| Royal Waggon Train | |
|---|---|
| RWT | |
 | |
| Active | 1793–1833 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Branch | Logistics |
| March | William of The Waggon Train |
| Battle honours | Peninsula Waterloo |
The Royal Waggon Train was the name originally given to the Supply and Transport branch of the British Armed Forces, which would eventually become the Royal Logistic Corps.
In 1793, Revolutionary French Forces invaded the Low Countries and declared war on Britain. Existing military plans relied on local men to provide supplies and transport for the British Army overseas, which proved to be inadequate. Therefore, the first uniformed Transport Corps, named the Royal Waggoners, was created on 7 March 1794. [1] One year later, after British forces withdrew from the Low Countries, the Royal Waggoners were disbanded.
In 1799, Sir Ralph Abercromby led a British expedition into North Holland to break the French hold on the strategically important Scheldt estuary. [1] Another Transport Corps, overseen by Waggon Master General Digby Hamilton, Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel), was created to support this effort. Initially titled the Royal Waggon Corps, it was renamed the Royal Waggon Train, ranking as a "Mounted Corps" after the 29th Dragoons. Due to the success of Abercrombie's expedition, the Royal Wagon Train of five Squadrons was reinforced by a further seven Squadrons/troops and Hamilton was promoted to Major General.
The train was required because civilian transport was controlled by the Treasury rather than the military, which did not always suit the army's requirements. [2] It was more sophisticated than the existing transport used by the Army Medical Department and was able to ferry many of the wounded, injured and sick to safety in large convoys. However, the convoys were limited by the technology of the age; wagons were prone to breakdown and often unable to cope with rough and torturous terrain of the battlefield and lines of communication. The animals pulling the wagons frequently died of starvation or exhaustion. [1]
The Train was heavily involved in the Peninsular War, supporting Sir Arthur Wellesley's forces as they sailed from Ireland to retake the French naval base at Lisbon in 1808. After command of the British forces temporarily passed to Sir John Moore in the winter of 1809, the Train was again involved, shepherding the wounded and transporting supplies for British forces in the retreat at Corunna; a 300-mile (480 km) trek through treacherous conditions that ended in a triumphant battle against Napoleon’s forces. [1] Moore did not survive the battle, but his tactics and planning allowed many of his forces to evacuate Spain and set sail for England.
At Wellington's request, Commissary General John Bissett was then brought in to oversee the Royal Waggon Train. [1] By 1810, newly ennobled Viscount Wellington had ordered the construction of the Lines of Torres Vedras; a series of secret forts that repelled an offensive by French commander André Masséna. [3] Other key successes at the Siege of Badajoz between March and April 1812, the Battle of Salamanca in July of the same year, and the Storming of Saint Sebastian in August 1813 allowed Wellington's forces to drive Napoleon's forces back into France. The Royal Waggon Train was responsible for transporting supplies and wounded during these key battles and throughout the Peninsular War. With public opinion against him, Emperor Napoleon was forced to abdicate on 31 March 1814, leading to his exile on the island of Elba. [4]
For its efforts in the Peninsular War, the Royal Waggon Train was awarded the battle honour "Peninsula", and over thirty officers were also awarded the bar "Corunna" for the Army Gold Medal.[ citation needed ]
After Napoleon's exile, the Royal Waggon Train was reduced to five Troops. However, a year later Napoleon escaped Elba and resumed power, rekindling hostilities with the British. [5] Plans to rebuild the Train were fast-tracked; Wellington well-aware of its importance to military success overseas. The Train expanded once more to twelve Troops, which included 1,400 horses.
On 18 June 1815, allied British and Prussian forces faced Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo. Eight companies from the Royal Waggon Train were involved, along with four companies of the Foreign Waggon Train. During the battle, allied forces took up defence of Hougoumont, a chateau and farm 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Waterloo. [6] Along with supporting the front lines, the Royal Waggon Train drove much-needed supplies through enemy lines to the desperate Third Guard defending the chateau. The Train's heroics at Hougoumont were included in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1891 play Waterloo. [7]
Wellington's forces were outnumbered and outgunned, withstanding a barrage of attacks from French forces throughout the day. That evening, Prussian forces led by Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher broke through Napoleon's right flank. [8] This planned attack allowed Britain and her remaining allied forces to counter-attack, driving the French Army from the battlefield. For their service during the battle, the Royal Waggon Train received their second battle honour: "Waterloo"
Victory at Waterloo brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars, and with it, 22 years of conflict between France and much of Europe. After the battle, the Royal Waggon Train was responsible for clearing over 4,000 allied dead from the battlefield. [1] Napoleon abdicated shortly after and was exiled on Saint Helena, a mid-Atlantic island, where he remained until his death in 1821. [8]
Following Napoleon's defeat, the Train was reduced to five troops, primarily utilised for mundane transport tasks. By 1818, only two troops remained, with one stationed in Gibraltar. The Train was finally disbanded in 1833. [1]
No person can be more impressed than I am of the absolute necessity of a corps of the description of the Royal Waggon Train
— Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. [1]
A prolonged peace followed for Britain, until the beginning of the Crimean War in 1854. After the Train's disbandment, logistical support fell solely onto the Commissariat's shoulders.[ citation needed ]
British forces suffered, as the refined infrastructure of the Royal Waggon Train was no more. This truly goes to show that the Royal Waggon Train is one of the unsung heroes of the Napoleonic Wars.[ citation needed ]
The Headquarters of the Royal Waggon Train is at Croydon and two hundred years later it is still the headquarters of 151 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps.
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The other was composed of three corps of the Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher. The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was contemporaneously known as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean (France) or La Belle Alliance.
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence. The war started when the French and Spanish armies invaded and occupied Portugal in 1807 by transiting through Spain, and it escalated in 1808 after Napoleonic France occupied Spain, which had been its ally. Napoleon Bonaparte forced the abdications of Ferdinand VII and his father Charles IV and then installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne and promulgated the Bayonne Constitution. Most Spaniards rejected French rule and fought a bloody war to oust them. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation. It is also significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare.
Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, 1st Duke of Dalmatia was a French general and statesman. He was a Marshal of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars, and served three times as President of the Council of Ministers of France.
The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign, the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
In the War of the Sixth Coalition, sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and a number of German States defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba. After the disastrous French invasion of Russia of 1812 in which they had been forced to support France, Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Portugal, and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France.
Château d'Hougoumont is a walled manorial compound, situated at the bottom of an escarpment near the Nivelles road in the Braine-l'Alleud municipality, near Waterloo, Belgium. The site served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the Duke of Wellington, that faced Napoleon's Army at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
The Battle of Buçaco or Bussaco, fought on 27 September 1810 during the Peninsular War in the Portuguese mountain range of Serra do Buçaco, resulted in the defeat of French forces by Lord Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese Army.
The Waterloo campaign was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blücher.
The Light Division was a light infantry division of the British Army. Its origins lay in "Light Companies" formed during the late 18th century, to move at speed over inhospitable terrain and protect a main force with skirmishing tactics. These units took advantage of then-new technology in the form of rifles, which allowed it to emphasise marksmanship, and were aimed primarily at disrupting and harassing enemy forces, in skirmishes before the main forces clashed.
The Brunswick Ducal Field-Corps, commonly known as the Black Brunswickers in English and the Schwarze Schar or Schwarze Legion in German, were a military unit in the Napoleonic Wars. The corps was raised from volunteers by German-born Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1771–1815). The Duke was a harsh opponent of Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of his native Germany. Formed in 1809 when war broke out between the First French Empire and the Austrian Empire, the corps initially comprised a mixed force, around 2,300 strong, of infantry, cavalry and later supporting artillery.
In the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, in Salamanca, Spain, the French Marshal Michel Ney took the fortified city from Field Marshal Andrés Pérez de Herrasti on 10 July 1810 after a siege that began on 26 April. Ney's VI Corps made up part of a 65,000-strong army commanded by André Masséna, who was bent on a third French invasion of Portugal.
In the Blockade of Almeida a French garrison under Antoine François Brenier de Montmorand was surrounded by approximately 13,000 Anglo-Allied soldiers led by Generals Sir Alexander Campbell, 1st Baronet and Sir William Erskine, 2nd Baronet. After a French relief attempt failed, Brenier and his troops broke out at night after blowing up portions of the fortress. To the fury of the British army commander Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington, most of the French escaped due to their commander's single-minded determination, British fumbling, and remarkably good luck. The action took place during the Peninsular War portion of the Napoleonic Wars. Almeida, Portugal is located near the Spanish border about 300 kilometres (186 mi) northeast of Lisbon. The town was originally captured from a Portuguese garrison during the 1810 Siege of Almeida.
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, is recognized as one of the greatest commanders in military history. His main strategy was focusing on one part of the enemy, quickly defeating them, and continuing onward. His success was made possible not only by his ambition, but also through the dynamic composition of his army. Napoleon would see his equipment being gained through provisional control of the armories of France, thus allowing the weapons direct control by government.
James Graham (1791–1845) was an Irish non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, recognised as the "bravest man in the army". Serving in the Coldstream Guards, he was commended for his gallantry during the defence of Hougoumont, at Waterloo. Graham saved the life of an officer, and his own brother, and was among the small group responsible for closing the North Gate at Hougoumont after a French attack – an act which won the Duke of Wellington's encomium. He was rewarded with a specially cast gallantry medal and an annuity. After later serving in the 12th Royal Lancers, Graham was discharged in 1830 for ill health, and died at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 1845.
The British Army during the Napoleonic Wars experienced a time of rapid change. At the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, the army was a small, awkwardly administered force of barely 40,000 men. By the end of the period, the numbers had vastly increased. At its peak, in 1813, the regular army contained over 250,000 men. The British infantry was "the only military force not to suffer a major reverse at the hands of Napoleonic France."
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington,, was one of the leading British military and political figures of the 19th century. Often referred to solely as "The Duke of Wellington", he led a successful military career in the Indian subcontinent during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798–99) and the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), and in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
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