All the Countries We've Ever Invaded

by Stuart Laycock

  However, we returned briefly in 1845. There was a civil war going on in Uruguay, which confusingly included people like Garibaldi, linked in a lot of Brits’ minds with Italy (linked also in a lot of Brits’ minds with biscuits). And it included us. And the French. We intervened to save besieged Montevideo, and then we did a certain amount of sending boats up assorted waterways, including the Uruguay River. By 1850, though, we had had enough, signed a treaty with the other side and went home. Yet again.

  Uzbekistan

  Uzbekistan is another of those Central Asian countries that we never quite got round to invading during the Great Game. But that didn’t stop us window-shopping.

  In the early nineteenth century, Captain Alexander Burnes acquired the rather unimaginative nickname of Bukhara Burnes for having made it as far as, you guessed it, Bukhara.

  Colonel Charles Stoddart made it to Bukhara a few years later and had a rather less happy time of it. He was taken prisoner by the Emir of Bukhara, Nasrullah Khan. Captain Arthur Conolly, the man who invented the term the Great Game, headed to Bukhara to try to persuade the emir to release Stoddart, and both men were eventually beheaded in 1842 as British spies.

  The arrival of heavy Russian influence in the area later in the nineteenth century somewhat curtailed our efforts in the region, but we were still interested in it.

  In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, Frederick Marshman Bailey, a British intelligence officer, was sent on a mission to Tashkent (the capital of Uzbekistan) to see if some understanding could be reached with the head of the Tashkent Soviet. When that proved impossible Bailey went underground, making contact with opposition groups. He even ended up posing as an Austrian POW and joining the local Cheka to search for a foreign spy, in this instance himself. When he finally escaped from Taskhent, he did so via Bukhara, but with more luck than Stoddart and Conolly. He got out safely and wrote a book about his adventures.

  Meanwhile, our General Malleson, facing the Bolsheviks in Turkmenistan, had also been in contact with the Bukharans. The emir had sent him an envoy to discuss possible cooperation. Malleson had been cautious and the meeting concluded with the emir sending Malleson two Bukharan carpets plus a silk robe, and Malleson sending the emir two sporting rifles.

  After the meeting, Malleson was given permission to send a small supply of weapons to the emir.

  Eventually, Malleson’s men withdrew and the Soviets took over in Bukhara and the rest of what is today independent Uzbekistan.

  Vanuatu

  Vanuatu is an island nation in the South Pacific, about 1,000 miles east of northern Australia and north of, but also a bit west of, New Zealand.

  The first Brits to arrive on the islands were Captain Cook and his men in 1774. He called them the New Hebrides. Not that they seem to look that much like the original Hebrides. I mean they are islands it’s true, but lovely though the original Hebrides are, the New Hebrides/Vanuatu seem, frankly, to have a lot more of the Pacific island thing going on.

  Anyway, you can still see the name New Hebrides displayed on old stamps from the islands.

  During the nineteenth century, more and more Brits and French arrived here, so that there was pressure for Britain to annexe the islands and pressure for the French to do so too.

  In 1887, Britain and France agreed on a joint naval commission for the islands, but nothing more. Then, eventually, in an unusual arrangement, Britain and France decided in 1906 to share control of the islands between them and run two separate administrations united by a combined court. This was known as the British-French Condominium and had nothing to do with apartments, let alone any form of birth control. It was also rather quiet as invasions go, but we were still ruling the islands or at least co-ruling them.

  Vanuatu became fully independent within the Commonwealth on 30 July 1980.

  Vatican City

  The Vatican City State is a country, but it’s not a member of the United Nations.

  These days you wouldn’t associate the Vatican with armed conflict. The Swiss Guard, for instance, don’t, in a military era of camouflage and automatic guns, look hugely threatening with their pikes and brightly coloured costumes. But the Vatican has played a significant role in armed conflicts in the past, and armed Brits have been involved. It’s not exactly an invasion, but still a story worth mentioning.

  We’ve come across English mercenaries before and John Hawkwood is one of the most interesting. He seems to have fought in the early stages of the Hundred Years War under Edward III and he is best known for his exploits as a mercenary leader in Italy, in the late fourteenth century. He became leader of a mercenary band known as the White Company, or the Great Company of English and Germans, or simply the English Company.

  In the course of his long career, as well as working for other masters, he served both on the side of the Pope and against him. In the end he rose so high that he was appointed ambassador to the Vatican by Richard II in 1381, and in 1436 the Florentines commissioned Ucello to design a funerary monument to him. The fresco still stands in the duomo in Florence.

  In the seventeenth century, in the time of Cromwell, when Admiral Blake and his English fleet arrived off Leghorn (Livorno), it is said that there was nervousness in Catholic Church circles in Rome that Blake might attack the city. But he never did. And when, during the Second World War, the Allies entered Rome in 1944, great efforts were made to respect the Vatican’s neutrality.

  Venezuela

  In the early period, Venezuela, then under Spanish control, received a fair amount of attention from British pirates and privateers. One such was Henry Morgan (him again, see Nicaragua and Panama) who, in a varied career, even picked up the rank of admiral in the Royal Navy. On one raid in 1669, Morgan sacked Maracaibo, now Venezuela’s second city, then he pressed on into Lake Maracaibo, looking for more loot. On his return to the coast shortly afterwards, Morgan encountered a defended Spanish fort and three Spanish ships. He destroyed one ship, blew up another by getting a boat packed with gunpowder close to it, and the third ship decided it had had enough and surrendered. Then Morgan pretended to attack the fort from land and while the garrison were distracted he got his sea force past it to safety.

  In the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy had a go at the Venezuelan coast. Not very successfully, though. In fact, quite unsuccessfully. During the delightfully named War of Jenkins’ Ear in 1743, Commodore Charles Knowles, with the seventy-gun HMS Suffolk, was sent to attack Puerto Cabello and La Guaira. Unfortunately for Knowles, the defenders seem to have known he was coming and his attacks were repelled.

  During the fight to free Venezuela (from Spanish rule), as elsewhere, British volunteers played a crucial role. In particular, at the Battle of Carabobo on 24 June 1821, the British Legions fought with tremendous courage, capturing enemy positions on vital hills and suffering heavy casualties, before Bolivar’s army finally crushed the main enemy force in Venezuela, thus guaranteeing independence.

  Since Venezuela became independent from Spain, we’ve had a couple more brushes with the country. The Venezuelan Crisis of 1895 saw the border between Venezuela and British Guiana finally defined after some very tense times, in which eventually we accepted that the US had a right to intervene in events in the area under the Monroe Doctrine.

  Then in 1902–03 there was another Venezuelan Crisis and this time we invaded. We wanted debts and damages paid. In a slightly unlikely alliance of Britain, Germany and Italy, we sent ships to recover our money. Kipling was so upset about us getting too close to Germany on this mission that he wrote a poem, The Rowers, with reference to the event. President Castro (not the Cuban one) seems to have reckoned that after the crisis of 1895 he might have the US on his side this time. It was a bad miscalculation. With our allies, we launched a blockade of Venezuela, and among a range of other actions, brushed aside or sank the Venezuelan navy, landed troops to rescue our citizens and bombarded the Venezuelan fortifications at Puerto Cabello. Eventually, we got the money we believed we were owed.


  Vietnam

  We’re so used to thinking of America’s war in Vietnam that we often tend to forget our own presence there. And Brits have been in action there.

  Inevitably, over the centuries, Vietnam has had some attention from ships with armed Brits abroad. For instance, in the late seventeenth century, privateer William Dampier dropped in.

  An early experience on Vietnamese soil, though, was not a happy one for us. Côn Son Island is situated off the coast of Vietnam. It has also been known by the name Poulo Condor, a French version of its Malay name. In 1702 one Allan, or Allen, Ketchpole, or Catchpole, working for the British East India Company, is supposed to have set up a settlement here, but it wasn’t a success.

  In 1945, we arrived in mainland Vietnam in force.

  During the Second World War, Vietnam, as then part of French Indo-China, went through a similar process to Cambodia and Laos, with Vichy French and Japanese at first collaborating, and then in March 1945 with the Japanese taking full control. In the meantime, local pro-independence activists were trying to take advantage of the situation to end French control forever. In 1944, the RAF parachuted in Vietnamese communists who had been previously interned by the French in Madagascar, and in 1945 we started running, with French support, commando operations against the Japanese in Vietnam’s northern mountains.

  In August 1945 the Japanese surrendered, and on 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence from France. The French, to put it mildly, weren’t happy.

  Into this highly charged situation we launched Operation Masterdom.

  Major General Gracey arrived in Saigon to find the Communist Viet Minh largely in control, but his orders were to disarm the Japanese troops and restore French control. Gradually, his units took control from the Viet Minh and then handed control to incoming French troops. Realising that this was a serious attempt to reimpose French rule, the Vietnamese rioted and the Viet Minh attacked Tan Son Nhut Airfield, which was later to become well known during America’s war. A British soldier was killed driving off the attackers.

  From this point the situation rapidly deteriorated as a bitter little war broke out between Britain and the Viet Minh. Gracey received reinforcements, but he also ended up in the bizarre situation of using our former enemies, still armed Japanese units, to fight alongside British and Commonwealth troops against the Viet Minh. Gateforce formed under Lieutenant Colonel Gate, consisted of Indian infantry, armoured cars and artillery, but also had an entire Japanese infantry battalion attached to it.

  Eventually we pushed the Viet Minh out of Saigon and handed increasing control and responsibility to the French.

  Our last big battle with the Viet Minh was at Bien Hoa on 3 January 1945 when British/Indian troops, without any loss to themselves, killed about 100 from an attacking force of roughly 900 Viet Minh, mainly through machine-gun crossfire.

  By the summer of 1946 all British troops were gone from Vietnam.

  12

  YEMEN TO ZIMBABWE

  Yemen

  Now that Yugoslavia has gone, if you want a country that starts with a ‘Y’ in English, then Yemen’s pretty much it.

  And we’ve played quite a large role in Yemeni history, because of Aden.

  Readers who were around in the late 1960s will remember the bitter campaign that British forces fought against local fighters here before our final withdrawal on 30 November 1967. But this came at the end of many decades of British control of the area.

  Aden sits in an obvious strategic location on the sealanes between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and has long been known to British sailors. In the late seventeenth century English pirates made use of it.

  Then, in 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt and we started getting nervous about French influence in the region. So we decided to establish a strategic base in the area, and in 1799 took control of the Yemeni island of Perim, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. But after a short while we started looking for a more convenient spot to station the troops and we settled for Aden, with the agreement of the local sultan. The troops remained there until the danger from the French had passed.

  In 1820, we bombarded nearby Mocha (yes, that Mocha) and imposed a commercial treaty upon it. And in 1827 we imposed a blockade on nearby Berbera as well, after an attack on a British ship.

  In the 1830s, Aden was being used as a coaling station and the local sultan had subsequently agreed to let us take control here. But the sultan’s successor wasn’t too keen on the agreement, so we decided to take control of Aden anyway. Captain Smith on HMS Volage was sent in with three smaller ships and some transports. On 19 January 1839, the force bombarded Aden, and then landed troops, and after some brief resistance from the sultan’s army, our flag was hoisted. Today, in the Tower of London, you can see a souvenir taken by Captain Smith in the capture of Aden. Rather more impressive than the average souvenir today, it’s a cannon of Suleiman the Magnificent founded by Mohammed ibn Hamza in 1530–31.

  British influence then spread further in the region with the establishment of the Aden Protectorate.

  There was some fighting in the area in the First World War and just before the war ended, our cruisers HMS Proserpine, HMS Juno and HMS Suva covered the 101st Bombay Grenadiers as they landed at Hodeida in Yemen and took it from Ottoman forces.

  Zambia

  The explorer David Livingstone turned up here in 1855 and ended up visiting the Victoria Falls, though that’s not what the locals called them at the time.

  In 1888, Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company (BSAC) secured some local mineral rights, and in 1890 Lewanika, King of Barotseland, made a deal with Rhodes to accept protection. In 1891, the British government also accepted BSAC control of the area.

  The Portuguese, meanwhile, hadn’t been too keen on British control of the area, since they themselves wanted it as part of the link between their territories on the east coast of Africa and their territories on the west coast. In the Anglo-Portuguese Crisis of 1889–90 they lost out to us.

  We got control over other parts of what is now Zambia in different ways. For instance, in 1898–99, a succession crisis in the Bemba tribe in the northern part of what is now Zambia led to us taking control there.

  In 1964 Northern Rhodesia, as we had called it, became independent as Zambia.

  Zimbabwe

  In 1888, Cecil Rhodes arrived in the area and got King Lobengula of the Ndebele to grant him mining rights. From that starting point, Rhodes then persuaded the British government in 1889 to grant his British South Africa Company control of the area.

  In 1890, he decided to put this theoretical control into effect, sending the Pioneer Column of settlers north to found Fort Salisbury (now Harare). In 1893, an attack by Ndebele raiders on Shona tribesman allowed Rhodes to set up a war.

  British forces, along with their local allies, advanced on Lobengula’s capital and, though there were plenty of Ndebele resisting, they didn’t have the Maxim guns of the British forces. The Ndebele were mown down by the Maxims, Bulawayo was mostly destroyed and Lobengula fled, eventually dying the following year. Between 1896 and 1897 both Ndebele and Shona rose in rebellion, but the rebels were crushed.

  Ian Smith’s government issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1965, which led to a long guerrilla war of liberation by ZANU and ZAPU.

  On 1 December 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement was signed to end the war, and we temporarily returned to Zimbabwe, with Lord Soames briefly becoming governor, to oversee elections in 1980 and with the British Army supervising the demobilisation of guerrillas.

  CONCLUSION

  So there you have it, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, a story of how, under arms, we have roamed the world, reaching almost every country in it and in some way, small or big, changing the history of those places. I hope that you have found it as fascinating, amazing and eye-opening to read as I found writing it. And I hope that my, doubtless in many ways imperfect, attempt to tell this vast and complex sto
ry will encourage you to explore further those aspects that interest and intrigue you most.

  It is a story that has cost many lives, that has seen dreams achieved, as well as dreams crushed, that has included great wrong as well as great good and that has featured disastrous mistakes as well as brilliant triumphs. All of it, though, is worth knowing about, because ultimately, if you’re a part of this country, of the United Kingdom, then all of this amazing and unique heritage is a part of who you are today. It’s your heritage. It’s our heritage.

  PLATES

  1. Richard Coeur de Lion in front of the Houses of Parliament. The sword and democracy, an interesting shot that focuses on two very different aspects of what Britain has brought to assorted parts of the world. Two edges, you might say. Like Richard’s sword.

  2. The cost of war. The Burghers of Calais by Rodin. Six burghers of Calais expecting to be executed by Edward III. It’s a tragic and moving story, probably somewhat undermined for some today by a confusion between burghers with an ‘h’ and burgers without an ‘h’.

  3. Clive of India, located near the Foreign Office. Probably not the sort of figure they would choose to inspire our present Foreign Office staff if they were putting up a statue today.