158-686: The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda . Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were intended to man coastal batteries in times of war, which were manned by under-strength numbers of regular army gunners in peace time. The unit
316-426: A paper tiger , changed from a conscripted force to one in which recruits voluntarily engaged for a term of service. It also ceased to be an all-infantry force. As the most critical shortage was of garrison artillery, a number of Militia Infantry regiments were re-tasked as Militia Artillery , and new militia units were raised as artillery. The Militia Artillery units, which (like other reserve units) were raised under
474-495: A Permanent Staff made up of officers and senior other ranks seconded from the Royal Artillery, including a single officer acting as both Commandant and Adjutant (where a sufficiently qualified Militia officer was available to serve as Commandant, the adjutant remained a seconded Royal Artillery officer). In 1889 the 11 territorial divisions were amalgamated into three large divisions, but mountain artillery batteries were for
632-527: A commitment for general service. However, serving high-caste sepoys were fearful that it would be eventually extended to them, as well as preventing sons following fathers into an army with a strong tradition of family service. There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority. This, as well as the increasing number of British officers in the battalions, made promotion slow, and many Indian officers did not reach commissioned rank until they were too old to be effective. The final spark
790-672: A contribution towards the costs of the BVRC during this period, the Imperia government remained completely responsible for funding the BMA until its re-organisation in 1951. In 1931, a new territorial unit, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), was raised to take up the role of manning the search light detachment at Saint David's Battery (and in 1940 it also absorbed the BVRC signals element, providing wireless communications for
948-514: A forward artillery observer. Later in the war, advances in the science of gunnery enabled guns to be aimed at co-ordinates on a map calculated with geometry and mathematics. As the war developed, the heavy artillery and the techniques of long-range artillery were massively developed. The RGA was often supported by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) who had devised a system where pilots could use wireless telegraphy to give corrections of aim to
1106-627: A major uprising in India and modern day Pakistan in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company , which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown . The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut , 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in
1264-527: A range that kept them out of reach of answering fire. The advent of artillery had changed the design of fortifications centuries before, spelling the end of high-walled castles. By the 20th century, fortifications were being designed with as much surrounding embankment by earthworks as possible. While this provided some protection from direct fire, it made defence against infantry more difficult, and did nothing to protect from high trajectory fire landing from above, or from air-bursting explosive shells, which rained
1422-444: A result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh . It is mentioned that throughout Oudh and Bihar Rajput Taluqdars provided the bulk of leadership and played an important role during 1857 in the region. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part because of ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from
1580-610: A separate entity when existing coastal defence, mountain, siege and heavy batteries of the Royal Artillery were amalgamated into a new sub-branch. A royal warrant provided that from 1 June 1899: "... the mounted and dismounted branches of the Royal Regiment of Artillery shall be separated into two corps... to be named respectively (a) the Royal Horse Artillery and the Royal Field Artillery: (b)
1738-716: A smaller, voluntary force, from which the British Army often recruited trained soldiers. In Bermuda, which had seen the buildup of a regular army garrison, the militia had been allowed to lapse, but the American War of 1812 led to its resurrection. After the war, however, no further Militia Acts were passed and it ceased to exist. Historically, the Militia Artillery (in Britain and in Bermuda) had been seen as
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#17327725949711896-625: A term of service, and might quit with fourteen days notice, except while embodied) contained a mixture of artillery, engineering and infantry units. Similar militia and Volunteer units were also raised in various British colonies. During the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, the military forces were re-organised through a succession of reforms, with the Board of Ordnance abolished after the Crimean War. Its military corps, including
2054-601: A territorial unit, training requirements became a weekly drill night, plus an annual two week camp. All of its enlisted men were discharged, and the unit slowly began to rebuild its strength through new recruitment. In 1930, the War Office also ceased funding annual camps outside of the British Isles, citing a lack of funds, and the Bermuda government began funding training. Although the colonial government began paying
2212-638: Is little evidence that the sepoys' allegiance was affected by this. However, changes in the terms of their professional service may have created resentment. As the extent of the East India Company's jurisdiction expanded with victories in wars or annexation, the soldiers were now expected not only to serve in less familiar regions, such as in Burma , but also to make do without the "foreign service" remuneration that had previously been their due. A major cause of resentment that arose ten months prior to
2370-504: The Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814–16 and brought the defeated Gurkhas under British influence. In 1854, Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh was added two years later. For practical purposes, the company was the government of much of India. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred as the result of an accumulation of factors over time, rather than any single event. The sepoys were Indian soldiers who were recruited into
2528-600: The Army Act , and military law. The BMA wore the standard Royal Artillery uniform, and cap badge. Soldiers were originally recruited on a voluntary basis, though conscription was introduced during the Second World War , and re-introduced during the 1950s. Small contingents were sent to England in 1897, to take part in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and in 1902, for the coronation of King Edward VII . At
2686-725: The British Army 's Royal Regiment of Artillery serving alongside the other two arms of the Regiment, the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA). The RGA were the 'technical' branch of the Royal Artillery who were responsible for much of the professionalisation of technical gunnery that was to occur during the First World War. It was originally established to man
2844-533: The Madras Army and Bombay Army were "more localized, caste-neutral armies" that "did not prefer high-caste men". The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for initial mutinies that led to the rebellion. In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed Fort William 's first Governor-General, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the company's army. Since
3002-679: The Military Medal . A total of 10 Gunners are commemorated on the CWGC Website. In Bermuda, the BMA was demobilised on 31 December 1918, and when the overseas contingent returned in July, 1919, it was to no unit. Thirty men who chose to remain on temporarily re-enlisted in the RGA, and the rest were demobilised. Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig commended the contingent, writing: They were employed on heavy ammunition dumps, and great satisfaction
3160-553: The Singapore Naval Base was constructed, and Regular Army coastal artillery units remained. Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Earl Canning George Anson † Sir Patrick Grant Sir Colin Campbell Sir Henry Havelock † Surendra Bikram Shah Randhir Singh 6,000 British killed, including civilians The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was
3318-537: The Territorial Force . In 1914 the army possessed very little heavy artillery. As larger guns became more important, the RGA took responsibility for heavy and siege artillery in the field, as well as railway guns (and mountain artillery ), as its training and experience were thought to be better suited to operating larger field guns and howitzers. The RGA also had a large body of Regular Army and Territorial Force personnel manning coastal batteries that for
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#17327725949713476-491: The Vellore Mutiny was sparked by new uniform regulations that created resentment amongst both Hindu and Muslim sepoys. After the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories. This was achieved either by subsidiary alliances between the company and local rulers or by direct military annexation. The subsidiary alliances created
3634-660: The princely states of the Hindu maharajas and the Muslim nawabs . Punjab , North-West Frontier Province , and Kashmir were annexed after the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu and thereby became a princely state. The border dispute between Nepal and British India, which sharpened after 1801, had caused
3792-565: The upper Gangetic plain and central India , though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859. The name of
3950-504: The 11th Bengal Native Infantry) escorted trusted British officers and women and children to safety before joining the revolt. Some officers and their families escaped to Rampur , where they found refuge with the Nawab. The British historian Philip Mason notes that it was inevitable that most of the sepoys and sowars from Meerut should have made for Delhi on the night of 10 May. It was a strong walled city located only forty miles away, it
4108-405: The 84 regular infantry and cavalry regiments. Thus 75% of the cavalry regiments was composed of Indian Muslims, while 80% of the infantry was composed of Hindus. The sepoys were therefore affected to a large degree by the concerns of the landholding and traditional members of Indian society. In the early years of Company rule, it tolerated and even encouraged the caste privileges and customs within
4266-489: The BVRC, it was decided to convert the BMA to the infantry role. The unit continued to wear the Royal Artillery uniform and cap badge, but was re-organised, equipped and trained. This also required changes to the rank and command structure as an infantry unit requires more junior NCOs than a comparably-sized artillery unit. As an infantry unit, it was relocated to Warwick Camp, along with the Bermuda Rifles. Conscription
4424-463: The Bengal Army had accepted an obligation to serve overseas if required. As a result, the burden of providing contingents for active service in Burma, readily accessible only by sea, and China had fallen disproportionately on the two smaller Presidency Armies. As signed into effect by Lord Canning , Dalhousie's successor as Governor-General, the act required only new recruits to the Bengal Army to accept
4582-507: The Bengal Army liable to service overseas. Although it was intended to apply only to new recruits, the serving sepoys feared that the Act might be applied retroactively to them as well. A high-caste Hindu who travelled in the cramped conditions of a wooden troop ship could not cook his own food on his own fire, and accordingly risked losing caste through ritual pollution. Several months of increasing tensions coupled with various incidents preceded
4740-493: The Bengal Army, that some sort of rebellion over the cartridges was imminent. Despite the objections of the civilian Governor-General's staff, he agreed to postpone the musketry practice and allow a new drill by which the soldiers tore the cartridges with their fingers rather than their teeth. However, he issued no general orders making this standard practice throughout the Bengal Army and, rather than remain at Ambala to defuse or overawe potential trouble, he then proceeded to Simla ,
4898-676: The Bengal Army, which recruited its regular infantry soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Rajputs and Brahmins of the Bihar and Oudh regions. These soldiers were known as Purbiyas . By the time these customs and privileges came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. The sepoys also gradually became dissatisfied with various other aspects of army life. Their pay
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5056-662: The Bermuda Rifles (as the BVRC had been renamed) on 1 September, to create the Bermuda Regiment (since 2015, the Royal Bermuda Regiment ). Originally, the part-time reserve units in Bermuda , the Channel Islands and Malta had numbered collectively (as 28th, circa 1945) in the British Army order of precedence , but were ordered within that according to the placement of their parent corps in
5214-680: The Board of Ordnance Military Corps (which included the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Sappers and Miners) included the Militia , which was normally an all-infantry force, and the mounted Yeomanry. During wartime, these were supplemented by Volunteer units. Royal Artillery coastal batteries were often brought up to strength with drafts from the British Army or the militia, or by temporarily re-tasking militia units or raising volunteer artillery corps. In Bermuda , from
5372-636: The British 5th Division and the Polish Corps, which were themselves attacking the German-occupied monastery. Contacting the senior Royal Artillery fire control officer on the ground. All two-thousand field guns within range were switched from their local targets and placed under his control. Gorham directed their fire down onto the German Division. The guns fired for hours, with Gorham taking turns with other AOP pilots. The German division
5530-873: The British Army, rather than a separate force). The Volunteer units were styled Defended Ports units and were incorporated into the Royal Garrison Artillery. They were allocated to the defence of ports around Great Britain Until 1914 the Royal Garrison Artillery retained the badge and dress uniform (dark blue with scarlet facings plus blue cloth home-service helmet) of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Personnel were normally clothed and equipped as dismounted men. After 1919 all Royal Garrison Artillery personnel were classified as mounted men, whether serving in horse-drawn, mountain or tractor-drawn batteries. In 1907 gilded metal shoulder titles reading R.G.A. were adopted for khaki service dress, to distinguish this branch from
5688-586: The British Government sought to redeploy regular army units from imperial garrisons back to Britain, where they could be used for defence or to compose expeditionary forces to be sent overseas to war zones, and replacing them with full-time or part-time units raised locally. This proved difficult to accomplish. In some parts of the Empire, removing British Army regiments would invite insurrection, insurgency, or invasion (such as India, ever under threat from
5846-580: The British by providing both soldiers and support. The large princely states, Hyderabad , Mysore , Travancore , and Kashmir , as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana , did not join the rebellion, serving the British, in the Governor-General Lord Canning 's words, as "breakwaters in a storm". In some regions, most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British oppression. However,
6004-659: The British sought to destroy the religions of the Indian people, and forcing the native soldiers to break their sacred code would have certainly added to this rumour, as it apparently did. The company was quick to reverse the effects of this policy in hopes that the unrest would be quelled. On 27 January, Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from depots were to be free from grease, and that sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever mixture "they may prefer". A modification
6162-669: The East India Company army defeated Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II . After his defeat, the emperor granted the company the right to the "collection of Revenue" in the provinces of Bengal (modern day Bengal , Bihar, and Odisha ), known as "Diwani" to the company. The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras; later, the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) led to control of even more of India. In 1806,
6320-505: The Flagstaff Tower also set out for Karnal on foot. Some were helped by villagers on the way; others were killed. The next day, Bahadur Shah held his first formal court for many years. It was attended by many excited sepoys. The emperor was alarmed by the turn events had taken, but eventually accepted the sepoys' allegiance and agreed to give his countenance to the rebellion. On 16 May, up to 50 British who had been held prisoner in
6478-548: The Indian firm of Gangadarh Banerji & Co. By January, rumours abounded that the Enfield cartridges were greased with animal fat. Company officers became aware of the rumours through reports of an altercation between a high-caste sepoy and a low-caste labourer at Dum Dum . The labourer had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge, he had himself lost caste, although at this time such cartridges had been issued only at Meerut and not at Dum Dum. There had been rumours that
Bermuda Militia Artillery - Misplaced Pages Continue
6636-546: The London Government authorising the creation of voluntary, part-time artillery, rifle, and sappers-and-miners (engineers) units. The last unit was not raised, and the Royal Engineers 27th Company (Submarine Mining), which had been permanently reassigned from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Bermuda in 1888 (part of the company had been split off to create the new 40th Company, which remained in Halifax), continued to maintain
6794-589: The London nor the Hamilton government was keen to pay for these units, decades more would pass before the regular army garrison in Bermuda began to be drawn down. Bermuda's new tourism industry, pioneered in the latter 19th century by Princess Louise , Samuel Clemens and others, provided the Secretary of State with the leverage to compel the colonial government. He withheld his approval of American investment into
6952-589: The Lords-Lieutenants of counties, who appointed officers), and were all tasked with garrison duties at fixed batteries. The invasion scare also led to the re-establishment of the Volunteer Force as a permanent (though only part-time, except when embodied for emergencies) branch of the British military. This force (which differed from the Militia primarily in that its volunteers did not engage for
7110-499: The Militia Artillery units lost their individual identities, wearing divisional badges based on that of the Royal Artillery, except the scroll on the Royal Artillery badge inscribed " Ubique " ( everywhere ) was left blank, or covered in a depiction of laurel (as the Militia and Volunteer Force were both home defence forces, the members of which could not be sent abroad on expedition without their consent). Militia Artillery units were made up of part-time Militia officers and other ranks with
7268-528: The Queen's proclamation in growing avowals of a new nationalism. Although the British East India Company had established a presence in India as far back as 1612, and earlier administered the factory areas established for trading purposes, its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the beginning of its firm foothold in eastern India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar , when
7426-551: The Royal Air Force, they served in air observation post squadrons controlled by the Royal Air Force but with gunners as pilot-fire controllers. Gorham served in North Africa and Italy. In Italy, while in command of B Flight of 655 Squadron, he played the decisive role in the Battle of Monte Cassino when he spotted a German division moving in half-tracked German Armoured Personnel Carriers to counter attack
7584-470: The Royal Artillery, as well as its civilian Commissariat, transport and stores organs were absorbed into the British Army. The Militia and the Volunteer Force units were more closely integrated with the British Army, though remaining separate forces. In 1882 the Royal Artillery organised its garrison artillery units into 11 territorial divisions , which included the Militia and Volunteers. For a time
7742-565: The Royal Garrison Artillery (Militia) units to Royal Field Artillery, but all were instead disbanded (although Militia Artillery units remained in some of the colonies, most notably the Bermuda Militia Artillery , which, like the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps , formed part of the garrison of the important Fortress colony of Bermuda and was organised and funded from its creation in 1895 as part of
7900-614: The Royal Garrison Artillery was amalgamated again with the Royal Field Artillery as the Royal Artillery, although the Royal Horse Artillery remained as a separate arm within the Royal Regiment of Artillery. In 1928, the last of the regular army Royal Artillery detachments, along with the Royal Engineers Fortress Company which manned searchlights at the batteries, were withdrawn from Bermuda due to post-war reductions in expenditure. By 1935, all of
8058-419: The Royal Garrison Artillery." The Royal Regiment of Artillery, thenceforth, was divided into four branches. Other than mounted or unmounted dress, the obvious distinction in uniform was by the shoulder title badges: RA (for the branch tasked with managing ammunition dumps and supply to units in the field); RGA; RFA; and RHA. With the increasing importance of artillery defences by the mid-Nineteenth century (and
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#17327725949718216-428: The Royal Horse Artillery (R.H.A.) and the Royal Field Artillery (R.F.A.) Fixed artillery (that which is not meant to move, other than for the purpose of aiming) was placed in forts and batteries in locations where they might protect potential targets (ports, cities, etc.) from attack, or from where they might prevent the advance of an enemy. This included forts and batteries intended to protect against military forces on
8374-466: The Russian Empire, and which suffered the Great Mutiny of native regiments in 1857). Bermuda, while less likely to suffer insurrection, was an inviting target to Britain's potential enemies, notably the United States of America, thanks to its strategic location and the important Imperial defence assets located there, such as the Royal Naval Dockyard. Regular units could not be removed, therefore, 'til local reserves had been raised to replace them. As neither
8532-415: The Seventeenth Century until after the American War of 1812, men with status and the required funds were appointed as Captains of forts (which spared them from any obligation to serve in the Militia), in command of fortified coastal batteries manned by volunteers through peace and war. In 1852, with fear of an invasion of Britain by France, the reserve forces were re-organised. The Militia, which had become
8690-468: The Territorial Force (subsequently the Territorial Army ) in 1908, when terms-of-service (a set number of years for which the recruit was obligated to serve), among other changes, were introduced to the former volunteer units (from which soldiers could previously quit with fourteen days notice, except while embodied for training or active service). Terms of service had already applied to Militia soldiers. In addition to creating these part-time reserve forces,
8848-618: The United Kingdom in January for transfer to the Royal Air Force ) learnt of an instruction from the Army Council that prevented commanding officers from barring officers under their command from taking any training course for which they volunteered. Gorham and Second-Lieutenant Michael F. Gregg (who had been commissioned into the Bermuda Militia Artillery from the ranks of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers on 28 May 1941) relinquished their Bermuda Militia Artillery local-service commissions on 27 June 1942 in order to receive regular Royal Artillery emergency commissions on 8 July 1942. Trained as pilots by
9006-547: The United Kingdom. In May 1916 56 companies of the RGA were created to command the guns. By November 1917 639 officers and 8,436 men of the RGA were manning anti-aircraft defences, as well as 4,309 men of the Royal Engineers and 424 men of the Army Service Corps (ASC). The batteries constituting the Mountain Division, Royal Artillery were also incorporated into the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1899. In 1918 there were 20 batteries which all served in India, Macedonia, Palestine and Mesopotamia. Three of these batteries were raised from
9164-426: The Volunteer Force could resign with fourteen days notice (except while embodied for training or active service). The old militia, in England and Wales, as well as in Bermuda, had been a body of men who gathered annually to train, and could be called out and embodied in times of emergency. All males of military age who were fit to serve were required to do so. By the early 19th century, the militia in Britain had become
9322-408: The abolition of sati and the legalisation of widow remarriage were considered by many—especially the British themselves —to have caused suspicion that Indian religious traditions were being "interfered with", with the ultimate aim of conversion. Recent historians, including Chris Bayly , have preferred to frame this as a "clash of knowledges", with proclamations from religious authorities before
9480-401: The actual rebellion. On 26 February 1857 the 19th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment became concerned that new cartridges they had been issued were wrapped in paper greased with cow and pig fat, which had to be opened by mouth thus affecting their religious sensibilities. Their Colonel confronted them supported by artillery and cavalry on the parade ground, but after some negotiation withdrew
9638-461: The alarm. When his Adjutant Lt. Henry Baugh came out to investigate the unrest, Pandey opened fire but hit Baugh's horse instead. General John Hearsey came out to the parade ground to investigate, and claimed later that Mangal Pandey was in some kind of "religious frenzy". He ordered the Indian commander of the Quarter Guard Jemadar Ishwari Prasad to arrest Mangal Pandey, but the Jemadar refused. The quarter guard and other sepoys present, with
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#17327725949719796-470: The area enclosed by walls with shrapnel. In Bermuda, in the latter part of the 19th century, where the War Office had expended vast fortunes building up fortifications to protect the Royal Naval Dockyard , it was decided belatedly that the Dockyard's own fleet of naval vessels could provide a more effective defence. With the advent of the aeroplane, and the missile, fixed artillery was both obsolete and too vulnerable to continue in use. The last coastal artillery
9954-400: The army around the World on garrison duty. The Militia and the Yeomanry (which could no longer rely on compulsory service), together with the regular army units that did remain in Britain, were unable to field forces thought adequate for the defence of the island against a large, modern continental army. Following the Crimean War , when reserve forces had to be dispatched to the war zone, it
10112-409: The arsenal. Six of the nine officers survived, but the blast killed many in the streets and nearby houses and other buildings. The news of these events finally tipped the sepoys stationed around Delhi into open rebellion. The sepoys were later able to salvage at least some arms from the arsenal, and a magazine two miles (3 km (1.9 mi)) outside Delhi, containing up to 3,000 barrels of gunpowder,
10270-414: The artillery, and cancelled the next morning's parade. On 29 March 1857 at the Barrackpore parade ground, near Calcutta , 29-year-old Mangal Pandey of the 34th BNI, angered by the recent actions of the East India Company, declared that he would rebel against his commanders. Informed about Pandey's behaviour Sergeant-Major James Hewson went to investigate, only to have Pandey shoot at him. Hewson raised
10428-406: The batteries in Bermuda became inactive, except the Examination Battery at Saint David's Head , which the BMA assumed complete responsibility for operating. Also in 1928, the BMA was reorganised along the lines of the Territorial Army . Although it ceased at this point to be a militia unit, it was not re-titled as the Militia Artillery units in the United Kingdom had been. With re-organisation as
10586-454: The battlefield. After the war, the corps was re-organised so that it retained heavy field artillery and so that its fixed coastal batteries could be called upon to also operate in the field. The fixed coastal batteries were by then a small part of the corps, and the operation of heavy field artillery had been found to be more alike that of the field artillery. Maintaining the RGA as a separate corps consequently became unnecessary. The corps name
10744-432: The bazaar attacked off-duty soldiers there. About 50 Indian civilians, some of them officers' servants who tried to defend or conceal their employers, were killed by the sepoys. While the action of the sepoys in freeing their 85 imprisoned comrades appears to have been spontaneous, some civilian rioting in the city was reportedly encouraged by Kotwal (chief police officer) Dhan Singh Gurjar . Some sepoys (especially from
10902-464: The cities of Delhi and Lucknow were laid waste in the fighting and the British retaliation. After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels quickly reached Delhi, whose 81-year-old Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar , was declared the Emperor of Hindustan . Soon, the rebels had captured large tracts of the North-Western Provinces and Awadh (Oudh). The East India Company's response came rapidly as well. With help from reinforcements, Kanpur
11060-421: The command of Headquarters, Local Forces. The military garrison existed primarily to defend the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda located on Ireland Island. It was announced in 1950 that the dockyard would be closed, and the military garrison was withdrawn along with it. The last Imperial Defence Plan was produced in 1953, and this was the last year in which the BMA and the BVRC were tasked under it. The Regular Army
11218-445: The company's army. Just before the rebellion, there were over 300,000 sepoys in the army, compared to about 50,000 British. The East India Company's forces were divided into three presidency armies : Bombay , Madras , and Bengal . The Bengal Army recruited higher castes , such as Brahmins , Rajputs and Bhumihar , mostly from the Awadh and Bihar regions, and even restricted the enlistment of lower castes in 1855. In contrast,
11376-423: The condemned soldiers berated their comrades for failing to support them. The next day was Sunday. Some Indian soldiers warned off-duty junior British officers that plans were afoot to release the imprisoned soldiers by force, but the senior officers to whom this was reported took no action. There was also unrest in the city of Meerut itself, with angry protests in the bazaar and some buildings being set on fire. In
11534-472: The cool hill station where many high officials spent the summer. Although there was no open revolt at Ambala, there was widespread arson during late April. Barrack buildings (especially those belonging to soldiers who had used the Enfield cartridges) and British officers' bungalows were set on fire. At Meerut , a large military cantonment, 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers were stationed along with 12 British-manned guns. The station held one of
11692-465: The difficulties this might cause: unless it be proven that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of religion, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps. However, in August 1856, greased cartridge production was initiated at Fort William, Calcutta , following a British design. The grease used included tallow supplied by
11850-671: The duration of the War. In June, 1940, the BVRC sent a small contingent of volunteers to the Lincolnshire Regiment depot in England. A handful of volunteers from the BMA and the BVE travelled with them, separating in England to join the regular artillery or engineers. The BMA contribution to that contingent consisted of a single officer, Lieutenant Patrick Lynn Purcell, who, like most of the BMA's white officers, had begun his service in
12008-464: The early 20th century by the RGA, including its Militia Artillery and Volunteer Force reservists (often with support from other units, such as engineers operating searchlights for night-time firing). Conventional wisdom held that a naval force would need a three-to-one advantage over coastal artillery, as the land-based artillery had the advantage of firing from a fixed platform, with resultant advantages in accuracy, especially as range increased. By
12166-544: The end of hostilities. The Caribbean Regiment was disbanded after the war, and the Bermuda Militia contingent members returned to their original units in Bermuda. The BMI, along with the BVE, was disbanded in 1946. The BMA and the BVRC were both reduced to a skeleton command structure before recruitment for both units began again in 1951. The two were then grouped together, by the Defence (Local Forces) Act, 1949, under
12324-512: The end of the war. The siege batteries increased from just three regular batteries in 1914 to 401 by the end of the war. Siege batteries (such as 9th Siege Battery at the Battle of the Somme) had the largest guns and howitzers; mounted on railways or on fixed concrete emplacements. Gunner F. J. Mears , who was medically discharged in 1917, went on to become a successful artist, painting scenes from
12482-516: The evening, most British officers were preparing to attend church, while many of the British soldiers were off duty and had gone into canteens or into the bazaar in Meerut. The Indian troops, led by the 3rd Cavalry, broke into revolt. British junior officers who attempted to quell the first outbreaks were killed by the rebels. British officers' and civilians' quarters were attacked, and four civilian men, eight women and eight children were killed. Crowds in
12640-507: The feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars , and the peasants . The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse , which refused to recognise the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group;
12798-646: The field. The Contingent served at the Somme from June to December 1916. They were then moved away from the Front, serving on docks until April, 1917, when they were attached to the Canadian Corps , serving in the Battle of Vimy Ridge . They took part in the Battle of Passchendaele (or the Third Battle of Ypres ), from 24 June until 22 October, where three men were killed, and several wounded. Two men received
12956-469: The first camp, in 1896, the unit had a single company with a strength of 10 men and three officers. A second company was added as its strength grew to more than 200 over the next decade, but, as recruitment fell, its numbers dropped below 100 men again by 1914. The unit was already embodied for annual camp when war was declared in 1914. During the First World War , two contingents served as part of
13114-458: The first time treated as a separate division of the garrison artillery. In 1899 the garrison companies (manning coast, position, siege, heavy and mountain artillery) were constituted as the separate Royal Garrison Artillery . The territorial divisions were abolished on 31 December 1901 and the Militia and Volunteer Artillery units were re-titled as ---shire Royal Garrison Artillery (Militia) or (Volunteers) as appropriate. The badge adopted by
13272-421: The formal disbanding helped foment the rebellion in view of some historians. Disgruntled ex-sepoys returned home to Awadh with a desire for revenge. During April, there was unrest and fires at Agra , Allahabad and Ambala . At Ambala in particular, which was a large military cantonment where several units had been collected for their annual musketry practice, it was clear to General Anson, Commander-in-Chief of
13430-455: The front line and had immense destructive power. With the new long-range small arms available to the infantry in the era before World War I, artillery fighting in the infantry line was increasingly vulnerable to small-arms fire. The solution to this was the principle of standing off and engaging the enemy with indirect fire . Henceforth the artillery would be positioned well behind the infantry battle line, firing at unseen targets, controlled by
13588-588: The garrison). In 1936, on the occasion of the death of King George V , the BMA was involved in what could have been a severe international incident. The BMA had been instructed to fire a memorial salute from one of the two 4.7" guns at Saint David's Battery. This salute was to consist of seventy blank rounds, one for each year of the King's life, fired at one-minute intervals. Because of the difficulty of storing ammunition in Bermuda's humid climate, there proved to be only twenty-three rounds of blank ammunition in stock, and
13746-540: The guns of the British Empire 's forts and fortresses, including coastal artillery batteries, the heavy gun batteries attached to each infantry division and the guns of the siege artillery. The RGA was amalgamated with the RFA in 1924, from which time the only two arms within the Royal Regiment of Artillery have been the Royal Artillery and the Royal Horse Artillery. The Royal Garrison Artillery came into existence as
13904-573: The guns. The RFC aircraft carried a wireless set and a map and after identifying the position of an enemy target the pilot was able to transmit messages such as A5, B3, etc. in Morse code to an RFC land station attached to a heavy artillery unit, such as Royal Garrison Artillery Siege Batteries. The RGA significantly increased in size, especially the Heavy Batteries, which increased from 32 Regular and Territorial Force batteries in 1914 to 117 by
14062-462: The improvements brought about by British rule. Many Indians rose against the British; however, many also fought for the British, and the majority remained seemingly compliant to British rule. Violence, which sometimes betrayed exceptional cruelty, was inflicted on both sides, on British officers, and civilians, including women and children, by the rebels, and on the rebels, and their supporters, including sometimes entire villages, by British reprisals;
14220-614: The island. This meant that local forces could be spared for service overseas, and both the BVRC and the Bermuda Militia detached companies to send across the Atlantic. The Bermuda Militia force, composed of members of the BMA and the BMI, trained with the BVRC contingent as an infantry force at Prospect Camp. The BVRC contingent was sent to the Lincolns in 1944. The Bermuda Militia contingent, however, proceeded to North Carolina , where it formed
14378-475: The land, and against naval forces on the sea. Coastal artillery relied primarily on high velocity guns, capable of striking out at ships at a great distance, and penetrating their armour. Inland defensive batteries might have armament better suited for use against personnel. Mobile (field) artillery pieces were sometimes used that could be quickly re-deployed as required between fortifications that were not permanently manned or armed. Fixed batteries were operated in
14536-678: The larger Royal Garrison Artillery detachment to the Western Front . The first, 201 officers and men, under the command of Major Thomas Melville Dill , left for France on 31 May 1916. A second contingent, of two officers and sixty other ranks, left Bermuda on 6 May 1917, and was merged with the first contingent in France. The contingent, titled the Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery , served primarily in ammunition supply, at dumps, and in delivering ammunition to batteries in
14694-504: The largest concentrations of British troops in India and this was later to be cited as evidence that the original rising was a spontaneous outbreak rather than a pre-planned plot. Although the state of unrest within the Bengal Army was well known, on 24 April Lieutenant Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth, the unsympathetic commanding officer of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry , which was composed mainly of Indian Muslims, ordered 90 of his men to parade and perform firing drills. All except five of
14852-430: The latter, for example, was prepared to accept East India Company supremacy if her adopted son was recognised as her late husband's heir. In other areas of central India, such as Indore and Sagar , where such loss of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the company, even in areas where the sepoys had rebelled. The second group, the taluqdars , had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as
15010-459: The local government in vain to raise a military reserve force as vast funds were channelled into building up the colony's defences. The colonial government, however, feared being saddled with the entire cost of maintaining the garrison, and was also concerned of the social discord that would result from raising either racially integrated or segregated units. Major General Sir William Reid , Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1839 to 1846,
15168-405: The men on parade refused to accept their cartridges. On 9 May, the remaining 85 men were court martialled , and most were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment with hard labour. Eleven comparatively young soldiers were given five years' imprisonment. The entire garrison was paraded and watched as the condemned men were stripped of their uniforms and placed in shackles. As they were marched off to jail,
15326-535: The militia was the same as the regular Royal Garrison Artillery, including the "ubique" scroll, with a letter "M" fixed at the bottom of the gun badge, and on the grenade when the grenade badge was worn on a cap. When the Volunteer Force and the Yeomanry were merged to create the Territorial Force in 1908, the Militia was redesignated the Special Reserve. At the same time, plans were made to convert all of
15484-420: The mine defences unaided. A reserve unit of engineers, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers , would not be raised for another four decades. The Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), however, was raised in 1895. Although it was titled as a militia, it was in practice a voluntary organisation, akin to those of the Volunteer Force , except that volunteers for the Militia were enlisted for a term of service whereas members of
15642-465: The most critical component. Whereas the Militia infantry and the mounted units had embodied only for annual training, or during times or war or emergency (which included quelling the Privateer Riots in Bermuda), a standing force of the Militia Artillery had been required to maintain the coastal artillery defences in Britain and Bermuda, guarding against attacks that might come at any time. Also,
15800-443: The most part were idle throughout war, and the coastal batteries were stripped to a bare minimum of manpower in order to re-assign personnel to the heavy batteries in the field, or to assist with the operation of ammunition dumps and the supply of ammunition to batteries in the field. The RGA grew into a very large component of the British Army, being armed with heavy, large-calibre guns and howitzers that were positioned some way behind
15958-556: The new Princess Hotel and the dredging of the shipping channel into St. George's Harbour as the first could provide a pretext for invasion (by the US, to protect the interests of its nationals), and the latter would make it easier for an enemy force to invade. The Secretary wrote that he could not approve either project while Bermuda contributed nothing to her own defence. Accordingly, the Parliament of Bermuda passed three acts drafted by
16116-547: The outbreak of the rebellion was the General Service Enlistment Act of 25 July 1856. As noted above, men of the Bengal Army had been exempted from overseas service. Specifically, they were enlisted only for service in territories to which they could march. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie saw this as an anomaly, since all sepoys of the Madras and Bombay Armies and the six "General Service" battalions of
16274-424: The palace or had been discovered hiding in the city were killed by some of the emperor's servants under a peepul tree in a courtyard outside the palace. The news of the events at Meerut and Delhi spread rapidly, provoking uprisings among sepoys and disturbances in many districts. In many cases, it was the behaviour of British military and civilian authorities themselves which precipitated disorder. Learning of
16432-402: The peasant farmers, many of whom joined the rebellion, to the great dismay of the British. It has also been suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt to money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the company, were particular objects of
16590-405: The presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were convinced that the company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Although earlier in the 1830s, evangelicals such as William Carey and William Wilberforce had successfully clamoured for the passage of social reform, such as the abolition of sati and allowing the remarriage of Hindu widows, there
16748-792: The ranks of the BVRC. Purcell would serve with the a coastal artillery detachment of the Royal Artillery in Sierra Leone , due to his similar experience with the BMA. He eventually transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment, serving in North West Europe, and, having reached the rank of Major , being appointed Press Officer of the British Area of Occupation in Germany, following victory in Europe. The 1940 contingent
16906-522: The rebel leaders proclaimed no articles of faith that presaged a new political system . Even so, the rebellion proved to be an important watershed in Indian and British Empire history. It led to the dissolution of the East India Company, and forced the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India, through passage of the Government of India Act 1858 . India
17064-456: The rebellion, while others held back but also refused to obey orders to take action against the rebels. In the afternoon, a violent explosion in the city was heard for several miles. Fearing that the arsenal, which contained large stocks of arms and ammunition, would fall intact into rebel hands, the nine British Ordnance officers there had opened fire on the sepoys, including the men of their own guard. When resistance appeared hopeless, they blew up
17222-452: The rebels' animosity. The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar district, a beneficiary of a Company irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut , where the upheaval began, stayed relatively calm throughout. " Utilitarian and evangelical -inspired social reform", including
17380-629: The regular army. This meant, that the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), as part of the Royal Regiment of Artillery , preceded the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) despite being the second of the two to be raised. Today, the Royal Bermuda Regiment, as an amalgam of the BMA and BVRC, is 28th. Royal Garrison Artillery The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was formed in 1899 as a distinct arm of
17538-399: The remainder used were all headed ammunition. As the firing was to commence at 8am (on 21 January), and it was thought unlikely any vessels would be in the danger area, it was decided to proceed with the salute, ensuring the guns were elevated for maximum range (8,000 yards), out to sea. The firing began at 08:00, and was over seventy minutes later. What the BMA gunners were unaware of, however,
17696-515: The requirements of their religious rituals. Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not required of them, and the army soon came officially to recognise Hindu festivals. "This encouragement of high caste ritual status, however, left the government vulnerable to protest, even mutiny, whenever the sepoys detected infringement of their prerogatives." Stokes argues that "The British scrupulously avoided interference with
17854-587: The revolt and testimony after it including on such issues as the "insults to women", the rise of " low people ' under British tutelage", the "pollution" caused by Western medicine and the persecuting and ignoring of traditional astrological authorities. British-run schools were also a problem: according to recorded testimonies, anger had spread because of stories that mathematics was replacing religious instruction, stories were chosen that would "bring contempt" upon Indian religions, and because girl children were exposed to "moral danger" by education. The justice system
18012-794: The revolt is contested , and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny , the Indian Mutiny , the Great Rebellion , the Revolt of 1857 , the Indian Insurrection , and the First War of Independence . The Indian rebellion was fed by resentments born of diverse perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, and scepticism about
18170-556: The same time as the BMA, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps BVRC), restricted its recruitment to whites, and the BMA was made up almost entirely of blacks, although its officers were white. Although BVRC recruits, originally, could quit their corps with fourteen days notice, as with UK volunteer rifle regiments, BMA recruits enlisted for six years. After 27 days of basic training, they were liable only to attend annual camp. While in camp, they were subject to
18328-751: The same time, the Regular Army Royal Engineers Fortress Companies handed responsibility for the operation of the Defence Electric Lights (used to aid night firing at coastal batteries) to Territorial Royal Engineers units. This was generally the case in British colonies, also the Regular Army Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers companies were withdrawn from Sierra Leone and the Bermuda Garrison in 1928. In
18486-744: The same year the Bermuda Militia Artillery was re-organised on Territorial Army lines in order to take over complete responsibility (with the district establishment) for manning coastal artillery. The Bermuda Volunteer Engineers was raised in 1931 to take over the Defence Electric Lights). In the Far East, the growing threat of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Japan's military adventures in China meant that coastal artillery defences were increased, notably at Singapore where
18644-408: The sepoys as ordinary petitioners, but others in the palace were quick to join the revolt. During the day, the revolt spread. British officials and dependents, Indian Christians and shop keepers within the city were killed, some by sepoys and others by crowds of rioters. There were three battalion-sized regiments of Bengal Native Infantry stationed in or near the city. Some detachments quickly joined
18802-514: The sepoys from Bengal – many of whom had fought against the Company in the Battles of Plassey and Buxar – were now suspect in British eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the high-caste rural Rajputs and Bhumihar of Awadh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years. However, in order to forestall any social friction, the company also took action to adapt its military practices to
18960-495: The ship fortunately was not hit. In 1939, a new battery of two 6" guns was constructed at Warwick Camp . Despite this, the manpower requirements of the BMA simply did not make full use of the number of black males available for military service when the war began. Rather than integrate the BVRC or the BVE, it was decided to raise a second infantry unit, the Bermuda Militia Infantry , to recruit blacks, and this
19118-487: The single exception of a soldier called Shaikh Paltu , drew back from restraining or arresting Mangal Pandey. Shaikh Paltu restrained Pandey from continuing his attack. After failing to incite his comrades into an open and active rebellion, Mangal Pandey tried to take his own life, by placing his musket to his chest and pulling the trigger with his toe. He managed only to wound himself. He was court-martialled on 6 April and hanged two days later. The Jemadar Ishwari Prasad
19276-428: The skills of the artilleryman required more training to acquire and maintain, and annual training camps were not sufficient, which led to more emphasis being placed on the requirements of the artillery. Advances in artillery and tactics, by the mid-19th century, had actually increased the importance of the militia gunners in Britain. In Bermuda, roughly five hundred artillery pieces were emplaced by mid-century, but without
19434-492: The social structure of the village community which remained largely intact." After the annexation of Oudh (Awadh) by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry, in the Oudh courts, and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might bring about. Other historians have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers, interpreting
19592-411: The start of the 20th century, the increasing size of the capital ships of the world's largest navies, and of the guns they wielded, was already sounding the death knell of coastal artillery. As the primary armament of battleships and battle-cruisers reached 16 inches, while coastal artillery was typically 6 inch or 9 inch guns, a large naval force, including capital ships, could level coastal batteries from
19750-532: The support of a militia, the regular gunners were sufficient to man only a fraction of them. Although not a continuation of the original militia, the titling of the new Bermudian artillery reserve as the Bermuda Militia Artillery , rather than as the Bermuda Volunteer Artillery , followed the practice then current in Britain for similar units, which, though voluntary, were a continuation of the old militia. The other volunteer unit raised at
19908-555: The three "Presidencies" into which the East India Company divided India for administrative purposes maintained their own armies. Of these, the Army of the Bengal Presidency was the largest. Unlike the other two, it recruited heavily from among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims. The Muslims formed a larger percentage of the 18 irregular cavalry units within the Bengal Army, whilst Hindus were mainly to be found in
20066-609: The training cadre of a new regiment, the Caribbean Regiment, being formed on a US Army base in North Carolina. Contingents, mostly of new recruits, were sent from various West Indian territories. In North Carolina, they were assessed for fitness, then trained as infantry. The unit was then posted to Italy in 1944. After serving briefly in the field, the Regiment escorted a shipment of Axis prisoners to Egypt, then remained there as prisoner-of-war (POW) camp guards until
20224-607: The usual reluctance of the British Government to fund an expansion of the regular military forces), a military reserve artillery force became a pressing concern to aid in maintaining the fixed defensive batteries. Through the Eighteenth Century, and up to the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the American War of 1812 , the military reserve forces that supported (but were not part of either) the British Army and
20382-557: The various local military units, to that service for aircrew training before the end of the War. Second-Lieutenant Richard Masters Gorham , who had been commissioned into the Bermuda Militia Artillery from the ranks of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers on 20 December 1940, to replace Second Lieutenant Francis J. Gosling (who had trained as a pilot at the Bermuda Flying School and was to depart for
20540-473: The volunteer rifle corps would prove popular, the most immediate requirement was for artillerymen to man the coastal batteries that were the first line of defence. To make up the shortfall of reserve gunners, a number of existing Militia infantry regiments were retrained as the Militia Artillery that, along with the remainder of the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteer Force, would be merged into
20698-576: The years following the American War of Independence , however, the Government of Bermuda quickly lost interest in funding a militia that seemed superfluous. Following the American War of 1812 , it ceased to renew the Militia Act, and the military reserve was allowed to lapse. For the next eight decades, the Secretary of State for War , and the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda implored
20856-626: Was also a concern. Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 , it was feared that Indian units might be encouraged to mutiny should there be a Russian invasion, and might mutiny in any case were British units in India reduced in number. As funds for the increase of the British Army were not forthcoming, and with the threat of invasion by France, the government tackled these issues by raising a Volunteer Force of part-time soldiers in 1859. Composed primarily of locally organised Volunteer Rifle Corps, this force could be embodied in times of emergency, but its volunteers could not be compelled to serve abroad. Although
21014-409: Was also made to the drill for loading so that the cartridge was torn with the hands and not bitten. This, however, merely caused many sepoys to be convinced that the rumours were true and that their fears were justified. Additional rumours started that the paper in the new cartridges, which was glazed and stiffer than the previously used paper, was impregnated with grease. In February, a court of inquiry
21172-413: Was awarded the honorary rank of colonel in the Royal Artillery and was subsequently knighted. Despite that steady outward trickle, however, fears of weakening the garrison meant that a moratorium on further drafts from the island was in force until 1943. By then, the likelihood of a German attack, or sabotage, had greatly diminished, and American forces, including artillery detachments, had been built-up on
21330-486: Was captured without resistance. Many fugitive British officers and civilians had congregated at the Flagstaff Tower on the ridge north of Delhi, where telegraph operators were sending news of the events to other British stations. When it became clear that the help expected from Meerut was not coming, they made their way in carriages to Karnal . Those who became separated from the main body or who could not reach
21488-648: Was completely destroyed, and the Allied ground forces broke through four days later. For this action, Gorham received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a relative rarity for an Army officer. After the war, Gorham would serve as a captain, second-in-command of the Bermuda Rifles (as the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was retitled in 1949). On his retirement in 1954, He retired from the army with the substantive rank of captain, he
21646-530: Was considered to be inherently unfair to the Indians. The official Blue Books, East India (Torture) 1855–1857 , laid before the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857, revealed that Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians. The economic policies of the East India Company were also resented by many Indians. Each of
21804-412: Was described by abolitionist, lecturer, novelist, playwright, historian and former slave William Wells Brown as "a young man of more than ordinary abilities who had learned the science of war in the British Army". Simmons was 26 when he died, and too young to have served under Reid's scheme). In Britain, too, many citizens felt the government was neglecting the defence of that island by deploying much of
21962-611: Was discontinued in 1924, when the RGA was re-amalgamated into the Royal Artillery and the RGA ceased to exist as a separate entity. Coastal artillery was also among the victims of post-war cutbacks of the defence budget. In 1926, it was decided that fixed coastal batteries in the United Kingdom-proper would be manned entirely by Territorial Army Royal Artillery personnel (with small district establishments of Regular Army Royal Artillery as permanent staffs). At
22120-488: Was embodied during both world wars, fulfilling its role within the garrison, and also sending contingents overseas to more active theatres of the wars. Bermuda had maintained its own militias (in which all able-bodied, adult males, free or enslaved, were required to serve) since British rule officially began in 1612. With the buildup of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the attendant Regular Army garrison in
22278-410: Was excellent, and commanded the admiration of those with whom they were serving. This was not the end for the BMA, however, as it was re-constituted for the annual camp of 1920, when fifty new recruits joined six officers and 154 other ranks who had enlisted before or during the war. In 1921, one company was tasked with providing mobile detachments, and the other for serving at fixed batteries. In 1924,
22436-433: Was expressed with their work. Though called upon to perform labour of the most arduous and exacting nature at all times of the day and night, they were not only willing and efficient but also conspicuous for their cheeriness under all conditions. On more than one occasion the dumps at which they were employed were ignited by hostile shellfire and much of their work was done under shellfire. Their behaviour on all these occasions
22594-453: Was forced to raise a body of voluntary reservists without the assistance of the local government, which recruited part-time soldiers into the regular army and the Board of Ordnance military corps without racial discrimination, although relatively few white Bermudians enlisted. Those serving in the army were trained as light infantry, with an emphasis on amphibious operations. Although this unit
22752-471: Was grouped administratively with the BMA. Forces throughout the Empire were mobilised on 3 September 1939, in anticipation of the declaration of war. Unlike in the Great War, when the two local units relied entirely on volunteers, conscription was introduced soon after the outbreak of hostilities, with blacks directed into the BMA or BMI, and whites into the BVRC. Volunteers and conscripts served full-time for
22910-427: Was held at Barrackpore to get to the bottom of these rumours. Native soldiers called as witnesses complained of the paper "being stiff and like cloth in the mode of tearing", said that when the paper was burned it smelled of grease, and announced that the suspicion that the paper itself contained grease could not be removed from their minds. Civilian rebellion was more multifarious. The rebels consisted of three groups:
23068-536: Was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield Pattern 1853 rifled musket . These rifles, which fired Minié balls , had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder. The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus, and lard derived from pork, which would be offensive to Muslims. At least one Company official pointed out
23226-657: Was realised that the British Army's Imperial garrison obligations not only left Britain vulnerable, but also did not leave aside sufficient uncommitted forces to compose an effective expeditionary force such as had been required in the Crimea. Britain's primary motivation in supporting the Ottoman Empire against Russia was to prevent the border of the Russian Empire advancing to meet that of British India . Potential Russian interference with Britain's East Asian trade
23384-399: Was reintroduced, to the Bermuda Rifles in 1957, and to the BMA in 1960, although both units remained part-time. The permanent staff members of the BMA were now provided by Regular Army infantry units, instead of artillery units. In 1965, with racial segregation rapidly becoming politically inexpedient, it was decided to end the unnecessary duplication of effort and the BMA was amalgamated with
23542-488: Was relatively low and after Oudh and the Punjab were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay ( batta or bhatta ) for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions". The junior British officers became increasingly estranged from their soldiers, in many cases treating them as their racial inferiors. In 1856, a new Enlistment Act was introduced by the company, which in theory made every unit in
23700-467: Was removed from use in the 1950s. The emerging need for air defence of the United Kingdom was discussed between the Admiralty and the War Office prior to the outbreak of the First World War. In August 1914 the responsibility was still split, with the Royal Garrison Artillery employing 30 officers and 312 men on air defence duties. By February 1916 the army had entire responsibility for the air defence of
23858-661: Was retaken by mid-July 1857, and Delhi by the end of September. However, it then took the remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 for the rebellion to be suppressed in Jhansi, Lucknow, and especially the Awadh countryside. Other regions of Company-controlled India— Bengal province, the Bombay Presidency , and the Madras Presidency —remained largely calm. In the Punjab , the Sikh princes crucially helped
24016-441: Was sentenced to death and hanged on 21 April. The regiment was disbanded and stripped of its uniforms because it was felt that it harboured ill-feelings towards its superiors, particularly after this incident. Shaikh Paltu was promoted to the rank of havildar in the Bengal Army but was murdered shortly before the 34th BNI dispersed. Sepoys in other regiments thought these punishments were harsh. The demonstration of disgrace during
24174-412: Was short-lived, other Bermudians appear to have continued to serve on a local-service, and presumably part-time, basis (many others simply enlisted as regular full-time soldiers) with the regular detachments in Bermuda (note First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , who died of wounds as a prisoner of war following the assault on Battery Wagner . Simmons
24332-689: Was that a Colombian Navy destroyer, the ARC Antioquia , was at the receiving end of their barrage. The destroyer. built in Portugal by a British company, was under the command of a retired Royal Naval officer (part of the British Naval Mission to Colombia), and was arriving at Bermuda to undergo repairs at the HM Dockyard. Although the ship's crewmembers were alarmed to find themselves on the receiving end of an artillery barrage,
24490-444: Was the ancient capital and present seat of the nominal Mughal Emperor and finally there were no British troops in garrison there in contrast to Meerut. No effort was made to pursue them. Early on 11 May, the first parties of the 3rd Cavalry reached Delhi. From beneath the windows of the Emperor 's apartments in the palace, they called on Bahadur Shah II to acknowledge and lead them. He did nothing at this point, apparently treating
24648-410: Was thereafter administered directly by the British government in the new British Raj . On 1 November 1858, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation to Indians, which while lacking the authority of a constitutional provision, promised rights similar to those of other British subjects. In the following decades, when admission to these rights was not always forthcoming, Indians were to pointedly refer to
24806-417: Was to be the last from Bermuda for nearly four years. Some members of the Bermuda Militia were selected for pilot training at the Bermuda Flying School , and sent on to the Royal Air Force . After the school closed in 1942 (due to a surplus of trained pilots), the organisation overseeing it was converted into a recruiting and selection arm of the Royal Canadian Air Force , sending 60 volunteers, primarily from
24964-455: Was withdrawn, ostensibly, on 25 April 1953, but detachments would be posted on the island until 1957 when a company of the Duke Of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) was withdrawn. The local territorials might have been disbanded as their role had disappeared, but the Bermuda Government chose to maintain both remaining units, entirely at its own cost. The last coastal artillery pieces were removed from use in 1953, however, and, rather than integrate
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