At first sight this seems like a total mismatch, with Afghanistan up against the entire might of the British Empire, but in fact the situation was nothing like that simple. In 1919, Britain was exhausted after the First World War. What is more, just as today, cross-border loyalties there made it a difficult area for outsiders to operate in. However, like today, and unlike previous occasions, Britain now at least had an air force to assist it.
On 3 May 1919, the Afghan army crossed the border and captured Bagh. The Afghans hoped that an insurgency against Britain in Peshawar would help them, but we reacted quickly and managed to contain any possibility of rebellion. Eventually, on 11 May, British forces, including the use of planes, managed to push the Afghans out of Bagh and back across the border. Then Britain invaded Afghan territory again, and occupied the town of Dakka. But fighting was fierce and the situation was deteriorating behind the British advance. The Khyber Rifles became mutinous and began to desert. British Handley-Page bombers attacked Kabul, but the intended British advance to Jalalabad ground to a halt and things worsened when the South Waziristan Militia mutinied as well. Eventually, forces under Brigadier General Dyer pushed back Afghan army units and Amanullah offered an armistice which the British accepted. The war was in many ways inconclusive, but it did effectively mean we gave up on trying to control Afghan foreign policy. Instead it left us concentrating on the equally insoluble problem of trying to control the long-running and bitter insurgency in the North-West Frontier area that dragged on pretty much for as long as the Raj. As Great Games go, our venture into Afghanistan hadn’t proved to be such a great one from our point of view. Mind you the Russians haven’t exactly had a lot of fun in Afghanistan either. And, of course, it’s all brought a lot of misery to the Afghans. So not a Great Game from anybody’s point of view.
Now we are back in Afghanistan. Names like Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar e Sharif have once again become regular features of the news. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, we joined the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom to topple the Taleban regime and remove Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. At the time of writing, we are still intending to be there at least a little bit longer, attempting to crush the Taleban insurgency and help establish a stable and democratic Afghanistan. Let’s hope it ends better than some of our previous efforts in the country.
Albania
Ah, Albania, Land of the Eagles (see flag), but also, until not long ago, the land of the less than attractive dictator Enver Hoxha and place where you could spot a statue of Stalin as recently as 1980. This was a land so scared of invasion that it had large numbers of concrete pillboxes scattered across the countryside in a slightly bizarre and surprising fashion.
During the Cold War, most of Eastern Europe seemed remote and cut off to West Europeans. But Albania seemed remote and cut off even to most East Europeans. If you’d asked a selection of Brits in 1975 where Albania was, I suspect a fair percentage wouldn’t even have guessed it was in Europe. In fact, for anyone who grew up in the Cold War period, Albania was such a mysterious, closed land that it seems almost inconceivable that Britain’s armed forces could have a history of operations in the area, but, in fact, they do.
We tend to think of Trafalgar and Waterloo when we think of the Napoleonic Wars, which in some sense is fair enough, but we actually fought the French in all sorts of places, one of them being the Adriatic. The Albanian coast saw assorted actions by the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, including, for instance, the capture of the French corvette Var at the Albanian port of Valona (now Vlorë) in 1809 by HMS Belle Poule. You’ll come across some rather fabulous names for Royal Navy warships in this book. I know our modern Royal Navy doesn’t have that many ships to name, but when they do have new ones to name, it would be nice if they resurrected some of the more jolly ones from the past. The rather unusual name of this particular ship comes from the fact that she was a French ship until we captured her in 1806.
In the First World War, in December 1915, the Austro-Hungarian navy, aiming to impede the evacuation of Serbian troops retreating in front of the enemy onslaught (see Serbia), sent a naval force to attack Durazzo (Durres, Albania’s main port) which was then in Allied hands. British ships, including HMS Dartmouth and HMS Weymouth, stalwartly helped to repel the attack. And British troops landed in Albania to help the epic evacuation of the retreating Serbian army across a narrow stretch of sea to Corfu. Thinking of Corfu today, as the holiday island it is, you might be tempted to be jealous of people being evacuated to it, but this was before the days of sun-and-sand package tours. The retreat was long and bitter, and the evacuation was sort of Serbia’s Dunkirk. The brave men of the Royal Navy’s Danube Flotilla, who had made the long and grim retreat with the Serbian army, were also rescued.
Then in October 1918, with Durazzo now in Austro-Hungarian hands (so much for our efforts the first time round), Royal Navy ships, including HMS Weymouth, took part, along with, Italian, Australian and American warships, in the Second Battle of Durazzo. Shore batteries and assorted other buildings were destroyed, and a squadron of Austro-Hungarian patrol craft was defeated. Shortly afterwards, Austria-Hungary lost the war and HMS Weymouth could go off and do something else.
Early in the Second World War, we were back in the area. In 1940 and 1941, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF) launched operations to try to help Greek troops by attacking Valona, treading in the footsteps or sailing in the wake of HMS Belle Poule almost 150 years earlier. For instance, on 19 December 1940, HMS Warspite and HMS Valiant (good names but much more obvious than Belle Poule) shelled Valona, destroying Italian planes. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), also got in on the act and conducted assorted operations here during the war, with the aim of assisting resistance.
In October 1944, sailing from Brindisi in Italy, Number Two Army Commando and 40 Commando, with help from a Royal Navy bombardment, fought their way into the southern Albanian port of Saranda, opposite Corfu, and took it from the German defenders.
Brits found themselves fighting alongside Albanian Communists during the Second World War, but such close ties were not to last. Shortly after the end of the war, relations between Britain and Albania were plunged into crisis over incidents involving the Royal Navy in the Corfu Channel.
Algeria
We don’t tend to think of Algeria as an area of British influence, so it may come as something of a surprise to find out that our forces have been in action here many times.
In the early centuries this mainly had to do with Algerian pirates. Britain, of course, has a long history of producing pre-eminent pirates and privateers, but we do tend to object when others play the game too well. The so-called Barbary Corsairs played it exceptionally well. They didn’t even just attack targets in the Mediterranean; they attacked ships and raided coastal areas as far north as Britain itself. All in all we didn’t like Barbary Corsairs. And some of the most successful North African pirates worked from the area around Algiers.
We tried to deal with the problem with a mixture of diplomacy and rather less subtle violence. By the 1630s we had partially effective treaties in force, but then things got messy and a treaty signed in 1671 broke down into open warfare. Defeats by British naval forces under Arthur Herbert forced Algiers to sign another treaty in 1682.
It’s worth pointing out at this stage, that even though we do have quite a record of attacking places around the world, it wasn’t just us having trouble with Algiers. Frankly, the city seems to have been a rather unsafe place to live at the time and you have to wonder what happened to the house prices. The French bombarded Algiers on a number of occasions, including in 1682, 1683 and 1688. So did the Spanish on a number of occasions, including in 1783 and 1784. In 1770, the Danish-Norwegian fleet had a go. Even the Americans, rather far from home, got in on the act by sending ships to Algiers in 1815.
We tend to think of military interventions on humanitarian grounds as a modern invention, but in 1816 we carried out what can, in some sense, be seen in these terms. It was
our turn to bombard Algiers. With Napoleon finally defeated, we decided that it was time to do something (yet again) about the slave industry in North Africa. Admittedly, in this instance Britain was mainly concerned with preventing Europeans and Christians being enslaved, but it was perhaps better than nothing.
So Lord Exmouth set off for the North African coast to persuade the locals to stop their bad habits. And he took a small squadron of naval ships with him to make his arguments even more convincing. Indeed, the Deys of Tripoli and Tunis found Exmouth’s arguments, or at least the sight of the British Navy, thoroughly convincing and agreed to do as demanded by Exmouth. However, things proved a little more difficult in Algiers. Exmouth thought he’d succeeded only for events to end with a massacre of European fishermen we thought we were protecting.
Not surprisingly, people in Britain weren’t exactly happy about how it had all worked out, so Exmouth was sent back to drop a few less subtle hints on the Dey of Algiers, along with the threat of some even less subtle cannon fire.
For his mission, Exmouth took along assorted ships of the line, frigates and various other vessels. In Gibraltar, a Dutch squadron also joined the mission. Just as today, the safety of diplomats could be a problem in such situations, and the day before the attack a party from the frigate Prometheus tried to rescue the British consul and his wife, only to be captured. Not a huge success.
When the fleet was finally in position for the bombardment, an Algerian gun started the battle and a flotilla of small Algerian boats full of men tried to reach the British ships and board them. Neither Algerian guns nor the boarding parties achieved much and, instead, Exmouth fired at both ships in the harbour and the Dey’s military installations before withdrawing and demanding the Dey fulfil his demands about slaves and slavery. The Dey now finally complied.
In 1825, however, we ended up bombarding Algiers again. In some ways it’s surprising that people chose to remain living in Algiers, particularly since, in 1830, the French bombarded it yet again. Oh, and then invaded it as well. Which meant that the next time we returned to the area, it wasn’t the Barbary Consairs we were bombarding any more.
Mers-El-Kebir is situated in western Algeria, near Oran. In July 1940, a large number of French warships were concentrated here and Britain feared that because of the Vichy government’s relations with Nazi Germany, these ships could at some stage be used against us. So we shelled them.
In 1942 we were headed back to Algiers yet again, this time for Operation Torch. This operation involved landings in Vichy-controlled Morocco and Algeria, and a lot of the forces involved were American, but British forces also played major roles. The Eastern Task Force aimed at Algiers was commanded by British Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson and included troops from the British 78th Infantry Division and two commando units, No. 1 and No. 6 Commando.
French Resistance forces staged a coup in Algiers, and when the Allied troops arrived they met little local resistance from Vichy forces. The heaviest fighting took place in the port of Algiers where HMS Malcolm and HMS Broke launched Operation Terminal to try to prevent Vichy forces destroying the port facilities. Both ships came under heavy artillery fire in the port and were badly damaged, but HMS Broke managed to land the American troops it was carrying, before withdrawing. HMS Broke was, it turned out tragically, indeed broken, and eventually sank from the damage it received in the operation. The American troops who had landed were eventually forced to surrender, but, at least, the port was not totally destroyed.
Andorra
A small country that regularly gets loads of British visitors, particularly skiers, these days (I’ve been there myself), but so far I can’t find any evidence we’ve ever invaded with troops. During the Second World War, some British airmen did use Andorra as a route to escape from occupied France, but that’s maybe the closest we’ve come to sending British troops into Andorra. If anyone knows differently, let me know. Small countries make for small targets and have a disproportionately high representation in the short list of places we’ve never really invaded.
Angola
A land that has seen a lot of devastation from war in its history, but very little of it has been down to us. During the colonial era this was an area largely of Portuguese influence and since we have a long-standing friendship with Portugal, we’ve thoughtfully tended to steer clear of invading places like Angola.
Early on we did take a bit of interest in Cabinda, a slightly detached part of Angola, but a part of Angola nonetheless. Cabinda has a strategic location at the mouth of the Congo, so it was inevitable that we would be interested in it. Britain’s Royal African Company built a fort there, only to have it destroyed by the Portuguese who weren’t too keen on us getting a share of the region’s trade, even if we were supposed to be friends.
Then when we finally stopped being a slave-trading nation and started actively fighting the slave trade, the seas around Angola saw plenty of Royal Navy activity. The 4th Division of the Royal Navy’s West Africa station covered from Cape Lopez in Gabon to Luanda in Angola. And the 5th Division covered the area south of Luanda.
In the largest British deployment to Southern Africa on active service since the 1960s, 650 British troops on UN duty set foot in Angola in 1995 as part of Operation Chantress to help protect a ceasefire. A friendly invasion.
Antigua and Barbuda
From the point of view of Brits invading it, Antigua has a nice straightforward history. English settlers turned up on Antigua in 1632 and first England then Britain controlled it all the way through until 1981.
Except for 1666 – a bad year for us in many ways. Not only did we have the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague (great in the size sense rather than the ‘Ooh, fire and plague, Great!’ sense), but as if all that wasn’t bad enough, the French turned up and briefly occupied Antigua. When you look at a list of governors of Antigua, your eye runs down the British names until you get to one ‘Robert le Fichot des Friches, sieur de Clodoré’. I don’t know if there ever has been an English branch of Robert’s (pronounced Robaire) family, but he at least was most definitely French.
We had a little more trouble with Barbuda. Our first invasion wasn’t a huge success, well at least not for the Brits involved. It was a bit more of a success for the locals already living on the island.
By 1685, however, Christopher and John Codrington, who were involved with sugar estates on Antigua, were granted a lease on Barbuda by Charles II. Barbuda was the scene of a number of uprisings by slaves in the eighteenth century.
Argentina
Yes, they invaded the Falklands. Yes, we’d already invaded Argentina a long time before that. Equally unsuccessfully, though.
We’re all aware of the failed Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982. One thing most Brits are a lot less aware of is the failed British invasions of Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807.
Argentinian waters saw a fair number of armed British ships between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but it was in the nineteenth century that we took a really serious interest in the area.
We had long harboured ambitions in South America and since we were yet again fighting Spain, which then controlled the territory of present-day Argentina, Major General William Beresford, prompted by Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham, decided that even though there were no official orders from the British government to do so, it would be a good idea to invade Buenos Aires. It wasn’t a good idea. It was a terrible idea, in fact.
There had been a sort of concept in Britain that the locals might welcome getting rid of the Spanish, but it didn’t entirely work out like that. We took Buenos Aires easily enough in June 1806, and some locals were pleased to see us, but quite a lot were not. One Santiago de Liniers helped organise a fight-back against us and raised militia forces, eventually leading to bitter fighting and Beresford’s surrender in August. It was all highly embarrassing and more than a little humiliating. Our occupation of Buenos Aires had lasted forty-six days, even less than the Argentinian o
ccupation of the Falklands.
In 1807 we were back, but things went even worse this time round. In July, Lieutenant-General John Whitelocke led our second attempt to take Buenos Aires. From the start our forces met stiff local resistance and, once again, a British commander was forced to sign another humiliating deal over Buenos Aires. When he got back to Britain, Whitelocke was court-martialed and dismissed from the service.
You’d think somehow after two such major disasters we might have left the area alone, but we were back in Argentinian waters later in the nineteenth century. We occupied an Argentinian island, Martín García, for a time and conducted the British and French Blockade of the Rio de la Plata, the British part in this lasting from 1845 to 1849. We don’t seem to have achieved anything very much with that effort either.
Armenia
British troops were active in parts of current day Armenia in the chaotic era after the Russian Revolution and around the end of the First World War, and after that. We operated in the area of what is now the border between Turkey and Armenia, with a garrison at Kars just inside Turkey, but also with units active in Armenia in the area around what was then Alexandropol, now Gyumri. For instance, 27th Division’s Southern Command area included Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. We dived in with high hopes and then failed to solve loads of the major political and ethnic conflicts affecting the area at the time. The troops were eventually pulled out from the Caucasus when it was felt that the cost of maintaining them there was no longer justified by what they were achieving, and lots of people at home were sick of the venture anyway.
All the Countries We've Ever Invaded Page 2