History of Sussex - Wars

Wars

During the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1793–1815), a European coalition was formed, that included Britain, with the intention of crushing the newly founded French Republic, so defensive measures were taken in Sussex.

In 1793 at Brighton two batteries were built on the towns east and west cliffs (replacing older installations). The Sussex Yeomanry was founded in 1794, and numbers of gentlemen and yeomanry volunteered to join the part-time cavalry regiment to serve in case of invasion by Bonaparte. Between 1805 and 1808 a series of defensive towers known as Martello towers were erected along the Sussex and Kent coasts, and later on the east coast. The Admiralty commissioned a visual signalling system to allow communications between ships and the shore and from there to the Admiralty in London; Sussex had a total of 16 signalling stations on its coast. A central fort and supply base for the towers, the Eastbourne Redoubt at Eastbourne was constructed between 1804-1810. It is now home to the Royal Sussex Regiment Museum. In the 1860s, possible wars with France prompted more defence building, including the fort at Newhaven.

At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the landowners of the county employed their local leadership roles to recruit volunteers for the nations forces. The owner of Herstmonceux Castle, a Claude Lowther, recruited enough men for three Southdown Battalians who were known as Lowthers Lambs. The Royal Sussex Regiment fielded a total of 23 battalions in the Great War. After the war, St Georges Chapel, in Chichester Cathedral, was restored and furnished as a memorial to the fallen of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Nearly 7,000 of the regiment lost their lives, in the First World War, and their names are recorded on the panels that are attached to the walls of the chapel.

On the Sussex boys are stirring
In the wood-land and the Downs
We are moving in the hamlet
We are rising in the town;
For the call is King and Country
Since the foe has asked for war,
And when danger calls, or duty
We are always to the fore.

With the declaration of the Second World War, on 3 September 1939, Sussex found itself part of the country's frontline with its airfields playing a key role in the Battle of Britain and with its towns being some of the most frequently bombed.

The first line of defence was the coastal crust consisting of pillboxes, machine-gun posts, trenches, rifle posts, anti-tank obstacles plus scaffolding, mines and barbed wire. As the Sussex regiments were serving overseas for large parts of the war, the defence of the county was undertaken by units of the Home Guard with help between 1941 to early 1944 from the First Canadian Army.

During the war every part of Sussex was affected. Army camps of both the tented and also the more permanent variety sprang up everywhere. Sussex played host to many servicemen and women, including the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, the 4th Armoured Brigade, the 30th US Division, the 27th Armoured Brigade and the 15th Scottish Division. Besides airmen and women from the British Commonwealth, fighter squadrons from the Free Belgian, Free French, Free Czechs, Free Polish were regularly based at airfields around Sussex.

During the lead up to the D-Day landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the build up of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbours off the countys coast. Five new airfields were built to provide additional support for the D-Day landings, four near Chichester and one near Billingshurst.

A legacy of the D-Day landings are the sections of Mulberry harbour that lay broken and abandoned on the sea floor 2 miles (3.2 km) off the coast, of Selsey Bill, having missed the invasion.