All the Countries We've Ever Invaded

by Stuart Laycock

  As the eighteenth century wore on, more wars followed and more British armies headed for Germany. There was, for example, the War of the Austrian Succession (the eighteenth century seems to have been a particularly popular time for fighting wars over disputed successions). In 1742, a British army landed at Ostend, still a popular destination for Brits. From here it headed south into Germany in 1743 with a bunch of troops from Hanover. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we had Hanoverians on our side, because our king at this stage, George II, was, of course, one of them. He turned up himself in June 1743 to take command of the army and eventually we ended up fighting the French at Dettingen in Bavaria on 27 June. It is the last time a British monarch has personally led his troops in battle. Fortunately, he won, and to round things off, Handel composed some victory music to commemorate the day.

  Then came the Seven Years War. Again we were teamed up with Hanover. The Duke of Cumberland, who had eventually defeated the Jacobite ’45 Rising, found things rather different this time round. He had been sent to defend Hanover against French attack, but instead found himself defeated, retreated and forced into a humiliating peace deal signed at Zeven in northern Germany in 1757. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick later had to come in to save the day, or at least, save Hanover. In 1759, the British and Hanoverian forces won a major victory at Minden over French and Saxon troops. Due to a famous misunderstanding, British and Hanoverian infantry found themselves advancing, but advancing successfully in this case, against French cavalry. To this day, the victory at Minden is commemorated in the Minden regiments by the wearing of roses on Minden Day, 1 August.

  Then there were the wars against Revolutionary France and Napoleon. In 1803, the French finally succeeded in doing what they had been trying to do on and off for some time. They captured Hanover and the Hanoverian army ceased to exist. Although in some ways it didn’t – a lot of Hanoverian soldiers joined the King’s German Legion, a unit of the British Army that fought throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Included in its list of operations is the deployment to the (now German) island of Rügen in 1807. In other little-known facts about our operations in Germany during the Napoloenic Wars, there was our expedition to northern Germany in 1805 and we had one unit at the massive Battle of Leipzig in 1813 that crushed Napoleon and sent him back to France (a couple of years before we had to defeat him again at Waterloo). It’s known as the Battle of the Nations because of all the different countries involved, and we had a Rocket Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery, with Congreve Rockets, attached to the bodyguard of the Crown prince of Sweden. It wasn’t exactly the biggest military contribution by a single nation, but we were there.

  Anyway, we got Hanover back once Napoleon had been kicked out of it, then in 1837 we lost Hanover forever. Succession in Hanover was under the Salic Law so when we got Victoria as queen, they didn’t.

  On the subject of our German possessions and the Napoleonic Wars, let’s not forget Heligoland. Yes, they are German islands today, and they were Danish islands when our navy turned up during the Napoleonic Wars. From then until 1890 (when we swapped them for Zanzibar), they were British and became a popular seaside resort. After they went back to Germany, they became a not-so-popular (at least with us) German naval base, and we flattened it thoroughly during and after the Second World War.

  With the loss of Hanover and unification of Germany in the nineteenth century, we had fewer opportunities to invade it again. We had, of course, to wait for the twentieth century for that.

  In the First World War, we conducted assorted naval operations in German waters, including the Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1914, and we built the Vickers Vimy aircraft with the intention of bombing Germany, but the war on land ended before our armies reached the German border and before the Vickers Vimy reached German skies. Nevertheless, following the signing of the armistice, British troops entered Germany in December 1918 as an army of occupation. We took Cologne and the surrounding area to control. Lieutenant General Fergusson, the British military governor, raised the British flag over his headquarters in Cologne at the Hotel Monopol on 11 December 1918. We finally left Cologne in 1926, but we still had troops in Wiesbaden all the way through until 1930. It’s a little-known but interesting aspect of our military history and of German history.

  Our invasion of Germany in the Second World War is such a vast subject and people know so much more about it than other events in this book, that I’m only going to give very brief details here. We conducted extensive air operations against targets in Germany throughout the war and after fighting our way across Europe after D-Day, in early 1945, Montgomery advanced into German territory with Operations Veritable and Grenade. This was followed in March 1945 when Operation Plunder was launched to cross the Rhine. As German resistance crumbled, Montgomery’s troops moved north-east. Our second Army reached the Elbe south of Hamburg on 19 April. It took a week of fierce fighting to take Bremen. On 29 April, we crossed the Elbe. We captured Hamburg on 3 May and, on 4 May, Montgomery accepted the surrender of all German forces in Denmark, Northern Germany and the Netherlands.

  After the end of the war, our second British army of occupation in Germany was formed from 21st Army Group. We occupied Hanover (quite appropriately), Saxony and Cologne again, and the Moselle Valley that Marlborough had taken centuries before, and this time a bit of Berlin too. As West Germany got back up and running, the role of the British Army of the Rhine became purely military and rapidly became more focused against a potential threat from Warsaw Pact forces rather than any threat from West Germans.

  Ghana

  In terms of the land that is now present-day Ghana and our assorted invasions of it, two things come quickly to mind: the Gold Coast and the Ashanti. A bit like many Brits don’t know that there have been three Burma Wars, a lot of Brits don’t know that there have been not three, but four Ashanti Wars, or even five depending on how you reckon them.

  It all started from our point of view with the Gold Coast. This is what we called the area when we first got to know it, unsurprisingly for the reason that there was gold to be had there. But there were other sources of wealth available too, mainly slavery and ivory. The French preferred to call the area the Ivory Coast, or Côte d’Ivoire, which, equally unsurprisingly, explains why that’s now the name of the country to the west of Ghana.

  As early as the sixteenth century we were getting gold from the Gold Coast, and in the seventeenth century we started grabbing bits of land as well. For example, in the 1660s we established ourselves at Cape Coast Castle (bit of a tongue-twister that). Inevitably, with all the money to be made there, it wasn’t just us showing an interest in the area. Lots of Europeans were too. But with our customary relentless dedication, we wore the others down and kicked them out slowly. We had a bit of a rocky start on that front since the Dutch almost managed to chuck us out in the seventeenth century, but things went our way in the competition with the other Europeans and by 1850 we had reached a deal to buy the Danish forts, and finally in the 1870s we got the Dutch forts.

  And then there are the Ashanti. A lot of Brits know something about our battles with the Zulus, perhaps because of the movies. But our wars against the Ashanti were even longer. They caused massive suffering to the Ashanti and, on a number of occasions, were pretty tough for the Britons involved too.

  The First Ashanti War was something of a shock to us. In 1823, Sir Charles MacCarthy, Governor of Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, declared war on the Ashanti to win control of Fanti areas. In the end it didn’t turn out too well for him and his men. The Ashanti killed almost all of them, and his colonial secretary, Williams, was captured and kept prisoner for months. MacCarthy’s skull was later used as a drinking cup by Ashanti rulers. In subsequent fighting, the Ashanti advanced to the coast on more than one occasion, but were in for a bit of a shock themselves from our Congreve Rockets. Eventually a peace treaty was signed in 1831.

  More fighting broke out in 1863–64 with the Second Ashanti War. Again we didn’t manage to
achieve very much, and there were losses on both sides.

  Things went better for the British forces with the Third Ashanti War. Once we had got hold of the Dutch forts, we found that we had competition from the Ashanti who also wanted them. The Ashanti attacked and General Garnet Wolseley rushed to deal with them. After the Battle of Amoaful, we entered the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and looted and burned it. A peace treaty, the Treaty of Fomena, was signed in 1874, making the Ashanti pay us an indemnity and giving us assorted trade advantages.

  Then came the Fourth Ashanti War. We were getting a little nervous about the spread of German and French influence and wanted the Ashanti to sign up to be a British protectorate. The Ashanti weren’t so keen. By January 1896, citing breaches of the Treaty of Fomena as justification for the war, we had troops in Kumasi. Robert Baden Powell was in there somewhere, as was Prince Henry of Battenberg (like the cake), Queen Victoria’s son-in-law. It was not Prince Henry’s happiest time, however, since he died on the way back from the expedition. By February it was all over and a treaty of protection was signed and Britain sent some Ashanti leaders into exile on the Seychelles.

  Finally, in 1900 came the War of the Golden Stool. This was the Fifth Ashanti War, but with a more interesting name. The Golden Stool was one of the main symbols of Ashanti rule and was sacred to the Ashanti. In 1900 the Governor of the Gold Coast demanded it for Queen Victoria and demanded that he could sit on it. Thus began a war. Eventually we won and more Ashanti leaders were exiled to the Seychelles, and on 1 January 1902 the Ashanti territories became part of the Gold Coast colony.

  In 1957, the Gold Coast became independent as Ghana.

  Greece

  Greece is one of those countries that, even though it has a long and tempestuous history, many Brits probably think we haven’t invaded. But, of course, we have.

  During the Napoleonic Wars our involvement with Greece was to a certain extent focused on the Ionian Islands lying in the Adriatic to the west of the Greek mainland. France had garrisoned these with French and Neapolitan troops, and we feared that the French would turn the Adriatic into an area from which they could raid our ships in the Mediterranean. We weren’t putting up with that.

  As the sea war raged in the Adriatic, we set about removing the offending garrisons. On 1 October 1809, a British squadron including HMS Warrior landed 1,900 troops under the command of Brigadier General John Oswald on Kefalonia, and within hours the Neapolitan troops there had surrendered. Zante and Ithaca surrendered to us shortly afterwards. Soon after that, troops from HMS Spartan seized the island of Kythira, which has connection in legend to the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.

  And there was love for us. Many Greeks were quite pleased to see us and we set up the 1st Greek Light Infantry under Oswald. And when in March 1810 we invaded the island of Lefkada, our success was helped by the fact that local Greek troops came over to our side. The main fortress surrendered after a siege lasting eight days.

  But we had left the big one until last. On Corfu the French had installed a French and Neapolitan garrison consisting of something like 7,400 troops. We had been blockading this with mixed success for some years, but finally, in 1814, the garrison there too gave up and surrendered to us. Hurrah!

  The Congress of Vienna placed the islands of Corfu, Kefalonia, Kythira, Ithaca, Paxos, Lefkada and Zakynthos under our protection as the United States of the Ionian Islands. We had only just lost the United States of America, so it must have been nice to get another lot of United States instead, even if they were slightly smaller. Well, quite a lot smaller.

  Then in 1827, British ships and a British commander played a key part in gaining Greece independence from the Ottoman Empire. Our naval commander in the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, was given the subtle diplomatic task of trying to stop fighting in Greece between Turks and Greeks. Instead, in a rather unsubtle manner, he ended up leading a combined British, French and Russian fleet into a confrontation with the combined Ottoman and Egyptian fleet in Navarino Bay on the west coast of the Peloponnese. This resulted in the last major sea battle in which all ships were powered only by sail, and a crushing defeat for the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet that paved the way for eventual Greek freedom.

  Our relations with the newly independent Greece were not entirely smooth, however. In 1850, after Don Pacifico, who had been born in British-held Gibraltar, was attacked in Athens, the Foreign Secretary Palmerston sent a British naval squadron to the Aegean to seize Greek property in compensation for Don Pacifico’s losses and to blockade Piraeus. Our actions caused trouble with France and Russia, but Palmerston defended himself in a famous five-hour (five-hour!) speech in which he stated that just as any Roman citizen had once been able to rely on the protection of the Roman Empire, so now any British subject could rely on the protection of Britain.

  Though there are still traces of our period in control of the Ionian Islands to be seen today, our time there was not an entirely happy one, and as mainland Greece gained its independence, there was growing local pressure for the islands to be returned to Greek control. In 1862, looking for a new king after getting rid of their last one, the Greek people voted for our very own British Prince Alfred, later to become the Duke of Edinburgh (not Queen Elizabeth II’s Duke of Edinburgh, although there’s a story of Greek connections there as well). Treaty obligations and the opposition of Queen Victoria apparently wouldn’t let him become king, but we felt we owed something to the Greeks for voting for a British candidate and we agreed to hand over the islands. Accordingly on 31 May 1864 Sir Henry Storks and a bunch of British troops finally left Corfu and the Ionian Islands.

  In 1885, the Royal Navy again blockaded Greece, since the British government was afraid that the Greeks would defy the Treaty of Berlin. Ironically, our admiral in charge of this blockade was none other than Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the one who didn’t get to be King of Greece before. Presumably he wouldn’t have blockaded himself if he had been King of Greece.

  During the First World War we were back in Greek waters and on Greek soil, and in strength. Again, Greek islands played a significant part in the action. For instance, in 1915 Mudros Bay on the island of Lemnos became a key Allied base under British Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss during the Gallipoli campaign, and even after the end of that campaign it remained an important element in the blockade of the Dardanelles.

  Things on the mainland got off to a slightly rockier start. It probably didn’t help us that the Greek King Constantine was married to the Kaiser’s sister. The Allies tried to get Greece to join them in the war and in 1915 we landed troops at Salonika in northern Greece to fight the Bulgarians. Greece became split between those who wanted to join the Allies and those who supported the king and wanted to remain neutral. Things got a bit tense. Well, very tense.

  In 1916, when a demand for the Greeks to hand over artillery batteries was rejected, we invaded Athens. A mainly French force, but including sailors from HMS Exmouth and HMS Duncan, and men from the Royal Marine Light Infantry, landed at Piraeus on 1 December 1916 and headed for Athens. In the ensuing Battle of Athens, both sides suffered casualties, including some British dead, and eventually a compromise deal was reached with some guns being handed over. Things went rather more smoothly for us after the Allies forced King Constantine off the throne and we ended up with a united Greece now on our side. By 1918, British troops were advancing north from Greek territory in an eventually successful campaign against the Bulgarians.

  With the Second World War we were back yet again. On 28 October 1940, Italian forces invaded Greece from Albania, bringing Greece into the war. The Greeks did well against the Italians, pushing them back into Albania, but when Germany attacked in April 1941, it was a different story. The Greeks and the British and Commonwealth units fighting with them were unable to hold back the German onslaught. By 30 April, mainland Greece had fallen and in May German paratroopers attacked Crete. After bitter fighting and after taking very heavy losses the Germans
captured Crete as well.

  As Greek resistance to the Axis occupation developed, we sent in teams to help it grow and to try to direct it towards what we regarded as key objectives. Thus in 1942 Operation Harling saw an SOE team working with guerrillas from both the left-wing ELAS and the right-wing EDES to successfully blow up the Gorgopotamos Viaduct in an attempt to hinder supplies reaching Rommel in North Africa.

  In September 1943, as Italy signed an armistice with the Allies, we saw the chance to invade and liberate some of the Greek islands previously held by Italy. Thus began our last major defeat of the Second World War and the Germans’ last major victory. Perhaps the result of the Dodecanese Campaign is one reason why comparatively so few Brits know about it.

  An initial key target was Rhodes, and we parachuted a team onto it to negotiate with the Italians there, but unfortunately the Germans arrived and took over the island. Nevertheless, with Greek help, we managed to take Kos, Samos, Kalymnos, Leros, Astypalaia and Symi. But soon after that the Germans hit back. On 3 October, in the strangely named Operation Polar Bear, the Germans landed on Kos and forced the British and Italian troops there to surrender. The loss of Kos deprived us of a vital air base. On 12 November, a German invasion force landed on Leros and again the defenders were not able to hold back the German assault. Over 3,000 British prisoners were taken and the remaining British garrisons in the Dodecanese were evacuated.

  Less than a year later, the war had turned decisively against the Germans, and in the autumn of 1944 the Germans were retreating under pressure from the Greek resistance and from Soviet advances into the Balkans to the north. We landed on the Greek mainland again. The Special Boat Service (SBS) captured Araxos airfield and on 4 October parachute troops landed at Megara. The rest of General Ronald Scobie’s Force 140 arrived soon after and on 13 October our troops entered Athens. A bit like our incursion into Athens in 1916, it wasn’t to be the happiest of experiences. We were quickly caught up in the growing conflict over who would rule Greece after the Germans and by December British troops were fighting fierce battles in the streets of Athens.