at the same time).1
After the great invasion scare of 1859, the Royal Artillery began to transform general-purpose garrison companies into specialized coast defence companies. By 1889, some seventy-seven units of the latter type could be found in insular coaling stations, the maritime strongholds of Malta and Gibraltar, and the great port cities of the British Empire. Indeed, between 1889 and 1899, only a fraction of the garrison companies of the Royal Artillery - the fifteen companies posted to landlocked locations in India and the three or four siege companies serving at home - had escaped conversion into coast defence units.2
At first, the employment of so many garrison companies in coastal fortifications did little to diminish the ability of the Royal Artillery to organize siege trains, raise heavy batteries for service in the field, or man the heavy armament of fortresses on land. After all, the vast majority of the coast defence weapons of the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s could also be found in the fortress, siege and heavy artillery units of the day. Indeed, the only garrison artillery weapons that escaped ubiquitous employment were the pieces that fired especially large shells: guns with bores larger than six inches (152mm) and howitzers with bores of eight inches (203mm) or more.
In an age where gunnery was characterized by simple instruments, short-range engagements, and dense clouds of smoke, the skills needed to defend a harbor differed little from those used to bombard a hostile fortress, defend a friendly fortress, or fire upon the earthworks standing athwart the path of an army in the field. The same, however, could not be said for the employment of the largest of the coast defense guns. Thus, for much of the second half of the nineteenth century, the Royal Artillery maintained a body of officers, master gunners, non-commissioned officers, and gunners who specialized in the care, feeding, and operation of land-based anti-ship weapons of heavier sorts.
Prior to 1859, the Royal Invalid Artillery posted groups of old soldiers to coast defense fortifications, where, under the watchful eyes of master gunners, they secured, maintained, and accounted for the weapons, equipment, instruments, and supplies that would be used by the garrison companies that would be sent to such places in the event of war. In 1859, the newly-formed Coast Brigade took charge of these detachments and, soon thereafter, began to provide them with officers who had risen from the ranks, seasoned non-commissioned officers, and younger men on long enlistments.
The formation of the Coast Brigade coincided with a program to rotate garrison companies between coast defense fortresses and locations of other sorts. Thus, rather than anticipating the arrival of garrison companies that would report for duty in the event of war, the detachments of the Coast Brigade taught their peculiar skills to comrades present in time of peace.
In 1891, the number of garrison companies serving in the coast defense role had grown to the point where it made sense to assign coast defense experts to particular companies on a more permanent basis. Thus, the Royal Artillery disbanded the Coast Brigade, turning its detachments into District Establishments that, over the course of the fifteen years to follow, transferred many of their men to coast defense companies.
In 1899, the Royal Artillery split into two autonomous branches - the Mounted Branch (made up of the Royal Field Artillery and the painfully prestigious Royal Horse Artillery) and the Royal Garrison Artillery. In 1906, the latter adopted a policy of ‘localization’. As a result, rather than moving from one station to another every few years, a garrison company would remain in one place, and, barring a change in the overall order of battle, retain their specialized configuration into the indefinite future. This change, which allowed coast defense companies to retain men with knowledge of tides, weather patterns, and other local phenomena, put the final nail in the coffin of the District Establishments.3
At the start of Crimean War (March 1854), the Royal Artillery possessed no siege artillery units at all. Nonetheless, by January of 1855, it had converted fourteen garrison companies into siege companies, all of which found useful work to do at the siege of Sebastopol. In the course of the year that followed, the sixteen addition garrison companies reconfigured themselves into siege companies. Julian R. J. Jocelyn History of the Royal Artillery (Crimean Period) (London: John Murray, 1911) pages 71-73
Callwell and Headlam The History of the Royal Artillery, Volume I (1860-1899) pages 105, 114, 272, 282 and 286.
K.W. Maurice-Jones The History of Coast Artillery in the British Army (Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institution, 1957) pages 156-58; Callwell and Headlam, The History of the Royal Artillery, Volume I (1860-1899), page 10 and Volume II (1899-1914) page 295 ; and the Report of the Committee on Royal Garrison Artillery, The National Archives (Kew), WO 33/2923.