During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Isle of Wight was one of the strongest defended areas of the world. The close proximity to Portsmouth, home of the Royal Navy, as well as the major port of Southampton, have meant that whoever controlled the Isle of Wight could control the English Channel and prevent the Royal Navy from leaving port.

Early Raids And Invasions

The Isle of Wight's key location has been recognised throughout history. Foreign fleets frequently invaded the Isle of Wight and the waters of the Solent. Duke William of Normandy had intended to capture the Isle of Wight in 1066 before unfavourable winds ensured he landed in Sussex instead. In 1208 King John ordered that the strongest men of Portsmouth, Southampton and surrounding areas gathered in Portsmouth to man the King's Galleys due to the threat of a French Invasion. In 1242, Henry III had assembled a fleet in Portsmouth Harbour to carry reinforcements for his French campaign, yet a French fleet attempted to blockade them. In 1327, a French fleet desguised as English sailors and flying English colours attacked and sacked Portsmouth and Southampton. During the Hundred Years' War, the Island used a complex network of 31 Invasion Beacons to warn of invasion, a threat which was real as Philip VI planned to capture the Isle of Wight and use it as a base from which to attack the mainland.

In 1336, the French Fleet was poised on the other side of the Channel, ready for a full-scale invasion. Although this did not happen, the French ships preyed on English vessels anchored off the Isle of Wight in the Solent, boarding many, scuttling some, and capturing the others. In 1337 the French raided, and all but destroyed, Portsmouth, leaving only a church and the hospital standing. Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight were attacked in March 1338, and, in September, Guernsey was captured. In October 1338, they attacked Southampton, causing Edward III to order the building of its town walls.

In 1330, the French invaded Yarmouth and St. Helens on the Island, but were defeated by Sir Theobald Russell, the King's Warden of the Island, who was mortally wounded in the battle. In 1340, despite Edward III's a spectacular victory against a far larger and superior French fleet at the Battle of Sluys, which gave England control over the Channel, Portsmouth was again raided in 1342, and later in 1370 and 1377.

In 1377, the Island suffered its most devastating raid, with Yarmouth, Francheville and Freshwater destroyed, Newport burnt and Carisbrooke Castle besieged. The Castle's constable, Sir Hugh Tyrell, gallantly defended until a force under Sir John Arundel arrived from the mainland. The Island was again attacked in 1381, when Newport was again burnt by the French. An invasion fleet was assembled in France in 1385-6, though it never sailed. In 1402 a French army of 1,700 men landed and raided several Island villages. The French, under the Compte de St Pol, attacked again in 1403, capturing much of the Island before being counter-attacked by forces from Portsmouth and Southampton. A combined French and Spanish fleet threatened to attack Portsmouth and Southampton in 1419, yet an English victory in Rouen ensured that this fleet never sailed.

Henrician Castles

The first attempt to seriously defend the Isle of Wight from invasion was during the reign of King Henry VIII, when four castles were constructed on the Island. These were Yarmouth Castle, Cowes Castle, East Cowes Castle and Sandown Castle, constructed in the 1530s-40s. These were constructed at the principle landing points on the Island, Henry fearing an invasion attempt by France at the time. This fear was well justified as a full French invasion of the Island took place in 1545, the same battle in which the Mary Rose sank.

These Henrician castles were the start of the end of the castle era in Britain, and the beginning of the era of forts. Despite a newer Sandown Castle and earth forts being constructed during the Napoleonic War, the defence of the Isle of Wight was all but ignored for three hundred years.

Later Threats

The Spanish Armada in 1588 were narrowly prevented from invading the Island on 24-25 July 1588 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. In the Napoleonic Wars it was again feared that France would invade the Isle of Wight, especially after a combined French and Spanish fleet of 66 ships reached the Solent in 1779 intending to either capture the Isle of Wight or land near Gosport, a town next to Portsmouth. Although the attack failed, it resulted in the construction of Fort Monckton at Gosport's Gilkicker Point.

The Forts

The Isle of Wight's coastal forts were arranged in two groups – forts guarding the West Wight, concentrating on the Freshwater peninsula on the far west of the Island, and East Wight forts, defending the five miles of Sandown Bay, a beach perfect for an invading army to land troops on. Also on the East Wight lay three batteries to help support the four sea forts that would defend the eastern entrance to the Solent.

The Isle of Wight Forts From West to East:

The Forts' Aims

The aims of the forts built on the Island were to:

• Protect Portsmouth and Southampton from bombardment by enemy ships.
• Close the passage of the Solent to enemy ships.
• Prevent the use of Spithead and Sandown Bay as anchorages for enemy fleets.
• Defend the Island's main landing places – Sandown Bay, Freshwater Bay and St Helen's.
• To sink enemy ships within range by
• Attacking both armoured and unarmoured parts of the ship
• Attacking the decks with plunging fire ie, from mortars
• Attacking small, fast torpedo boats.

The First Victorian Invasion Panic

From the start of his political career Lord Palmerston, later Prime Minister 1855-1858 and 1859-1865, was determined to ensure that Britain would be better defended. In 1845 stated 'Steam navigation has rendered [the English Channel] which was before impassable by a military force nothing more than a river passable by a steam bridge.' New technology, such as shell artillery, more accurate weapons and ironclad warships led to the fear of invasion.

In 1804 work prematurely began on building a column to celebrate the success of Napoleon's intended invasion of England, an invasion which never actually took place. Work on this ground to a halt after the invasion was called off, however the column was completed with a statue of Napoleon on top in August 1841. Although it was claimed that this column now celebrated the French Grande Armée and Napoleon Bonaparte himself, it was seen by some in Britain as Louis-Philippe stating his intention to invade.

The first panic was caused by the publication of General Sir John Fox Burgoyne, Inspector General of Fortifications, who in November 1846 published Observations on the possible results of a war with France under our present system of military preparation'. This stated that if France was able to control the English Channel long enough to land a large invasion in Britain, Britain's defences were so out of date that the French would likely succeed. This came at a time when King Louis Philippe's son, the Prince de Joinville, had published anti-British articles and was in charge of the French navy and had improved significant increases in funds. Palmerston and the Duke of Wellington both agreed with these findings. However in 1848 Louis Philippe and his son fled from France to England to escape the revolution, and the panic abated.

The Second Victorian Invasion Panic

In 1851, three years after the French Revolution of 1848, Louis Napoleon was re-elected President of the French Republic and in 1852 Louis Napoleon was declared Emperor. This sparked another invasion panic, at which time Palmerston insisted the French were prepared to land 60,000 troops in Britain overnight, despite any evidence to this effect. This panic resulted in three forts being constructed on the Island – Fort Albert, Fort Victoria and Freshwater Redoubt. Shortly after this panic Britain and France allied themselves against the common enemy of Russia, which had invaded the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War (1853-56).

The 1859 Invasion Scare

The third, and most prolonged invasion panic, came to a head in 1859 after a Naval arms race between Britain and France. In 1852 France launched the wooden, two-decker, 90-gun, Le Napoleon, the first steam-powered battleship. Britain's first steam-powered warship, the 91-gun HMS Agamemnon, was launched soon after. Over 100 wooden steam battleships were built, or converted, in Britain and France, in the next ten years (66 by Britain alone), although the introduction of iron soon rendered them obsolete.
While France built more and more Napoleon class vessels, Britain kept re-designing and improving her ships. This resulted in the building of the 101-gun ships HMS Duncan and HMS Gibraltar in 1858, and later the 120-gun HMS Victoria, Britain's last, and the largest wooden warship ever in 1864. In 1857 France constructed a new warship, La Gloire. She had a wooden hull armoured with iron clad plating above the waterline. Britain's wooden navy, her first line of defence, seemed challenged, and outdated. This caused the invasion scare of 1858 - 1859. People were afraid that the French Emperor, Napoleon III¹ was seriously planning to invade Britain. Despite being Britain's ally during the Crimean War, France now had become allied with Russia. It was feared that France and Russia might jointly attack Britain. Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston wrote to the Duke of Somerset in September 1859:

'Now we must remember that we might have to encounter not only the French navy, but the combined navies of France and Russia.'

The British Royal Navy soon built a response to La Gloire - HMS Warrior - the world's first true iron warship. However it was feared that HMS Warrior and her sister ship would not be enough, especially as by 1861 France had fifteen ironclad to Britain's seven. A sailing ship fleet were able to blockade an invasion fleet inside enemy ports indefinitely, but since the introduction of steam power, a Royal Navy fleet could only stay at sea for as long as the supply of coal lasted.

The French arsenal, dockyard and naval base at Cherbourg was considered a direct threat to Britain. The Times wrote on 13 July, 1858, 'Any blow that may be launched from Cherbourg will be short, it will be straight, deadly and decisive, aimed at England's very heart.' Even Prince Albert was affected by this era of paranoia, and had written in 1858.

'When [the fortified port of] Cherbourg is completed England's position will be greatly altered and we must strengthen our forces if we are not to be entirely at [France's] mercy. By the railway an army can be brought there, and transported from that gigantic haven to our coast in four hours!'

Britain responded with a Royal Commission on the Defences of the United Kingdom. In August 1859 the Royal Commission was instructed to 'examine the plans of the works now in progress at Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight and Spithead, Plymouth, Portland, Pembroke, Dover, Chatham and the Medway' and to recommend 'the best means of rendering these... defensible within as short a time as possible, in order to be prepared to any sudden emergency, and how they can be put in he most complete state of defence by permanent fortifications.'

It was this Royal Commission that recommended the construction of most of the forts on the Isle of Wight. Its findings were to state 'we are led to the opinion that neither our fleet, our standing army, nor our volunteer forces, nor even the three combined can be relied on as sufficient in themselves for the security of the Kingdom against foreign invasion'. Fortification of key strategic points, such as the Isle of Wight, was the cheapest way of securing the safety of Britain. Twelve land forts and the four sea forts were constructed as a result of the Royal Commission, in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

The forts would be built with the benefit of experience learnt in the recent Crimean War to ensure that they would be effective against any weapons of the day. The expense of the fortifications, especially those around Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, was phenomenal. The original Royal Commission proposals would have needed 5,000 men to garrison the Isle of Wight forts and batteries. Chancellor Lord Gladstone² threatening to resign due to the costs. Lord Palmerston replied to Queen Victoria that 'it would be better to lose Mr Gladstone than to lose Portsmouth.'

Because of the increased importance of Portsmouth, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight were to become the most heavily fortified place in Europe. Portsmouth would be defended by a ring of forts, both by land, by sea and by the Isle of Wight, to prevent an invading force from capturing the Isle of Wight and besieging the Royal Navy in Portsmouth Harbour. Of the 70 forts and batteries built in England wholly or in part to the Royal Commission, 19 forts were built on the Isle of Wight and four sea forts built in the Solent, the water between the Isle of Wight and Portsea Island³ and the mainland. The Royal Commission proposals would have needed a totsl of 5,000 men to fully garrison the Isle of Wight's forts and batteries.

Later Invasion Scares

By the late 1880s a new type of naval vessel comprised France's navy – the fast torpedo boat. These were fast vessels capable of speeding quickly past the Island's fort defences. In response, new coast batteries were constructed in the late 1880s and early 1890s with new quick firing weapons to combat the threat. More invasion inquiries took place in 1903 and 1907. As a result of these, two more batteries were constructed and many others modernised. Another invasion scare in 1914, before the outbreak of war, checked the preparedness of Britain's defences before they were needed. The last fort constructed on the Isle of Wight, Bouldnor Battery, was built shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Its main purpose was to examine suspect shipping rather than to prevent invasion. The age of the fort had ended, superseded by air attacks.

Although the invasion for which the forts had been built had never come, many had served in important roles in Britain's greatest hour of need. Despite this, the forts have acquired the unkind nickname of 'Palmerston's Follies', after the Prime Minister who ordered their construction and both his folly in feeling they were needed as well as referring to the type of garden decorations known as follies. France, the enemy the forts were built to defend against, was utterly defeated soon after the 1859 invasion scare. France lost the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and then underwent a Civil War in 1871, and so shortly after the forts were built was in no state to be able to invade Britain in any case. However the main aim of the forts were to be a deterrent to prevent an invasion from occurring. As no invasion of Britain took place between 1850-1910, to that extent many have argued that they can be considered successful and achieved their purpose.

The End Of Fortification

In 1956 a review of Britain's defence policy recommended that, in the era of the atomic bomb, Coastal Defence should simply be abolished. The usefulness of the coastal forts had come to an end and the batteries still owned by the War Department were abandoned or sold off. Many were converted into flats or houses, some were owned by the local borough councils to become parks and gardens, while many inadvertently became the property of the National Trust, an organisation dedicated to the preservation of the countryside. As part of their Project Neptune, a plan to purchase and preserve Britain's coast, the National Trust bought much of the Island's coastline, including some of the Island's coastal forts and batteries.

Osborne House - Victoria Fort And Albert Blockhouse

There is one more Victorian fort on the Isle of Wight that is often overlooked, due to its smaller scale and the fact it was never seriously intended to be used to defend the Island. A much ignored part of the grounds of Royal Osborne⁴ is the Victoria Fort and Albert Barracks toy fort. This is a small mock fort, with the Victoria Fort built in 1856, two months after the end of the Crimean War, and the Albert Barracks constructed in 1860 – the time of the main Victorian Invasion Scare. Both of these dates mark events of major importance to Britain's world affairs, and the construction of forts as the playthings of princes is perhaps a profound statement on the generation that would later lead Britain in the Great War.

In the Crimean War Britain and France had defeated Russia, but by 1860 Britain feared invasion from France, the traditional enemy. This fear led to the construction of a new breed of warship begun with HMS Warrior, and a national chain of new fortifications around Britain's most important locations. Forts were not merely follies or ornaments, but were Britain's second line of defence. The play fort at Royal Osborne, though quaint looking and small, was built when its earth ramparts were cutting edge technology, similar to the forts not only on the rest of the Isle of Wight but also used in the Crimean and American Civil Wars.

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