40th Infantry Regiment: 2nd Somersetshire

Formation and Early History

    The unit that would eventually become the 40th Regiment of the British army was formed in 1717 by the governor of Nova Scotia, General Richard Phillips, who merged eight companies of local service troops into a single regiment. In 1751 this unit was assigned the numeral 40, and 10 years later it left North America for the first time for in the West Indies. In June 1775 the Regiment was sent to Boston Massachusetts, which meant that it was already in North America on the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. It fought in the West Indies as well as on the American mainland during the war.

The newest addition to my growing British Napoleonic Army, the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment

French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, through 1808

    The regiment's first deployment during the French Revolutionary Wars was two-faceted, with its center companies fighting in Flanders and Brittany, and its light-infantry flank companies deployed to the West Indies. The regiment was reunited in the West Indies in 1795, serving on Santo Domingo and Jamaica before returning to Britain in 1798.

    In 1799 the regiment raised a 2nd Battalion for the Helder campaign in Holland. The following year the flank companies of both battalions landed at Aboukir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt. The 2nd Battalion was disbanded in 1802. From 1802 to 1804 the regiment was kept in Britain, raising another 2nd Battalion in 1804 for service in Britain and Ireland. The 1st Battalion was dispatched to South America, where it was part of the failed attempt to capture Buenos Aires in 1806.

Old Glory 28mm figures, with a GMB flag. Buff facings (and belts), gold lace for the officers. I have given this unit grey trousers instead of buff ones, though. 

Peninsular War

    The 40th was deployed to Spain and Portugal from 1808 to 1814. It was thus one of only three regiments to serve throughout the Peninsular campaign. It saw extensive action there, participating (chronologically) in the battles of Goleta, Vimiera, Talavera, and Albuhera, the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, the assault of Badajoz, the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, and The Pyrenees, the siege of St. Sebastian, and the battles of Nivelle, the Nive, Orthez and Toulouse. It was then sent to Canada in 1814 to fight in the War of 1812 (later participating in the fighting around New Orleans), before being quickly recalled to Europe the following year when Napoleon escaped from Elba.

Nicknames for the 40th Regiment included "The Fighting Fortieth "(for its courage in Egypt), and "The Excellers" (a pun on its Latin numeral, XL)

Waterloo:

    The 40th had recently returned from campaigning in America. The soldiers were seasoned veterans of Wellington’s Peninsular victories. With the 4th (King’s Own) and the 27th Inniskillings, they formed Lambert’s brigade. After a forced march from Ghent, they arrived near the village of Waterloo late in the evening of 17 June, and the next morning were placed in reserve behind the center of Wellington’s position.

    At about 3 o’clock, following the repulse of a massed infantry attack on the Allied left centre, Wellington ordered Lambert’s brigade into the front line to defend the vital cross-roads behind La Haye Sainte. Shortly afterwards, mistaking allied redeployment on the ridge for signs of retreat, Napoleon launched eight and a half thousand of his superb cavalry, led by Marshal Ney, in an impetuous charge against the center of the Allied line.

    The 40th, along with the rest of Lambert's brigade, formed square and held their ground against repeated attacks by French cavalry, infantry and guns, sometimes combined and sometimes separately. At times they were engaged by several columns of infantry at once, and were frequently surrounded by French cavalry, who became more and more desperate as the battle developed. Their position, some three hundred yards from the farm buildings of La Haie Sainte, was particularly exposed when, at about 6.30 pm, the farm was captured by the French. An enemy break-through in Wellington’s center appeared imminent, but despite the ferocity and persistence of the close-quarter infantry assaults, the constant and destructive cannonade of the enemy guns, and the fire of the French tirailleurs on the rising ground to their front, the Regiment yielded not a foot of ground.

    Major Heyland, commanding the 40th, was shot dead that day during an attack by massed infantry. At the end of the day around one in four of the 40th had fallen around their Colors, which were shot to ribbons (their losses totalled 167 killed and wounded). 

For their steadfastness, discipline and stubborn gallantry at Waterloo, the 40th Regiment of Foot was permitted to encircle their badges on heir Colors with a wreath of laurels, a tradition which continues to its successors of the present day.

A great on line source for this unit, said to have been "perhaps the finest Regioment in the Army today", is: Historical Records of the 40th Infantry Regiment