Imperial fortress
[11] Although the War Office took over from local officials the funding and operational control of auxiliary forces in the British Isles from 1871 onwards, the trend of Imperial defence policy during the course of the 19th century was to remove regular units of the British Army from colonial garrison duty wherever strategic concerns did not require their retention (this included disbanding colonial regular units of the British Army, other than the West India Regiment and the local-service sub-unit of the Royal Artillery that would ultimately be titled the Royal Malta Artillery, though others would later be raised),[12] with local governments expected to organise and fund auxiliary forces for local defence (although these forces would ultimately be controlled by the Imperial government via colonial Governors, most of whom were civilians, acting as military commanders-in-chief).
The imperial fortresses would remain a responsibility of the United Kingdom; but in the case of certain colonies in which local as well as imperial interests seemed to require that naval bases be maintained, the government of the United Kingdom thought that the cost should be shared..Halifax and Bermuda controlled the transatlantic sea lanes between North America and Europe, and were placed to dominate the Atlantic seaboard of the United States (as demonstrated during the American War of 1812,[14][15] when the squadron of the Royal Navy's North America Station maintained a blockade of the Atlantic coast of the United States and launched the Chesapeake Campaign from Bermuda, defeating American forces at Bladensburg, burning Washington, DC, and raiding Alexandria, Virginia, before ultimately being defeated at Baltimore and forced to withdrawn back to Bermuda),[16][17][18][19][20] as well as to control the western Atlantic Ocean from the Arctic to the West Indies.
In 1828,[21] Royal Navy Purser Richard Cotter wrote of Bermuda: The possession of Bermuda, as the key of all our Western Colonies, is of the first importance to England, for if a foe of any maritime strength had possession of it, our trade would be exposed to much annoyance, if not total destruction.Gibraltar controlled passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and Malta, aside from supporting operations in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, served as a base for naval and military forces that would be able to deploy relatively quickly to the Indian and Pacific Oceans once the Suez Canal was completed in 1869.
[24][25] The perception that the only navies that could threaten British control of the sealanes or territory around the globe were all those of countries on the Atlantic or its connected seas had meant Imperial fortresses were only established in this region.
[30] Bermuda, protected by an almost impassable barrier reef and unconnected to any continent, required the least defences, but was heavily garrisoned and armed with coastal artillery batteries.
