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| Page revised: Wed 07-Feb-2007 |
Engineers and the early Victorian wars (1853-1880) |
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The 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th Companies, Royal Sappers and Miners were despatched to Turkey from February 1854 onwards; their task was to prepare a disembarkation port at Gallipoli, but shortly after their arrival, in response to the Russian siege of Silistria, the base operation was changed to Varna on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. In August 1854 the 2nd Company (Captain F W King, RE) was deployed with the Baltic expedition to destroy the Russian works in the Aland Islands. After their task was successfully completed they returned, in September, to Britain. The 4th Company (Captain Craigie, RE) arrived at Varna in late August 1854 as did General Sir John Burgoyne (who acted as special advisor to Lord Raglan). A detachment of Sappers and Miners from Corfu also arrived in theatre bringing the total sappers and miners deployed to 350. The main invasion force sailed from Varna to the Crimean peninsula on 11 September 1854. The sappers companies were deployed as follows: |
 Lieutenant General Sir Harry Jones He was the first Royal Engineer to be given a field command when he commanded the British contingent during the Baltic expedition of 1854. In March 1855 he took over as Commanding Royal Engineer in the Crimea. |
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| Shortly after the victory at the battle of Alma (20 September 1854) the 3rd Company (Captain WM Inglis) joined the army as it advanced on Sebastopol. |
| On 20 November 1854, during the 337 day long siege of Sebastopol, Lieutenant (later Lieutenant General Sir) Wilbraham Lennox (1830-97) won the first Royal Engineer Victoria Cross (VC). Three months later, on 14 February 1855, Corporal (later Sergeant Major) William Lendrim (1830-1891) won the first Sapper and Miner VC. More VCs were won by engineers and sappers during the bloody assaults on the 'Redan' during the summer of 1855. |
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| Many of the assaults were led by engineer officers and sappers carrying ladders, who also acted, as guides through the elaborate maze of saps to the front lines - at the beginning of such assaults the order "Follow the Sapper" became a common cry. The 7th Company arrived in December 1854. They were joined by 1st Company (Captain Browne) in January 1855, and then the 9th Company (Captain Dawson) in May. All made a welcome addition to the force besieging Sebastopol and provided extra hands for the other engineering tasks, such as the building and repairing of the six mile road between Balaklava (the base) and Sebastopol. |
 Prefabricated huts erected by the engineers at Balaclava during the Crimean War 1855 (Photo: James Robertson) |
The Official Journal gives some idea of the conditions under which this road was built and repaired:
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Over the winter of 1854-55 engineers and sappers erected prefabricated military hutting, the first time such constructions had been used. Again for the first time on active service, the engineers used telegraph, the lines were laid by Sappers and Miners. By the end of the campaign 21 miles of the cable had been laid, and eight telegraph offices were in circuit. At Balaklava, in January 1855, a primitive railway was set up to carry stores and ammunition. After the fall of Sebastopol (8 September 1855), the engineers were tasked with the destruction of the Russian fleet docks. 2nd Company (Captain F W King, RE) arrived in theatre in December 1855. |
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The last operation of the war undertaken by the engineers and sappers was the capture of the fort at Kinburn, on the southern spit, at the confluence of the rivers Dnieper and Boug. The 24th Company (Captain Pelly) and 17th Company (Captain Lochner) were despatched to the Crimea in March 1856, but arrived too late to take any part in the war. |
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 'Snob' the dog was adopted by 11th Company, Royal Sappers and Miners during the Crimean War, after service in India he returned to Chatham where he finished his days. He earned his name from his preference for the Officer's Mess. His remains are buried in Brompton Barracks, close to the Crimea Arch. His stuffed skin is on display in the RE Museum. |
In Brompton Barracks, Chatham, on 1 March 1860 the foundation stone of the Crimea Memorial Arch, designed by M Digby Wyatt, with gates cast from the bronze of captured Russian guns, was laid by the Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal HRH The Duke of Cambridge to commemorate those Royal Engineers and Royal Sapper and Miners who lost their lives in the conflict. |
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The Mutineers marched to Delhi to raise their standard there. The city was soon besieged by the British and their loyal sepoys. During the siege engineers were detailed to build saps and batteries. On 14 September 1857 the British in four columns stormed the city walls and gates. Engineers were attached to each column. |
Column 3's objective was to break into the city through the Kashmere Gate. That was only possible if the gate was blown in and that task fell to their engineers - Lieutenants Home and Salkeld assisted by Sergeants Carmichael, Burgess and Smith. The gate was blown in despite the Mutineers' best efforts to stop them. Their action earned Home, Salkeld and Smith a Victoria Cross each, the first of 8 sappers VCs won during the campaign. By 21 September Delhi was back in British hands. |
Meanwhile at Lucknow the British were besieged by the Mutineers. Here the engineering tasks were of a defensive nature, in particular that of countermining. Captain Crommelin, Chief Engineer wrote of these activities:
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 Captain GWW Fulton RE defending a countermine during the siege of Lucknow - 1857 |
 Portrait on ivory of the Rajah of Futtegurh, one of the leaders of the Mutiny - on display at the RE Museum |
Fortunately at the time of the Mutiny a British Expeditionary force was on its way to China. It was diverted at Singapore to Calcutta in August 1857. The force consisted of the following Royal Engineer units:
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These units were attached to the various relief forces - 4th and 23rd Companies joined the force which Sir Colin Campbell (1792-1863) was collecting for the recapture of Lucknow. They were joined by C Company Madras Sappers and Miners and a Company of the Bengal Sappers and Miners. 21st Company with B Company Madras Sappers and Miners and a company of the Bombay Sappers and Miners joined the Central India Field Force, responsible for the capture of Jhansi during which Corporal M Sleavon of 21st Company was awarded a VC on 3 April 1858. |
| The mutiny officially ended on 8 July 1858, but small pockets of resistance were not extinguished until the end of 1859. It was during one of these mop-up operations that Lieutenant Charles Goodfellow (1836-1915), Bombay Engineers won his VC during the attack on Fort Beyt on 6 October 1859. |
The Taku forts 1860 This comtemporary photograph was taken by Lieutenant John Papillion, Royal Engineers |
"Major Graham conducted the assaulting party, and, when wounded with the bridge party and obliged to mount on horseback, directed the movements of the ladder party, until his horse also being wounded, he was obliged to fall to the rear. Lieutenant Pritchard and the other officers of the assaulting party were among the first to gain a footing in the fort. Of the non-commissioned officers and Sappers, Serjeant-Major Knight, Serjeant McEachran, Corporals Willcocks, Matheson, and Filkin, and Sapper John Squires distinguished themselves." |
| The force succeeded in neutralising the Taku Forts thereby clearing the way for the advance on Pekin which they took on 13th October 1860. In Pekin the engineers took part in the destruction of the Summer Palace so ordered in retaliation for the Chinese holding Europeans as prisoners. The Anglo-French force then retired to winter quarters in Tientsin before returning to their home stations. | |
'Chinese' Gordon and the 'Ever Victorious Army' - 1862-65 | |
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Captain (later Major General) CG Gordon RE (1833-1885) did not immediately return to Britain but was instead posted in 1862 to Shanghai, as Commanding Royal Engineer, there he acted as engineer to General Sir Charles Staveley's (1817-1896) expeditionary force charged with the business of clearing Chinese rebels from the local region. In the meantime a struggle was taking place between the Chinese Imperialists and the Taiping rebels. It was apparent to the Chinese Government that they alone were unable to defeat the rebels and requested help from the British and French Ambassadors. Help was forthcoming in the form of a force of 3,000 Chinese officered by American and Europeans which after its first commander was killed was commanded by Major CG Gordon, RE. He lead the force with skill and managed to defeat the Taiping rebels. Due to his successes his army won the title of the 'Ever Victorious Army' and a grateful Chinese Emperor bestowed the rank of Ti-Ju, the highest rank in the Chinese Army along with a Yellow jacket and Peacock Feathers, both a mark of distinction only given to the very highest class. (Both the jacket and feathers can be seen in the Royal Engineers Museum). |
 Major Charles "Chinese" Gordon RE This portrait hangs in the Royal Engineers Headquarters Officers Mess, Chatham. (Painter: Val Prinsep) |
Gordon returned to England at the beginning of 1865 having been gazetted as a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. | |
Bengal Engineer, General (later Lord) Sir Robert Napier (1810-1890) was appointed as commander of the force, which was mounted from India. The engineer elements were:
In November 1867 the force landed at Zula (Zoola), in Annesley Bay on the Red Sea. To disembark the troops and stores the engineers were soon at work constructing two piers and laying a tramway down on the beach. At the same time they constructed a base camp and sank 20 water wells. |
 Sir Robert Napier The Engineer who demonstrated that officers from 'the scientific corps' were not wanting in the military genius necessary for the command of an army. |
 Expeditionary force advancing along the road through the Chetta Ravine (Watercolour: Lt Frank James, Bombay Staff Corps ) |
A railway, complete with sidings and a loop line, was laid by a contractor under engineer officer supervision from the base camp to Kumayli (Koomaylee). The railway also required the construction of 8 iron girder bridges. A road was built from the base camp to Magdala, Emperor Theodore's capital (approximately 400 miles). The road traversed mountains and in some areas had to be cut into the mountain sides. All this time additional water wells were sunk to supply the force of 16,000 men with water. Telegraph was used to maintain communication from the base camp to the forward troops. For the first time Royal Engineer, Flag Signallers, specially trained at Chatham were deployed and used to communicate orders among the front line troops. When the force drew onto the Arogi plateau, a 100 miles from Magdala, the Abyssinians attacked it but were repelled after much slaughter. Napier then opened negotiations with Theodore, but they proved futile. |
| It was decided to storm Magdala on 13 April 1868 and it seems fitting that as this was an 'engineers' war' that the first of the expedition force into the city was Corporal McDonough, 10th Company Royal Engineers. Once the troops were in the city it was discovered that the majority of the defenders had fled; that Emperor Theodore had shot himself and that the European prisoners were unhurt. |
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The objective of the expedition was to attack and destroy the Ashanti capital at Kumasi (Coomassie) about 160 miles inland from the coast. Such an operation required considerable engineer support because to get to their quarry the British had several physical obstacles to overcome. Major R Home was appointed Commanding Royal Engineer and 28th Company Royal Engineers (Major Jones) provided engineer support. The force landed at Cape Coast Castle between September and November of 1873. |
 Ashanti War (1873-4) Prah Bridge The bridge included prefabricated spans and cribs constructed in Chatham for the occasion. (Watercolour: Lieutenant Colonel H M Sinclair 1900) |
 Steam Sapper No 8 - 1874 which had a rather ignominious début due to trouble with leaking boiler tubes. |
A labour force of Fantee tribesmen were recruited and under the supervision of the Royal Engineers began the work of clearing the forest to make way for an inland road "passable for infantry in fours". Along the route to Kumasi fortified stations were constructed to accommodate the troops. The larger stations were complete with their own small hospital, Engineer Park, telegraph and post office. The Telegraph detachment was commanded by Captain (later Colonel Sir) Herbert Jekyll, Royal Engineers and by the end of the campaign the telegraph link had reached two-thirds of the total distance to Kumasi. |
Bridging the numerous streams was achieved by using local materials, wood was in abundance and creepers provided a ready supply of rope. However for the Prah river crossing Blanshard pontoons were used along with 12 trussed girders that had been pre-prepared at Chatham. | |
At Ordasu on 4 February 1874 Lieutenant (later Colonel) Mark Bell (1843-1906), Royal Engineers was awarded a Victoria Cross for his bravery and leadership whilst encouraging, by personal example, his troops and Fantee labourers to work under fire in the face of the enemy without a covering party. They were clearing the route close to the Ashanti capital. Back at Cape Coast the first Steam Sapper (No 8) to see active service was unloaded and reassembled, its début was not the success that had been anticipated, but it did do useful work providing the power for a saw mill. |
 Colonel M S Bell VC |
| Kumsai was taken shortly after Lieutenant Bell won his VC. In the final stages of the campaign it was the Sappers last task to destroy the city, which they did. On the journey back to the coast many of the bridges had to be replaced as they had been washed away by the rains. | |
| The following day the Zulus attacked Rorke's Drift, a small mission station that served as a commissariat storehouse and a hospital. The defence of the station fell to Lieutenant (later Colonel) JRM Chard (1847-1897), of the 5th Field Company, Royal Engineers, being the most senior of the officers there. The Zulus launched a series of attacks on Rorkes's Drift all of which were successfully beaten off by the small garrison consisting of Chard, members of B Company 24th Regiment of Foot and others. It was to eleven of these defenders (including Chard) that Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most ever awarded for just one action. |
 The Defence of Rorke's Drift painting by Lady Elizabeth Thompson Butler (1846-1933) The only other engineer at Rorke's Drift was Chard's batman, Driver Charles John Robson. (The Royal Collection) |
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The engineer units involved in the war were:
A full account of the the engineers' activities during the Zulu war is given at Engineers and the Zulu War 1879 | |
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Author: SC Fenwick, FoREM Sources:
Links to further reading:
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Royal Engineers Museum main site