3-046-921 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Autumn Campaign: pioneers to the front, 1872. 'We continue the series of our Illustrations of the [British Army] manoeuvres performed in the open country of Wiltshire by the two divisions of regular troops, militia, and volunteers, each nearly 15,000 strong, under the commands respectively of General Sir Robert Walpole and General Sir John Michel. The former, whose force is styled the Northern Army, or the Army of Defence, had moved from his late head-quarters at Pewsey to encounter the latter, whose Southern Army, representing that of a foreign invader, had marched up from Blandford, so that they joined battle on ground between Warminster and Salisbury, near the village of Codford St. Mary, where the river Wiley, the high road, and the railway afforded a triple line of defence...[View of] the action of the pioneers (88th and 60th) clearing away a hawthorn hedge for the approach of the field artillery. The farmer will be paid for this damage'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.