The Russians sensed what could occur and gave the assurances we asked for, which left them a problem since they still wanted Panjdeh. Komarov’s only chance was to provoke the Afghans into starting a fight. General Lumsden warned the local Afghan commander not to react, but finally, according to the Russian account, the Afghans fired first and after bitter fighting and many dead, particularly on the Afghan side, the Russians pushed the Afghans out of Panjdeh. In London, preparations were made for war. The Royal Navy was placed on alert and told to occupy Port Hamilton in Korea in readiness for an attack on Russia in the east, while the Foreign Office prepared an official announcement of war. And then, on the very brink of a devastating war, Afghans, Brits and Russians all decided they didn’t actually want one. A border commission was established which gave the Russians (and hence, today, Turkmenistan) Panjdeh in return for land elsewhere.
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, we tried our hand again in Turkmenistan. In 1918, General Malleson was sent with a force from India to the area. His initial mission was to counter Turkish and German influence and moves there, but it soon turned into a bitter fight against local Bolshevik forces, in which our troops ended up supporting a local anti-Bolshevik regime, the Ashkhabad Committee, that controlled the Transcaspian Government. Mallesons’ force pushed into Turkmenistan and had some success against the Bolsheviks, including defeating them at the Battle of Dushak. Eventually, the TransCaspian Force occupied Merv, a key Russian possession in the Panjdeh crisis. However, by the end of 1918, with the First World War finished and with the local support for the British intervention weakening, a decision was made to pull out Malleson and his men. By 1919 they were gone.
Tuvalu
Tuvalu apparently means ‘eight together’, which seems a reasonable name when you know that it’s a reference to the eight Tuvaluan atolls that were originally populated. Though it’s got nine stars on the actual flag.
In terms of landmass, Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, after the Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru.
In 1819, Arent Schuyler de Peyster turned up, sighting Funafuti Island. He happened to be captain of an armed brigantine Rebecca, which was sailing under a British flag. The owner of his cargo was one Edward Ellice, MP for Coventry, so, being more interested in what his client thought than what the inhabitants of the island thought, he called it Ellice’s Island. And to us Brits the whole group became known as The Ellice Islands. All because Ellice had sent a cargo.
Ultimately, Tuvalu came under British control in a very friendly sort of invasion, if you can call it an invasion at all. Captain Davis in HMS Royalist had been sent to the nearby Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) to declare them a protectorate to prevent the Germans or Americans getting their hands on them, and he dropped in on Tuvalu too. The kings allegedly had said they wanted to be part of a British Protectorate as well. So Captain Gibson in HMS Curacao spent 9–16 October 1892 touring the islands telling each king that we had arrived and they were now under our protection.
Tuvalu almost got invaded by the Japanese in the Second World War. Fortunately, the Battle of Midway cooled Japan’s enthusiasm for the idea and the Americans turned up first to help.
Tuvalu became fully independent in 1978.
11
UGANDA TO VIETNAM
Uganda
I’ve long thought Uganda has a rather jolly flag. Apparently the bird in the centre of it is the Grey Crowned Crane, the national symbol. I’m not quite sure why they’ve got two bands of each colour, though I guess with only one band it would have looked a bit like the German flag.
Uganda has had a fairly eventful history at times, and inevitably we have played quite a large role in making it eventful.
John Hanning Speke was an officer in the British Indian Army who spent much of his life exploring Africa instead. He turned up in 1862 in what is now Uganda, searching for the source of the Nile, and setting off the famous Burton-Speke controversy.
Henry Morton Stanley turned up in 1875, and in his wake a couple of years later came missionaries from the Church Missionary Society in London. Two years later, French Catholic White Fathers arrived.
Then as politics, religious rivalry, local rivalry and competition by European powers began to combine in a toxic cocktail, things began to get really messy.
Mwanga, the ruler of Buganda, the largest kingdom in what is now Uganda, launched a campaign of repression against Christians and a number were killed, including local Christians and the Anglican Bishop James Hannington. Eventually, Mwanga was forced off the throne and a period of conflict ensued involving Christians, Muslims and others.
By 1889, Mwanga was back as ruler. In February 1890, the Germans persuaded him to sign a treaty with them. In the summer of 1890, we did a deal with the Germans whereby we got various bits of Africa, including Buganda, and we gave the Germans Heligoland which, yes, surprising as it now seems, we were in control of at that time (see Germany). By December 1890, Frederick Lugard, in the service of the Imperial British East Africa Company, had turned up with a column of men and a Maxim gun, and had negotiated a treaty with Mwanga, his negotiating tactics including threatening to use the Maxim.
The Germans were now to a certain extent out of the competition to be the main European power in the area, but the French weren’t. Gradually, tensions between the French and local Catholic converts on one side and the British and local Protestant converts on the other side rose. In January 1892, fighting broke out with the Battle of Mengo, which was won by the British and local pro-British Protestants. The Maxim created a terrible slaughter, and in the aftermath of the battle the French bishop fled and the French Catholic Mission was attacked. Not surprisingly this caused a lot of anger in France and the British government ended up paying compensation.
Nevertheless, British control of Buganda was established, and after that we pressed on to conquer the rest of what is now Uganda, including places like the Bunyoro territory and the land of the Acholi. In 1894, Uganda formally became a British protectorate.
Uganda gained independence from Britain in 1962.
Ukraine
Part of the territory of the Ukraine is the Crimean peninsula so, yes, this is going to be mainly about the Crimean War. The name of the Crimean War is such a familiar one, with its overtones of Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale and so on, that it’s sometimes easy to forget that the Crimea isn’t one of the usual battlefields we’ve been fighting on for centuries. It’s right in the north of the Black Sea.
Nevertheless, the details of the main fighting in the Crimea and surrounding territory, unlike some of the fighting on other fronts, like the Baltic, are well known, so I’ll cover it only in brief here.
To begin with, the Russians had been pushing back the Turks in Europe and we weren’t very happy about the growth in Russian power and its increasing proximity to the Med. So we and the French demanded the Russians get out of Moldavia (Moldova) and Wallachia (part of Romania; it sounds like the kind of place vampires might hang out, so it won’t come as a huge surprise that Vlad III Dracula was indeed Voivode of Wallachia).
We ended up declaring war on Russia, and when it didn’t look like we could give the Russians a knockout punch in the Balkans (very painful) or in the Baltics (also very painful) we decided on the bold, and, as it turned out, too bold, move of invading the Crimea.
On 24 September 1854 we won the Battle of the Alma, but didn’t succeed in pressing on and taking the key strategic target Sevastopol. The Russians then hit back with the Battle of Sevastopol on 24 October (which included the Charge of the Light Brigade) and the Battle of Inkerman on 5 November. Plenty of fireworks on that day. The Russians lost both battles, but we lost significant numbers of men. While not totally disastrous for us, it still was all looking rather grim and miserable, and it started looking even grimmer and more miserable when winter arrived.
In May 1855, we made another landing in the Crimea, this time at Kerch, but that didn’t lead to a breakthrough e
ither. Eventually, in August, the Russians lost the Battle of Tchernaya, and in September, after the French had finally taken the fortifications on Malakoff Hill, Sevastopol fell.
Both sides in the war were sick of it by now, and in 1856 a peace was signed in which Russia gave in on a number of key points, including reinstating Turkish control over the mouth of the Danube.
Small numbers of our troops, in the shape of an armoured car squadron, were back in action in Ukraine in the First World War. This time they were fighting on the same side as the Russians, not against them, and in this case they were trying to invade territory held by the Austrians.
United Arab Emirates
This is a federation of seven Gulf emirates. The two best known to many Brits are Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
When we first got involved with the area, our major concern was raids on our shipping. During the period of the Napoleonic Wars we launched several campaigns against raiders in the area of the current United Arab Emirates. In 1809, for instance, fearing the spread of French influence in the area and keen to suppress the raiders, a substantial force was gathered at Bombay (Mumbai) with a large contingent of small East India Company warships, plus the bomb vessel Stromboli and the British naval frigates HMS Caroline and HMS Chiffone. A substantial body of troops was also involved in the expedition, including a battalion of the 65th Foot.
The force arrived at Ras al-Khaimah (one of the seven emirates that today make up the UAE) and, after bombarding the town, a diversionary landing was made to the north, while the main landing was made to the south. Our troops advanced with fixed bayonets and house-to-house fighting ensued as they pushed into the burning town and took the sheikh’s palace. After the town had fallen, we burnt fifty of the raiding craft in the bay.
In 1819 we were back again. Collier led another joint navy and East India Company squadron to the gulf with 3,000 troops in transport, commanded by Major General Sir William Keir. Again we attacked Ras al-Khaimah, capturing and razing fortifications and destroying ships. We occupied Ras al-Khaimah until 1821, and finally we signed a General Treaty of Peace with sheikhs in the area.
In 1835 we got the locals to sign a Maritime Truce and in 1853 this turned into the rather grand Treaty of Peace in Perpetuity by which we got to arbitrate disputes between the sheikhs of the area. In 1892 we won control of the foreign affairs of the sheikhs, in return for us committing to protect them.
Britain’s protectorate over the seven emirates ended on 1 December 1971.
United States of America
We have with the USA a record of invading the area both before it became independent and afterwards as well.
The story of our invasion and colonisation of the eastern part of what is now the United States is a huge and complex one. It’s also a relatively well-known one so I’m going to cover it pretty quickly.
In the early years of the European exploration and settlement we were mainly up against the Spanish, French and Dutch. The first successful English settlement was established at Jamestown in 1607 (the Virginia Colony), and then in 1620 came the Pilgrims’ Plymouth Colony (together with the origins of America’s modern Thanksgiving Day and so on). In 1628, the Massachusetts Bay Colony received its charter and things really got moving on the English settlement front.
Some of the locals we persuaded to work with us, others resisted us, particularly once it became clear that our colonists were there to stay and that more and more colonists would arrive and want more and more land.
There was, for example, plenty of conflict with the Powhatan Confederacy, including the capture of Pocohontas herself. Metacomet’s War of 1675–78 was a bitter confrontation in which many died, and so was the Yamasee War of 1715–17.
The European battle for control of North America was something of a knock-out competition and first out of the major players were the Dutch. In 1664, we had sailed into the harbour of New Amsterdam and demanded its surrender, and in 1665 we changed the name to New York. Then the Dutch took it back and renamed it New Orange. But in 1674 the Dutch ceded all their American territory to us. It was goodbye New Orange, hello New York.
With the Dutch out of the picture, the conflict between the British and the French gathered intensity. As we have already seen in the case of Canada, the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century saw a series of wars in North America, generally as part of wider conflicts between us and our local allies on one side and the French with their local allies on the other. And the Spanish were in there sometimes too.
King William’s War of 1688–97 saw clashes with the French and their allies in the New England area, particularly in Maine.
In Queen Anne’s War of 1702–13 there were clashes again with the French in the same area, with events including the raid on Deerfield in 1704. And in the south, our Province of Carolina fought against the Spanish Florida. Plenty of destruction and death resulted from this war, but there wasn’t much in the way of major territorial changes.
Father Rale’s War saw conflict with the Wabanaki Confederacy, which had French support, as we tried to expand our control north. Fighting again took place in Maine, as well as Massachusetts and Vermont.
King George’s War of 1744–48 saw fighting with the French and their local allies in New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Assorted other fighting followed and finally came the French and Indian War of 1754–63. There was fighting with the French and their allies from Virginia in the south to Nova Scotia in the north. We had some rather bad times during the conflict, in fact some disastrous times really, but eventually we reinforced, regrouped and won the war. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 officially ended it, and pretty much ended the French presence in North America as well. France hung on to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, but ceded much of its territory to us and the rest it gave to Spain to compensate Spain for the fact that it had to give Florida to us to get back from us the territory we had gained in Cuba. Complicated, eh.
We had achieved a near complete victory in the European battle for control of the eastern part of what is now the United States. We didn’t get to enjoy that victory for too long because, partly as a result of the 1765 Stamp Act designed to help pay for British troops in North America, relations between us and many of the colonists went downhill fast. In 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence as the United States of America. George Washington played a major role in our subsequent defeat and the French and the Spanish got a bit of a revenge helping the rebels. The Spanish even got Florida back.
But, of course, the American War of Independence wasn’t the end of our military activity in the United States. In 1812 we were back.
In fact, it was the Americans who declared war on us at a time when we were deeply involved in the war against Napoleon. They had assorted grievances against us and invaded Canada. With our main focus elsewhere, we concentrated initially on defending Canada, which we did fairly successfully against multiple US attacks. Finally, in 1814, with Napoleon (at least temporarily) defeated we could strike back. After victory at the Battle of Bladensburg in August 1814 we captured and burned Washington DC. But the Americans had their victories too, turning back our attacks on New Orleans, Baltimore and New York. Indeed, it was the events linked to the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 that inspired the words for the US national anthem. There was also plenty of naval activity. Finally, peace came and assorted treaties were signed.
We should also mention the Caroline Affair of 1837 when Canadian militia crossed the US border in pursuit of rebels. And there was the Aroostook War over timber and land in which, it’s good to know, nobody died.
Let’s not forget our five-month occupation in 1843 of what is now a US State. The British Union Flag is still part of the US state flag in question. Which one? Hawaii. This use of our flag represents the early tradition of close links between Hawaii and Britain. In February 1843, in a dispute over land and influence, Captain Lord George Paulet of HMS Carysfort took over control of the islands for six months, dest
roying Hawaiian flags and raising the British one. In July, Admiral Thomas in HMS Dublin arrived to resolve the issue diplomatically and restore Hawaiian freedom. Thomas Square in Honolulu was named in his honour and laid out in the shape of a British flag.
And how could we not mention the Pig War of 1859? Due to ambiguities in a treaty, the San Juan Islands lying between Vancouver Island and the North American mainland were disputed territory between Britain and the United States. In 1859, an American farmer on the island shot a pig he found in his garden. It turned out the pig belonged to an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company and he wasn’t happy (that is, the employee wasn’t happy, though under the circumstances, I think we can conclude the pig was none too happy about it all either). The conflict escalated, with US troops landing on the island, British warships arriving soon after, and a tense stand-off developing. Eventually, US and UK governments managed to calm things down, the matter went to arbitration and the islands were awarded to the US. In 1872, the Royal Marines stationed on the island finally departed.
Uruguay
Many Brits probably confuse Uruguay and Paraguay. Uruguay is not a huge country by South American standards; it’s situated on the east coast, sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil.
The current area of Uruguay was for a time a place where the Spanish and Portuguese competed for control. Then in 1807 we got involved. We don’t tend to think of South America as an area of major British imperial interest, but during the late eighteenth century a number of schemes were discussed with the intention of putting large chunks of Spanish-controlled South America under British rule instead. Finally in 1806, we started trying to put one of them into practice.
In 1806 we attacked Buenos Aires (see Argentina). In 1807, it was the turn of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. On 20 January, we won the Battle of Cardal. And on 3 February, 3,000 British troops under the command of General Sir Samuel Auchmuty launched an assault on the city itself. After ferocious fighting from both sides, the defenders finally surrendered and we occupied the city. We stayed until September 1807, when we were forced to withdraw due to events further south in Buenos Aires.
All the Countries We've Ever Invaded Page 27