A fascinating article appeared in EEL 81, "On the Mobility of the Gribeauval..." by Leona and Jean Lochet, based in part upon the most interesting observations of General Allix. Perhaps a very brief note may be of interest concerning his statements on the lightness of British guns, which appear to be based upon his one experience of (presumably) field-testing British ordnance, the guns captured at Ostend in 1798. As this operation is mentioned in hardly any histories, perhaps a word of explanation might be in order.
The wretched Ostend operation was conceived by the somewhat unreliable British naval officer Home Popham as a scheme for destroying the locks of the Bruges-Ostend canal about a mile from the latter town, in an attempt to disrupt communications (and the possible transportation of an invasion-force) between Holland and West Flanders, and generally to throw a scare into the whole region. In theory it was a viable plan, had it been entrusted to "some skilful and daring captain of a fregate to accomplish with his own ship's company", as Fortescue wrote (History of the British Army, vol.IV Part I, London 1906; the operation is covered on pp. 587-89). But what actually happened was that the raiding-party was assembled almost to brigade strength, and placed under the command of Lieut.-General Eyre Coote. Popham was distrusted by the Admiralty which (for this or sounder reasons) put every possible objection in the way of the expedition, delaying departure until mid-May 1798, including the loss of a week of fine weather which ultimately proved crucial.
Allix, over-estimates the strength of the expedition by more than double. Far from comprising his "3000 men and 12 guns", Coote's force actually consisted of about 1,400 men: the 11th Foot, the grenadiers and light companies of the 23rd Fusiliers and 49th Foot, four light companies from the 1st Foot Guards and a composite unit drawn from the ht companies of the 2nd and 3rd Foot Guards (the whole apparently termed tile "Light Infantry Battn. Guards" - see MS returns in the Cobb collection, Kent County Archives Office, ref. 08/2); together with 9 men of the 17th Light Dragoons, and about 100 of the Royal Artillery with six guns (see, for example, Annals of the Wars_ of the 18th Century, Lt.Gen. Sir Edward Cust, Vol.V pp. 127-28, London 1862).
Though a gale blow up which caused Popham (who commanded the supporting naval force) to suggest a postponement, Coote insisted on his force being landed on 19 May, minas the 4 companies of the 1st Foot Guard whose transport had gone astray during the voyage. Despite a chaotic disembarkation in the early morning, resistance was ineffectual, the canal-lock was seized, destroyed and the troops withdrawn to the beach again by 11 a.m., with only one casualty. But the gale prevented the evacuation and Coote was forced to bivouac in the sandhills for the night, presumably quite unprepared for so long a stay. By dawn on the 20 May the weather still prevented embarkation, and the approach of four strong columns of French troops, collected since news of the landing has spread, gave Coote a choice c[ surrender or resistance. Fruitless though it was, he chose the latter and for two hours held his own, until the commander of the 11th (Lt.Col. Hely) was killed and Coote h imself wounded, whereupon his s deputy, Major-General Burrard, unwilling to sacrifice more lives in a hopeless situation, surrendered at discretion. In total, 163 members of the expedition were killed or wounded and something over 1,100 captured.
Though the nature of the British cannon are not specified, it would be in order to assume them to have been of very light construction, as might be handled easily on an amphibious operation intended to land and evacuate within a very few hours; it is not impossible that the artillery included the 11th Foot's two "battalion guns", probably 3-pounders. Thus the guns which Allix examined may have given him a somewhat distorted view of British artillery in general, which may be remarked by his statement that British guns were "only 14 calibres long" when compared to the 18 calibres of the Gribeauval. Some brief statistics:
Adye's Bombardier & Pocket Gunner (London, 2nd edn. 1802) lists 44 varieties of British cannon in service at that date though the list can be reduced to 26 by the emission of 18 types of brass; guns no longer used on "general service". Only two of the 26 had a length in calibres around the 14 stated by Allix: the brass light 3-pounder (14.418 calibres) and the "new" bras:; light 12-pounder, 13 calibres long. Of the rest, only two iron 42-paunders, one iron 3z-pounder, the "new" brass medium 12-pounder and "General Beliord's" brass 6-pounder had a length in calibres less than the average 18 of the Gribeauval. The 26 types of gun in more-or-less reglular use had an average length of 19.88 calibres.
However, of the brass guns most commonly used in the field in the later Napoleonic Wars ("new" light 12-pounder, 9 pounder, Belford's light 6-pounder and the little-used "common" light 3-pourder), all had lengths roughly around the 14 calibres claimed by Allix; though the "new" medium 12-pounder (16.872 calibres) and the little-used Desagulier's medium 6-pounder (22.876) and 3-pounder (24.717) were considerably heavier.
The net result of the above generally confirms Allix's opinion, but his remarks regarding the lightness of all British ordnance benefit by a slight qualification.
Note from J.Lochet. In our EEL 81 article we should have more precise and mention clearlv that Allix's boo):. is a criticism of Valllee's Field-Artillery system and that Allix's analyses and compare exclusively the war-performances of the Gribeauval and Year XI field-systems (and superficially that of the Austrian and British field-artillery) but not all the guns or complete range of such artilery systems (i.e., coastal, siege, garrison, etc.). (Our article of pp. 10-14 and pp.42-3 deal also exclusively with field-artillery).
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