43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot
The 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry - regiment of the British Army . It was founded in 1741 as Thomas Fowke's Regiment of Foot with its headquarters in Winchester. The regiment was number 54 until it was number 43 in 1749. In 1881 it merged with the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and then formed the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry (Light Infantry), which in 1908 became the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry .
history
The 43rd Infantry Regiment sailed for North America in May 1757 and landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the months that followed, it defended the British colonies in North America in the Seven Years' War against France. The regiment spent nearly two years in garrison service until it received its first battle honor as part of General Wolfe's army in the conquest of Quebec in 1759 .
The next campaign was in the West Indies (Caribbean) in 1762, where the 43rd Regiment participated in the capture of Martinique and St Lucia from the French and Havana ( Cuba ) from the Spanish. The regiment returned to North America in 1774 and stayed there throughout the American War of Independence . The 43rd met the 52nd regiment in Boston and fought side by side with them in Lexington and Bunker Hill . The regiment was in Yorktown during the last siege and surrender in 1781 .
In 1782 the 43rd Regiment became the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment. The regiment returned to the West Indies in 1794 to retake Martinique and St. Lucia, which had been returned to France after the peace treaty of 1763. They were defeated by a much larger French army in Guadaloupe in 1794 after having defended their position for three months.
In 1803 the 43rd Regiment, the 52nd Regiment and the 95th Rifles formed the 1st Battalion of Light Infantry and was stationed as the Light Brigade in Shorncliffe, Kent under the command of Sir John Moore . The regiment was renamed the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Light Infantry. The 43rd was part of the army which, under Sir Arthur Wellesley , captured Copenhagen in 1807 and confiscated the entire Danish fleet.
In August 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , the 43rd fought in the Battle of Vimeiro , as a result of which the Napoleonic troops were expelled from Portugal. The fighting against the French then shifted to Spain, where the regiment participated in the retreat to Vigo and fought gloriously in the Battle of La Coruña as the rearguard of the army before returning to England.
In May 1809, the 1st Battalion of the 43rd sailed to Portugal as part of the light brigade under Sir Robert Craufurd , where it joined Sir Arthur Wellesley's army. After landing in Lisbon, the battalion marched over 400 km to Talavera to take part in the Battle of Talavera . This included walking 84 kilometers in 26 hours during the hottest time of the year. The battle was won before the battalion arrived. A company of the 43rd, which had been in Lisbon since December 1808, took part in the fighting as part of General Richard Stewart's brigade. From 1810, the 43rd formed part of the Light Division under the command of Sir Robert Craufurd. The 43rd fought in the battles of the Côa crossing , Sabugal and Buçaco . The 43rd participated in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812 and the siege of Badajoz in April 1812, with the battalion losing 20 officers and 335 soldiers in storming the ramparts. After the end of the wars on the Iberian Peninsula in 1814, the light division was disbanded and the 43rd returned to England.
The 2nd Battalion of the 43rd took part in the Walcheren expedition in 1809 , during which many deaths were to be mourned from the fever in the Schelden lowlands. These losses forced the army to withdraw after a few months.
The 43rd returned to America in 1814 as part of the invading forces, which initially had some success but were then defeated in the Battle of New Orleans against the forces of General Jackson in 1815. After that, the regiment returned to Europe, where it arrived too late in Belgium to take part in the Battle of Waterloo . However, some officers from the 43rd were present, including Lord Fitzroy Somerset and Major James Shaw Kennedy, both of whom served on the staff of the Duke of Wellington. The regiment was then part of the occupation army in France until November 1818.
The regiment was in Ireland from 1819 to 1823 and then in Gibraltar from 1823 to 1830. After a period in England, the 43rd returned to Canada in 1836 . Under the command of Sir John Colborne , the regiment was instrumental in suppressing the 1837 rebellion. It marched in difficult weather conditions from Fredericton to Quebec in December 1837, a distance of about 595 kilometers, through forests, over frozen rivers and over mountainous terrain in 18 days. This march received a great deal of attention in Canada, and the Duke of Wellington expressed his great admiration for the difficult undertaking that the 43rd had undertaken. The regiment left Canada in 1846 and was stationed in southern England and then Ireland until 1851.
The 43rd participated in the 8th Kaffir War in South Africa from 1851 to 1853, during which the troop transport Birkenhead sank in 1852 on the Cape of Good Hope. The bravery and discipline of the British forces, among them a detachment of the 43rd under the command of Lieutenant Girardot, received much attention in England and abroad during the accident. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia ordered a report of the events to be read out to each regiment of his army as an example of the fulfillment of duty.
In January 1854, the 43rd was relocated from South Africa to India, where it arrived in Madras in January. It helped put down the Indian uprising from 1857 to 1859 and marched 2,900 kilometers over a period of 6 months, during which a number of skirmishes took place. The regiment also received its first Victoria Cross , awarded to Henry Addison in 1859.
In September 1863, the 43rd left India to take part in the New Zealand Wars. The regiment led the storm at Gate Pah in April 1864 and participated in the attack on Fort Te Ranga in June 1864. In February 1866 the regiment returned to England.
For the next 15 years the regiment was stationed mainly abroad, interrupted only by brief periods in England. The main operation it was involved in during this period was the suppression of the Moplahs' rebellion in southern India in 1873.
The 43rd became 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1881 and then 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1908. During the Second World War , these were used as airborne infantry with gliders.
The 1st and 2nd Light Battalions merged in 1948 and the regiment was renamed 1st Battalion The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 43rd and 52nd . 1958 then renamed 1st Green Jackets (43rd and 52nd) as part of the Green Jackets Brigade , then in 1966 in 1st Battalion The Royal Green Jackets and in February 2007 in 2nd Battalion The Rifles .
Awards with the Victoria Cross
- Henry Addison received the Victoria Cross in 1859 for his activities in the Indian Uprising.
- Frederick Augustus Smith received the Victoria Cross for his role in the New Zealand Wars (Waikato War)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arrived in New Zealand from India in December 1863. Took part in actions at Maketu, April 21, 1864 and lost 7 officers and 13 men at Gate Pa on April 29. The regiment left New Zealand in April 1866. History of the 43rd (Monmouthshire) ( Memento of March 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )