the end of the pike in British army

[Sandinista]

There is an interesting article in the new Arquebusier (P&SS Journal)  by Iain Stanford giving 1706 as a date, post Blenheim. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

About right, although only 10% of troops had them by then.

IanS

[mollinary]

About right, although only 10% of troops had them by then.

IanS

Hi Ian,

Interesting point Ian, do you have a source for that?  Summarising briefly the article Sandinista is referring to, Iain Stanford, using good first hand sources, posits something akin to the following:  
1689 1:2 Pikes to muskets;
1692.1:3 Pikes to muskets;
1695 1:3 Pikes to muskets (ordnance re-issued);
1702 1:3 Pikes to muskets (except Fusileer Regis which had none);
1703-04 Regiments for Portugal hand in their pikes, to be taken up by those in Flanders;
1705-06 Trophies from Blenheim and Ramillies carried by pikemen of the guards;
1705 Marlborough complains the English infantry unsuitable for siege work because of the number of pikemen they contain;
1707 guards, complain about not enough powder issued when they increased company size by ten men, and handed in their pikes (another 12 men per company).  In other words, before the augmentation and handing in of pikes the guards had a proportion of 1:4 pikes to muskets.
Conclusion pike completely removed 1706-07, also supported by spike in military expenditure with no increase in size of forces under arms.

Hope this helps those without access to the mag.

Mollinary

[Hwiccee]

The continued use of pikes has been common knowledge for some time amongst students of the period - there was another take on this in an issue of Arquebusier a few months ago. The basic problem is we have some information but not enough to be 100% certain. Stanford's view is reasonable but with some errors and probably only partly true. There are also other possible counter arguments.

So first some comments on Stanford's views.

1689 1:2 Pikes to muskets;
1692.1:3 Pikes to muskets;
1695 1:3 Pikes to muskets (ordnance re-issued);
1702 1:3 Pikes to muskets (except Fusileer Regis which had none);

The exact ratio is difficult to say because it depends which you compare and also sometime on the nature of the evidence. So for example do you count officers/NCO's/musicians as pikes? or muskets? or not at all? What about Grenadiers? While sometimes we know a battalion has say 130 to 200 pikes (typical numbers) but we don't know the size of the unit - is is full strength of 900 or so, or maybe 500 to 600 which is a more common field strength.

1703-04 Regiments for Portugal hand in their pikes, to be taken up by those in Flanders;

Stanford has messed the details of this up but as is clear it is broadly correct. The real incident he means and others clearly show that units in Flanders had pikes in early 1704 - these units had 190 pikes each.

1705-06 Trophies from Blenheim and Ramillies carried by pikemen of the guards;

The guards had at least 128 pikes, probably more, at the victory parade for Blenheim and Ramillies. But they were based in London at the time, not in Flanders.

1705 Marlborough complains the English infantry unsuitable for siege work because of the number of pikemen they contain;

The source for this is doubtful.

1707 guards, complain about not enough powder issued when they increased company size by ten men, and handed in their pikes (another 12 men per company).  In other words, before the augmentation and handing in of pikes the guards had a proportion of 1:4 pikes to muskets.

Again we have number problems here. The unit had a large detachment in Spain and may or may not be at full strength. So it is difficult to decide the ratio but probably we are talking similar ratios to earlier.

In short there is no hard evidence that the ratio changed at all from 1689 to 1707 from the information we have. We don't have enough information to be absolutely sure but it is clearly a sizeable part of the unit.

Conclusion pike completely removed 1706-07, also supported by spike in military expenditure with no increase in size of forces under arms.

Stanford is probably wrong on the expenditure spike. Muskets were fairly cheap and the cost of replacing pikes with them would not be great. The spike is more to do with paying for more allies/mercenaries/etc.

The first part of this certainly seems to be true as it is the last mention of them, but remember this is a unit in London & not in the field. It is important to realise that none of the units sent to Spain/Portugal took their pikes at any point during the war. So Stanford's argument that if the guards in London had them then everyone did is flawed.

From my point of view based on additional information that the use of pikes in the field finished before this time. It is difficult to be sure when but they had them in early 1704 and probably stopped by early 1705. All the references after early 1704, other than the 1705 siege thing, relate to troops in the UK. If the 1705 siege thing is proved to be correct then maybe they lingered in 1705 but they probably went then and early in the year, in the field that is.

As Stanford mentions in his article pictorial evidence is difficult to rely on but there is some fairly good visual evidence of British pikes at Blenheim. Whether this is reliable enough is debatable but it could mean they were still used at that time. Interestingly the same source does not show them at Ramillies.

There are of course many other arguments you could make but on balance I think that British pikes were finally abolished in 1707. They were not used in Spain/Portugal at all. In the field in Marlborough's army they probably finished in 1704, but whether this was before or after Blenheim is more difficult to say. Ignoring officers/nco's/musicians there were about 1 pike for every 2 ordinary musketeers but in addition the units had grenadiers. So effectively the ratio was some thing like 1 pike to 3 musket/grenadiers.

Finally something that has not been mentioned is that the Dutch also seem to have kept pikes a lot longer than was thought - they stopped using them in 1708, again at least in theory.

[Sandinista]

So, should we remodel our Marlburian regiments with 1/3 pikes?

[FierceKitty]

Don't forget that the Russkies still had them well into the horse-and-musket era too. Always look amusing on a modern battlefield.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Charles Grant - Pike to Shot, but from memory. I'm assuming that the Pikemen were used to replace casualties in the musketeers.

IanS

[Hertsblue]

The other factor to take into consideration is, if the regiments possessed pikes up to 1707, did they actually carry them? They wouldn't be the first items of military issue to be left in the baggage wagons on campaign as not worth the effort. The fact that the guards were the last units to hand them back might indicate that they were used on purely ceremonial occasions. 

[Hwiccee]

Pikes were seen as 'old fashioned' by later historians and in particular by the most well known ones in recent times. But they were not necessarily consider that way at the time and they were widely used into the war and at the time. The Swedes were winning stunning victories with pikes during the period for example.

The French and Austrians used them up to the end of 1703, the Spanish and Portuguese until probably 1707, the Dutch until 1708 and the Swedes and Russians until the 1720's. Plus of course the English/British until probably somewhere between 1704 & 1707.

One of the problems with this is illustrated by the 'probably' I have used. For some armies, for example the French, we have evidence of the end of pike - the French king issued an order to stop using them in late 1703. But for some armies, the 'probably' ones above, we don't have a similar 'stop using pikes now' order so we can only take a guess from the clues we have about when they actually stopped.

But most soldiers that fought at the big 4 battles would have been in pike armed units at some point, even if they didn't actually have them at the time of the battles. Malplaquet was only a maximum of 5-6 years after we are sure pikes were present. While at Blenheim we have good evidence that the British units had pikes earlier in the year at the very least. The French army still had pike armed units (they were not at the battle though) at the time of the battle & once again all units had them earlier that year or the year before.

So in short pikes were certainly around well into the war but this leaves the question of whether they were actually used. The simple answer to this is we don't really know as again we just don't have concrete evidence. It might be as has been suggested that pikemen replaced musketeer casualties, that the pikes were left in the baggage or that they were just for ceremonies or something. Although in the case of the Guards ceremonies the pikemen we know about left their pikes in the stores and carried captured enemy flags in the victory parade. That is why we don't know how many pikemen there were, just that 120 or so swapped pikes for captured flags.

The idea that they minimised pike use by replacing them with musketeer where possible or that they just left in the baggage rests on the idea that pikes were 'old fashioned', etc. Equally it is just as likely that musketeers replaced pikeman casualties if you accept that the pikes are not 'old fashioned'. Some at least of the unit commanders are likely to have thought the opposite and so would have maximised pikes if this kind of thing was allowed. Plus there is evidence that the different parts of the unit stayed in proportion - i.e. the number of musicians or grenadiers in a unit was a % of the size of a unit and not just say XX per unit whatever the size of the unit. We have records of veteran units handing in or handing over pikes and receiving an equal number of muskets in return so it seems likely they actual had the pikes.

While the idea of leaving the pikes in the baggage is also possible and we do have evidence of this in other armies. The Danes kept their pikes they received in 1713 in the baggage but this was mainly because the pikes were for use in battles & they didn't fight any after this. The Russians also put their pikes in the baggage or indeed back in the stores at times. They basically used pikes when they were expecting to fight a battle against the main Swedish armies but left them in the baggages/stores when they were fighting the Ottomans or when they were conducting sieges. In both the above cases we have evidence that they ha sufficient spare muskets to do this but we don't for the British. Indeed as mentioned above the evidence we have is that they literally swapped weapons rather than just handing in spare pikes. So when pikes being left in baggage is done we have evidence of 'spare' muskets being issued, but we have no evidence of this for the British. While once again if they could do this they could equally leave all the muskets in the baggage and fight with sword and pike!

There are lots of other things to consider which I don't have time to go in to. The problem is we have no evidence either way but if they did things like this then that just brings extra problems and questions from a historical point of view. It is clear that the old view of this, the one we all commonly have read about in the standard works on the war, are wrong but it is less clear what is 'right'. It is clear that the units had pikes more commonly than we thought. Without evidence that they didn't use them I think you have to assume they did.

[Sandinista]

Cheers Hwiccee, that was very interesting.

Ian

[FierceKitty]

The pike was around in Russian hands way after 1720, though it may not have seen a battlefield.

[Ithoriel]

The Russian opolchenie were still partly pike armed in 1812, though I suspect by then it was merely better than nothing.

[cameronian]

The Irish carried pikes at Vinegar Hill, 1798 I think.

[iain1704]

Hi Hwiccee

Well it was the purpose of the article to provoke debate and I am glad that you have given my work some serious thought ... in response to some of your comments

1. The ratio is based upon the number of Private soldiers per company ... this is on the Blathwayte provision that Officers/NCOs & Musicians are constant (only 2 corporals per company being armed with a snaphance) and the numbers of Private soldiers can be variable - it should be noted that only the number of Pike is specified in the 1692 order and not the number of muskets. Grenadiers (as you correctly point out) did not carry pikes ... although according the Charles Bill, 1/3rd of the Grenadier coy screened the Pike division while the other 2/3rd protected the right and left flanks respectively. If you want to go all inclusive 586 musket armed vs 233 Pike and Pole weapons (excluding musicians/servants and widows men) full establishment of 819 or about 28.5% non musket armed.
The field strength in flanders averaged between 650-750 for line units and the Royals and Guards are recorded in 1704 at almost full strength. Further the Fusilier regiments 7th, 21st & from 1702 the 23rd never carried pikes.

2. This is a misquote - I believe the article quotes Drake directly - but I don't think this is an issue

3. The Guards in Flanders consisted of 11 companies of the 1st Foot Guards (1 Grenadier and 10 line companies) - this would give a full establish Pike strength of 140
It is recorded that of the 1st Guards - 28 Companies (Incl 4 Grenadier Coys) and 2nd Guards - 14 Coys (incl 2 Grenadier coys) - 11 where in Flanders (all 1st) , 10 in Spain (4 - 1st & 6 2nd) and 21 in England (13 - 1st & 8 - 2nd) - so it is probably true that the Pikemen of the Guards stationed in London carried the trophies.

4. Marlborough complaint - I do remember seeing the letter - can't remember the source - I think it comes from either Murray or Snyder - I was hoping someone else remembered it too so I could find it ...

5. 1707 St John Order dated May 1707 - I think you missed the point on that order - its not about ratio - it is about recognition that 12 pikes per coy (a previous order dated 16th March 1707 states 2 pikes per coy are to be exchanged for muskets) - total of 14 per coy prior to 1707 (as per 1692 order) - have been handed in and the troops need powder for their new muskets -  in addition the Guard companies have augmented their establishments by a further 10 men (Not unusual for the guards during time of war) - the order specifically excludes the troops in Spain - not those in Flanders.

6.  The Expenditure comes from Treasury records and is specific to the army in Flanders - subsidy payments are listed separately - Snaphances were expensive for a colonel to purchase especially when he is getting his pikes from the Tower Armouries for free

7. The pictorial comment was based on a previous debate elsewhere - I think the plate you are looking at is the Dumont/Rousset image of Blenheim published in 1732

8. On the Dutch - the sources were provided by Olaf van Nimwegen and are published in Robert Halls and my work on the Dutch with his permission.

One final observation - Steve Ede-Borrett published a similar article on Arquebusier XXXIII/VI on the proportion of Pikes in the British army 1702-6 citing Tower records - this article should be read in conjunction with mine.

Nice to catch up with you again - looking forward to reading your new work on Marlborough's Spanish Ulcer - hopefully you will also kick some articles over to be published in Arquebusier

kindest regards

Iain Stanford

[Techno]

Welcome to the forum, Iain.
Cheers - Phil